Construction of the Bella Italia Restaurant in Sanatoga, as it appeared May 22
SANATOGA PA – Future customers awaiting their first bites of pizza or pasta from the Bella Italia Restaurant now under construction at 2209 E. High St. in Sanatoga, just west of the vacant former Rite-Aid Pharmacy building, may wait considerably longer than expected, the Lower Pottsgrove Township Board of Commissioners learned Monday (June 4, 2012).
Township officials are in the process of obtaining a legal order that will force the building’s contractor to stop work on its roof, and potentially other portions of the structure too, Manager Rodney Hawthorne reported. Director of Codes Keith A. Place has declared the roof could be unsafe, Hawthorne said.
Chad Camburn, representing Bursich Associates, the township engineering firm, was more blunt: much of the project, he told the board, “is a nightmare.”
A Bursich report distributed to commissioners, Camburn said, describes how the general contractor is in danger of losing its second excavator at the site “for financial reasons;” how workers proceeded on portions of the project although they lacked necessary permits; how a safety fence that was ordered to be erected around the property has not yet been put up; and, most recently, how inspections found interior supporting columns were improperly installed.
The last item coincides with the stop-work order, Hawthorne noted. The integrity of beams supporting the roof is threatened because the columns and their footers were not built on acceptable soil, Camburn explained.
Board members, having read the report only days earlier, were surprised. “There’s some real bad things going on out there,” Commissioner Stephen Klotz said. He and board Vice President Bruce Foltz, both of whom are experienced in the constuction trades, wondered aloud if the building would have to be condemned. Hawthorne suggested such speculation was premature.
“We’ll have them stop work, and we’ll ask all our questions, and they won’t start work again until we get them all answered,” Hawthorne said. Contractors would be fined and penalized if they ignored the legal order, he added. Both a registered geo-technical engineer and a structural engineer, employed by the contractor, would be required to certify and oversee remedies to the building’s problems, according to Camburn.
Camburn blamed builders involved, and not project owner Cilluffo Property Holdings LLC of Blue Bell PA, for mishandling the issues. “It’s a relatively small project, but they haven’t got the experience and so it hasn’t been moving well,” he added. No Cilluffo representative attended the meeting.
But Camburn closed the discussion on a hopeful note. The property’s storm water management system is in place, he said, “and it’s working just fine.”
Related:
- Township Seeks Stop-Work Order On Restaurant Project
- Commissioners OK Restaurant Liquor License Transfer
- Township Opens, Delays Firm’s Liquor License Hearing
- Grading Permit OK’d For Sanatoga Restaurant Parcel
- Italian Restaurant Construction Could Start Within Weeks
- One Down, One To Go For Township Italian Restaurant
- Watch Your Speedometer! Sanatoga Street Slows 5 Mph
- Commissioners OK Italian Restaurant’s Plans, Without Alley
- It Could Be Awhile Before Sanatoga Pizza Oven Fires Up
- Alley To Sunnyside Ave. ‘Elephant’ In Restaurant Plans
- Restaurant, Doctors’ Office Return To Planning Board
- Owners Ask For Restaurant Variance Extensions
- Planners Hear More About Proposed Pizza Restaurant
- Pizzeria Owner Has History Of Restaurant Development
- Restaurant, Ringing Projects Win Conditional Uses
- Ringing Rocks, Restaurant Hearing Topics Tonight
- Pizzeria Planned Next To Sanatoga Rite-Aid
Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ June 4 meeting):
- Township Seeks Stop-Work Order On Restaurant Project
- Sanatoga’s Sunday Summer Concerts Kick Off June 24
- Something Struck Her As Odd, And She Told Police
This is why we don’t get any new industry or building in this township! The board makes it so hard for any new building or industry. Keep running business away and we will be a slum like Pottstown!! Also this is what the building company gets when they hire people who are barely citizens or illegals!
Lori, I’m hard-pressed to understand your logic.
Certainly, we want more business and industry in the township. Do we want it at the expense of incurring potential injuries among customers, workers or others in buildings that are deemed structurally problematic? I doubt it. The township has as much a duty to protect its citizens from harm as it does to bring in commerce that could lower their taxes.
And maybe you know something I do not (always possible), but I have neither heard or seen anything to indicate “people who are barely citizens or illegals” are at work on this project. If you have proof of anything in this regard, I suggest you step forward with it and notify the appropriate authorities. If not, I suggest you keep your prejudices to yourself.
Joe Zlomek, Managing Editor
Wow I was about to lean towards Lori’s way of thinking until i read the last line.
I do agree that the township doesn’t always apply the same rules in the same manner. Based on previous issues with getting this project going the builder/project owners rubbed township folks the wrong way. I would not be as dismisses as the editor was on the possibility that the township is not business friendly.
However, I must distance myself greatly from the offensive remarks at the end of the post; that is a deplorable method of thought.
Let’s see … The empty drug store shell is a bit large, but I’ll bet that it would make a dandy restaurant. Or even across the street … All these empty buildings with no prospects should be telling people something.
Having a safe building is necessary when serving the public, especially for seating restaurants. Would hate to see the building collapse in a storm while you’re eating an Italian meal.
I’d like to understand why the blueprints didn’t show these issues before they started construction, and why our building and codes people aren’t on the scene to real time inspect and advise.
Ed, as I understand it, the problems have been created because the contractor allegedly failed to “follow the blueprints,” as you put it, or in other ways did not adhere to standard practices of the trade. And, as it was explained during the commissioners meeting by those involved, the codes inspector cannot be on-site 24-7-365. Some of this work was done on Sundays, the board was told.