A convenience store will not locate in Midtown Harrisburg after its application was struck down tonight by the city’s Zoning Hearing Board.
About two dozen neighbors packed into the hearing room to object to an application filed by Mohamed Ahmed Ahrar of Mechanicsburg, who wanted to open a store at the corner of Green and Kelker streets.
“I’m not at all convinced that another place to buy prepackaged food, if you want to call it that, will help our neighborhood in any way,” said Mike Banks, one of numerous area residents and property owners to testify against the plan.
The hearing began when Zoning Hearing Board Chairwoman Marian Frankston asked Ahrar what he expected to sell from the snug, 650-square-foot space. He responded by saying “soda, chips,” with Frankston adding that his application also mentioned cigarette sales.
Ahrar then said little, as Terry Lawson, manager for property owner Michael Goldberg Properties, testified on his behalf. Lawson mentioned that, over more than a century, the property has housed many businesses, including a tea shop, drugstores and several “cut-rate” or convenience stores.
A few nearby residents testified that that the neighborhood breathed a sigh of relief after the most recent tenant, a barbershop, closed last April, saying that it had attracted loitering and alleged drug activity. Banks said he had called the police many times due to possible criminal activity in front of the shop.
“We finally have gotten some sense of safety and quiet after a decade,” he said. “We finally got it. I’m not sure my neighbors want to roll the dice again.”
In denying the application, the zoning board went against the vote of the city’s Planning Commission, which last week recommended approving the application, which sought a special exception from parking requirements and another to allow a convenience store to operate at the site.
About half-a-dozen other residents voiced objections to the application on such grounds as noise, parking and littering concerns. No residents spoke in support of the application.
Lawson said that the store would add to, not subtract from, the renaissance of the area, which sits at the border of the Engleton and Olde Uptown neighborhoods in Midtown. He added that the convenience store was the best use for the property compared to other applications his company had received, including for a skate shop and a tattoo parlor.
“We’re not being out of line with what we want to put there,” he said. “We’re being in line.”
Nonetheless, several residents said they feared a repeat of the disruption caused both by the barbershop and by a former convenience store long located at the corner of Green and Muench streets. Others said the neighborhood already has several other convenience stores within blocks of the site.
“I personally do not think it’s needed in the area,” said David Alexander of Kelker Street.
This is the second proposed convenience store in Midtown shot down recently by the zoning board. Several months ago, the board denied a store proposed for the corner of N. 3rd and Hamilton streets following similar objections by neighbors.
