Luxury living headed for Conshohocken

It may lack Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, and New York City elan, but Conshohocken is about to get a Manhattan staple: a doorman.

Next to the scene of the devastating fire that destroyed 189 apartment units on the Schuylkill waterfront in August, work is progressing on what developer J. Brian O'Neill says will be the region's "most luxurious" apartment complex.

Although luxurious and Conshohocken have rarely appeared in the same sentence in the town's 159-year history, O'Neill promises that when the building opens by the end of the year, it will have all the candy - from a $5,000-a-month furnished unit to granite countertops to that front-door attendant.

"No kidding! Along the riverfront, in Conshohocken?" asked an incredulous Vivian Angelucci, who lives in one of the old-style houses that rise above the phalanx of waterfront structures across the SEPTA tracks. (Think of South Philly overlooking something like the Convention Center complex.)

In her 62 years, Angelucci, a longtime member of the borough's planning board, has watched Conshohocken go from an industrial powerhouse to a distressed town to one of the nation's most successful small-town revival stories. She has seen just about everything in Conshohocken - except a doorman.

"This is definitely going to be a first," she said.

Next door, the project's progress has raised questions among residents of the Riverwalk at Millennium apartment complex. A spark from a welder's torch at the site of the O'Neill building was blamed for the fire that ended up erasing two Riverwalk buildings.

They wonder why the O'Neill building is so far ahead of the Riverwalk reconstruction. "That's the problem a lot of us had," said tenant Larry Eisman, an attorney. The borough says it's all about post-fire complications and permitting.

Litigation against O'Neill and the companies performing the work is pending in Montgomery County Court.

O'Neill, who sold Riverwalk in 2006, has said the blaze set back his construction schedule for the new building by about six months. Originally, he had planned to call it the Stables at Millennium. He said recently, however, that he had decided to rename it the Londonbury and to ramp it up.

It will have four stories and more than 300 units. Rents will be as high as $2,500 for the unfurnished ones and from $1,850 to $5,000 for the furnished, with short-term leases available.

"Our goal is to get the only five-star designation in the country for an apartment complex," O'Neill said. "We thought we had to overcompensate for the tragedy of the fire."

He said the new building would have numerous sprinklers and a concrete, fire-resistant skin. O'Neill's building did not require new permitting, said John McGrath, the borough fire marshal.

McGrath said the Riverwalk circumstances were more complicated. First, insurance matters delayed demolition.

Then, since the original buildings were built under old codes, the new ones had to comply with a fresh set of codes.

O'Neill's units will be a tad pricier than those at Riverwalk. The one-bedrooms there are renting for $1,155 a month, which includes a free month's rent that Riverwalk is offering as an incentive to new tenants.

Plans are under way to replace all 189 units in the two buildings destroyed by the spectacular Aug. 13 inferno. The damaged buildings have been demolished, the debris cleared, a couple of Home Depots' worth of plywood delivered to the site.

Jacqueline Meere, spokeswoman for Riverwalk's current owner, JPMorgan Asset Management, said the rebuilding should be completed in the fall of 2010. She declined to comment on details of fire-safety measures, saying only that they would be unveiled in "due course."

About 130 of the 186 units in the two surviving buildings are occupied, and as many as 25 of the former tenants have expressed interest in returning to the complex, said Lauren McDonald, spokeswoman for Bozzuto Group, which manages the property.

Most of the former tenants, however, already have settled elsewhere, said Karisa Nelson, an on-site manager. She was working the day of the fire, when she and Dan Kelly ran door-to-door, evacuating tenants from the 400 units and then comforting the newly homeless.

"There's a whole other group of people who feel traumatized and don't want to return," said former resident Elise Gaul, a psychotherapist who has since moved into a rental house in an older Conshohocken neighborhood. "You never forget this kind of loss."

As it turned out, her new neighborhood would be more to her liking. She had grown up in Berwyn and never felt quite connected to Riverwalk. She perceived a cultural chasm between the riverfront and the across-the-tracks part of Conshohocken and did not anticipate spending the rest of her life at Riverwalk. "I think a lot of us thought of it as temporary," she said.

She and tenant Tony DeFazio raised $18,000 from Conshohocken-area businesses and residents to distribute to the fire victims; they recently mailed modest checks to the 155 who requested a share. Residents said they were moved by the town's generosity.

DeFazio, who runs a public-relations business, is among those who have decided to stay at Riverwalk.

"I've made a commitment to Conshohocken," he said. "The convenience factor is tremendous. As far as the complex itself is concerned, it's just a nicely designed community."

O'Neill is confident that the location of his new building, which is almost within walking distance of the expressway and the Blue Route, will attract a doorman-appreciating clientele.

"There's no disputing the fact that it's a solid location," said Spencer Yablon, Philadelphia regional manager of the real estate investment firm Marcus & Millichap.

He said that given the economy, the new building could have a rough go of it the next two or three years, but that O'Neill was not known for timidity. "He's a risk-taker," Yablon said. "In the long term, I'm sure it will play nicely."

"I'll say this for him," Angelucci said. "He's unique. He pushes and shoves as hard as he can to get things rolling."

Two weeks ago, she said, O'Neill's attorney came before the zoning board to ask permission to put up signs visible from the expressway.

O'Neill says he is confident that Conshohocken is ripe for a luxury rental building.

Said O'Neill: "I would tell you Conshohocken has been ready for it for a long time."