Parking Garage

The Radnor Township Planning Commission has rejected Villanova University's request for a zoning change that would allow a major expansion of the Lancaster Avenue campus with new dormitories, a parking garage, a performing arts center, and stores. The $200 million plan has upset residents, who say it would transform a quiet neighborhood into a noisy extension of the 10,600-student Wildcat campus. The university was seeking a conditional use to allow denser development than allowed, Planning Commission Chairwoman Julia Hurle said.

Quarry Office Park Associates has proposed a separate parking structure in conjunction with a three-story 82,000-square-foot office building at the Westlakes Office Park in Tredyffrin Township. The Township Planning Commission heard revised landscaping plans for the two-level parking garage, which would include rooftop parking, at its meeting Thursday night. Dave Hinson, project architect, showed detailed plans of additional landscaping proposed for the open-air parking deck.

The Jenkintown Chamber of Commerce has proposed building a five-level parking garage to help solve the town's perennial parking problem in its central shopping district. The plan for the parking garage, which would cost $2 million to build, was presented to the Borough Council's Administration and Finance Committee Tuesday night. The proposed site is a parking lot at Cottman Street and West Avenue, several hundred feet east of Old York Road. The Chamber of Commerce presentation was intended as informational.

Hundreds of people who drive to Center City to work will have to find a new place to park next week. Citing what they described as dangerous conditions, officials yesterday closed the bottom three floors of the four-floor parking garage beneath John F. Kennedy Plaza. "We ordered that the bottom levels be closed because we determined that a dangerous condition exists there," said Licenses & Inspections Commissioner Don Kligerman. Kligerman said L&I first uncovered violations at the basement garage in 1988.

What was supposed to be a pleasant weekly outing to the casinos ended abruptly yesterday when a car carrying two older women smashed through the wall of a high-rise parking garage in Wynnefield Heights, plunged three stories and landed on its roof. The driver, Freda Evans, 77, was in fair condition today at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where she is being treated for a head injury and a fractured arm. Her passenger, Frances Finkelstein, 88, was admitted to Osteopathic Medical Center, where she was in critical condition this morning.

The city last night declared a busy underground parking garage at 15th and Arch streets unsafe and ordered three of the facility's four levels shut down immediately. Don Kligerman, Commissioner of Licenses and Inspections, said city inspectors found serious deterioration of concrete on the bottom three levels of the garage. The deterioration, called spalling, is causing the concrete ceilings to chip and break, exposing the steel reinforcing rods, according to building code violation notices filed against Parkway Corp.

Lomas Brown thought he had seen it all in his 19 seasons in the NFL. That is, until lightning and heavy rain yesterday forced the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to practice in a parking garage. "I have never done that before. It was definitely the first time," the offensive tackle said. "I've practiced in a gym, inside the [training] facility and even an auditorium, but never before in a parking lot. " Rather than cancel the 2-hour workout, coach Jon Gruden moved practice to the third level of a parking garage at an office building adjacent to One Buccaneer Place.

Dr. Richard Evans, a wealthy, ambitious dentist described as "a major force in the development of the northwest section of Center City," thinks the residents of that area are downright unreasonable, his attorney says. They demanded that he provide parking for an executive-office complex he built at 22nd and Arch streets, but when he devised a plan to erect a 50-car garage next door, they rejected it. He redesigned the plans to address what he thought were their concerns, but they didn't like that either.

Trying to solve the parking dilemma here, a Borough Council committee recommended on Tuesday that a study be completed for a $3.8 million multilevel garage near the Chester County Courthouse. Two low-bidding engineering firms will be interviewed next week. The selected company will then study the borough's South High Street parking lot behind the Farmers and Mechanics Building to determine the cost and suitability of a garage. Preliminary designs call for a five-story ramp with about 300 parking spaces.

The Radnor Township Planning Commission has rejected Villanova University's request for a zoning change that would allow a major expansion of the Lancaster Avenue campus with new dormitories, a parking garage, a performing arts center, and stores. The $200 million plan has upset residents, who say it would transform a quiet neighborhood into a noisy extension of the 10,600-student Wildcat campus. The university was seeking a conditional use to allow denser development than allowed, Planning Commission Chairwoman Julia Hurle said.

Delaware County police are looking for a man who robbed a woman just after midnight on Wednesday as she was leaving Harrah's Casino in Chester. The 69-year-old victim, from Delaware, was in the fourth floor of the parking garage when she was attacked from behind, according to police. She was taken to Crozer Chester Medical Center, treated for bruises and a minor head injury and released, according to police. The man, described as black, approximately 6 foot 2 and 250 pounds, ran down the stairs to the main floor of the garage and out onto Harrah's Boulevard.

PARKING LOTS can seem like a zoo. That's why the Philadelphia Zoo last week unveiled its new four-story parking garage and transportation center at 35th Street and Girard Avenue. The 683-space garage, complemented by improved traffic flow and streetscape, replaces the zoo's "Zebra" surface parking lot. "This is more than a garage," said zoo president and CEO Vik Dewan. Traffic and parking has been challenging for "more than two decades," he said, noting that the zoo sees an estimated 1.2 million visitors annually.

HILLSBOROUGH, N.J. - A missing College of New Jersey senior whose purse was found on a walkway of the George Washington Bridge had been feeling a lot of stress, said her father, who worried her disappearance may have had something to do with her birthday. Paige Aiello, whose 22d birthday was Thursday, was reported missing two days earlier by her family in Hillsborough after she apparently took her mother's car without permission, authorities said. That night, a passerby reported finding her purse, cellphone, and car keys on the south walkway of the bridge.

SugarHouse Casino has submitted a revised expansion plan to the state Gaming Control Board calling for a shorter parking garage, more food and beverage outlets facing the riverfront, an expanded promenade, and a new bike trail. The city's only casino said in a filing last week that the expansion would cost more than $540 million. The investors behind the project are seeking $410 million in financing to fund construction and refinance part of their existing debt. The gaming board plans to hold a hearing on the revised plan in May, said Doug Harbach, a spokesman.

Plans show zoo's going places As a Fairmount Park Conservancy board member, I was pleased to read about the Philadelphia Zoo's new parking garage and traffic improvements ("Zoo wants a SEPTA stop," April 2). Given that the zoo has experienced record attendance during the past four years, it is commendable to see the organization realize its impact and plan for its future and that of the community. It is also tremendous that the zoo is exploring the long-term possibility of a train station in this much-needed area of West Philadelphia.

The architects at Erdy McHenry have produced some of Philadelphia's most imaginative and stylish new buildings, from the Schmidt's complex in Northern Liberties to the swirling dormitory tower on Drexel University's campus. They're increasingly in demand outside the city, too, and just completed a stunning modern dairy barn for Cornell University's veterinary school. In short, they're not the kind of architects who need to scrounge for small-change commissions like the parking garage they just completed on Arch Street, across from the Convention Center.

The 18-inch-high, polished bronze letters spelling "Melvin R. Primas Jr. Camden City Hall" gleamed as throngs of elected officials and community leaders gathered last month for the official renaming of the building for the late mayor. Just over two weeks before that, a different Camden edifice just blocks away, the waterfront garage, was named after another former city political figure - Theodore Hinson, the late executive director of the Parking Authority and chairman of the city Democratic Committee.

A female student fatally shot herself Tuesday evening in a Temple University parking garage, university police said. The apparent suicide occurred on the fourth floor of the parking garage opposite the rear of the Liacouras Center on North 15th Street, police said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the student's family and friends," the university said in an e-mail to students and employees. - Robert Moran