South Londonderry Township approves request to demolish historic building

South Londonderry Township's board of supervisors voted during Tuesday night's meeting to grant conditional use for the owners of the Rising Sun Bar and Kitchen to tear down roughly two-thirds of a pre-Civil War building adjacent to the restaurant.

The board voted 2-0 with Chairwoman Faith Bucks recusing herself from the vote following a resident’s claim that Alan Funck, partial owner and president of Horseshoe Enterprises LLC who requested the petition for conditional use, had donated funds to her political campaign.

Jane Popko, a resident who commented during the end of the hearing, claimed that Funck had donated $2,500 to Bucks' campaign for 98th district house seat in May 2022.

Bucks said that she did not believe it was an ethical violation in any form but recused herself anyway for transparency.

The fate of the property had been a concern throughout the Campbelltown community in recent months as many residents came to meetings claiming that tearing down the building was destroying a part of the area’s history.

The limestone building was built in the 1840s and was used as tradesman housing for a blacksmith and carriage shop across the street, according to previous reporting. Later, a brick addition was built onto the site, which was used as a dry goods store.

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Under the developer’s plan, the oldest portion of the building will be demolished and used as a parking lot while the remaining third will be converted as additional seating and bar space for the restaurant.

Part of the limestone façade from the original building, four to five feet in height, will remain as a buffer between the parking lot and the street.

During the conditional use hearing that preceded the vote, Funck’s attorney, Paul Bametzrieder, made the case to the board as to why Funck should be able to tear down the building using testimony from landscape architect Randy Wright, contractor on the project Dennis Krieder, and Funck himself as well as written letters from Beers and Hoffman Architecture and structural engineering firm Zug and Associates.

The bulk of all the testimony boiled down to the idea that the building in its current condition, the result of years of neglect and damage from water, insects and age, would take a considerable amount of work and funds to bring it to a point that it would comply with commercial or residential standards.

The letter from Beers and Hoffman concluded that aside from the stone, there are no remaining elements of the building that capture its original character, and that for commercial use much of the interior of the building would have to be replaced.

The letter from Zug and Associates, who reviewed the property, stated that the stone walls are the only part of the building that is sound.

It also said that restoring the building would involve removing and replacing the first-floor framing, replacing the entire basement slab, building new bearing walls, jacking and leveling the existing second-floor framing, adding new stud bearing walls and reinforcing the entire attic floor.

Kreider estimated that the cost to just restructure the building would range between $160,000 to $180,000.

Several residents, both for and against the demolition, spoke during the end of the hearing.

Peter Gluszko, whose architectural firm is down the road from the property, submitted himself as a party in the hearing in order to submit exhibits.

Gluszko claimed that the proposed parking lot was overly designed compared to the occupant load for the restaurant that would create more heat and drainage issues than necessary.

Carol Hickey, an architect from Mt. Gretna, commented at the end of the meeting and proposed that the developer could have removed just a portion of the building, at the expense of a few parking spaces, to save the rest.

J.V. Bennett made a statement both on the behalf of the South Londonderry Township Area Historical Society, and another from himself.

Bennett, who was on the steering committee that designed the ordinance, said that decisions were made then to juggle retaining the area's historical features with not having something too restrictive or burdensome on property owners.

Instead, he said, they opted for a process where a conversation could be had early enough for the historical commission and community members to suggest alternatives to demolitions and change of use requests with the final decision being made by the supervisors.

"The end result might not have be any different than where we are today," he said, "that might have been the outcome of a longer process of looking at it. But we might have identified something else that could have been done with that structure that wouldn't have been overly burdensome on the applicant ...

"... It's unfortunate from my perspective that that process hasn't worked. That it wasn't engaged early enough and unfortunately from my perspective I think that's caused unnecessary ill will in the community, unnecessary concern and confusion. I just think it could have been done better, and I hope that in the future we do."

Daniel Larlham Jr. is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at DLarlham@LDNews.com or on Twitter @djlarlham

This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: South Londonderry Township approves historic building demolition