SEPTA issued a “Request for Information” on October 19th that asks developers to answer a series of questions regarding the potential to redevelop 6.5 acres SEPTA owns at 101 Washington Street along the Schuylkill River in Conshohocken. The site was originally intended to solely for a parking garage, but now it is seeking a parking garage with apartments.
It is important to note that SEPTA stressed that it is merely in the information collection stage and this is not a process to select a developer to work with. However, once this review is completed SEPTA “intends to solicit and then award a contract for the101 Washington Street, Conshohocken, Transit Oriented Development Opportunity.”
Over the summer, SEPTA’s board decided against moving forward with just a parking garage and transit advocates pushed for the site to be redeveloped at least partially with residences. SEPTA contacted the Borough of Conshohocken about this and the idea was at first strongly rejected. Borough Council President Colleen Leonard spoke during the following meeting of SEPTA’s board and demanded the parking garage be constructed and claimed the borough would not consider any residential uses for the property. Conshohocken’s borough council had removed residential uses from the zoning districts that comprise the riverfront in 2022 citing the increase in population and public safety. According to SEPTA, the borough’s positioned softened and there was to be memorandum of understanding crafted. However, that has never been discussed publicly by Conshohocken’s borough council and hasn’t been mentioned during a SEPTA board meeting since.
From the SEPTA “Request for Information”:
SEPTA is seeking a Request for Information (“RFI”) related to transit‐oriented development
opportunities on approximately 6.5 acres located along the Schuylkill River at 101 Washington
Street in Conshohocken Borough. The site is adjacent to SEPTA’s recently modernized
Conshohocken Regional Rail Station. The original purpose of the site was to support the ADA
improvements to the new regional rail station, and to construct an approximately five hundred
parking stalls across structured and flat‐lot parking facilities.
As part of this RFI, SEPTA would like to explore a development opportunity that includes the
construction of a similar number of parking spaces for transit riders, as originally intended, as well
as multifamily apartments (the “Project”) that would utilize a portion of the parking.
Today, we will seek comment from members of Conshohocken’s borough council as to what type of deal, if any, it has made with SEPTA regarding apartments.
You can read the “Request for Information” documents here.
More to come.