LEBANON — The city Planning Board worked past its normal time of adjournment on Monday to grant approval to a proposed 196-unit apartment complex at the former Kleen laundry facility on Mechanic Street.
In a public hearing that ran over three hours, the Planning Board unanimously voted to approve a plan to construct a multi-phased residential complex at the site of the Woolen Mill building, which housed the Kleen laundry business until 2019.
A partnership of developers, all of whom are Dartmouth College alumni, plan to turn the former industrial and commercial site into a residential complex composed of four apartment buildings, three of which would be new construction, a two-story standalone parking garage, a landscaped pedestrian plaza and a riverwalk along the Mascoma River.
The plan will also renovate the existing three-story Woolen Mill building to create 49 dwelling units and convert two adjacent buildings, including a boiler room and the former Kleen dry cleaner store, into common areas and amenities for tenants, such as a fitness room.
“I think this looks like a very nice project you are doing,” Vice Chairman Matthew Hall told members of the project team. “It’s bringing a lot of life to a currently lifeless piece of land in downtown Lebanon.”
The board’s approval came sooner than members had originally projected. Monday’s hearing was a continuation from an Oct. 10 meeting, when the board asked the applicant, developer Jon Livadas, of Delaware-based LWM Residential, for additional information about the proposed project following a two-hour presentation and public discussion.
In addition to requests for further details about the project’s stormwater management plan and fiscal impact on the city, board members had concerns about the traffic safety, particularly at Foundry Street, one of three access point to the property.
Foundry Street empties onto Route 4 at a sharp bend, less than 200 feet from the awkward intersections of Mechanic, Mascoma and High streets. A traffic study conducted by engineer Erica Wygonik, of WCG, a Boston-based consulting firm, found a pattern of collisions at convergence of the three streets in her study, with 10 collisions reported between 2017 and 2022.
Though Wygonik’s study found that the residential project would have little impact on traffic, board members were concerned that Wygonik’s study assumed that a long-awaited roundabout project by the New Hampshire Department of Transportation will remain on schedule for completion in fall 2025.
“The roundabout may not be built,” Hall noted. “I would just like to have some expert opinion on if it isn’t.”
On Monday, Wygonik said that even without the roundabout, the traffic impact will not be a significant concern, as the projected volume of traffic from the complex is expected to be “quite small.”
“Vehicles are going to route in different ways through the network, whether or not there is a roundabout or if right or left turns are allowed out of Foundry Street,” Wygonik said. “That (factor) may change where people will go, but it is still a small number of trips.”
Wygonik recommends that traffic leaving Foundry Street onto Route 4 should be right-turn only due to a lack of adequate sight distance for vehicles approaching the intersection, unless the roundabout project is completed. This sentiment was shared by city officials, though the board did not make it conditional to the project’s approval since there would be no way to enforce compliance.
As conditions for the project’s approval, the applicants must receive city approval of its stormwater management plan, comply with city fire codes and create a plan in coordination with Advance Transit, the public bus service, to provide accessibility to a bus stop within the vicinity of the residential complex.
Livadas, along with some board members, felt this condition could create a strain on the developers, whose certificate of occupancy would depend on the cooperation of a third party.
“(Advance Transit) is a party that we have had no contact with; that could hold up our certificate of occupancy for something that is outside our control and is not on our property,” Livadas said.
A majority of board members, and city officials, noted that the city has already made this a condition for the approval of four other housing projects.
“It gives an opportunity to make sure that we have safe and efficient access to bus transit in this key location of downtown Lebanon,” said Senior Planner Tim Corwin, who said that the developers could seek an appeal from the Planning Board if unable to satisfy the condition.
The Planning Board originally anticipated needing a meeting in November to approve the final application and had expected to use the Monday meeting primarily to resolve remaining requests and concerns about the proposal. The developers had also submitted a number of additional requests for conditional-use approvals and waivers, including an extension of the city’s maximum height allowance for a residential building from 55 feet to 65 feet.
The board, which approved all the additional requests, had to take a vote at 9:30 p.m., their scheduled time to adjourn, to extend their meeting by an additional 15 minutes. The motion passed unanimously, accompanied by a few groans of fatigue.
Patrick Adrian may be reached at (603)727-3216 or at padrian@vnews.com.
CLARIFICATION: Lebanon code permits a maximum building height of 65 feet for new construction in the downtown zone if the project meets certain conditions.
Developers of 196-unit apartment complex on Mechanic Street were seeking approval to apply that height allowance to one of their buildings. An earlier version of this story was unclear on the type of approval developers sought.