36 apartments planned for North College Avenue

On Tuesday night, members of the planning commission voted in favor of a four-story apartment complex planned for North College Avenue that will replace the existing commercial structure currently on the site.

Jeff Lang, owner of Lang Development Group, presented the project, called North College Crossing, which is slated for 60 N. College Ave., currently the home of Del Sol Restaurant, Unique Impressions and Endless Summer Salon and Tan.

Lang asked the commission to recommend council approve the rezoning of the 1.07-acre property next to the CSX railroad line from the current BC (general business) to BB (central business district), grant a special-use permit and allow his company to demolish the existing building and replace it with a four-story mixed-use building that has 5,500 square feet of commercial space and parking on the first floor and 36 two and three-bedroom apartments on the three floors above.

The plan also calls for a parking lot next to the building, for a total of 97 parking spaces.

As the University of Delaware continues to invest in its Laird Campus, Lang said, the area of North College Avenue has become an increasingly popular corridor for student traffic.

We thought if there was ever a logical place to do a mixed-use project, this is really just screaming for some form of nice, orderly redevelopment, he said.

Lang said the three businesses that currently call 60 N. College Ave. home, Unique Impressions, Endless Summer Salon and Tan and Del Sol, will all have a place in the new space once its completed a few years from now.

Part of our plan is to move our businesses out and move them back into the facility in some form, be it not exactly the same form, he said.

Lang said Del Sol, which currently occupies the basement of the existing building, will move into the first floor restaurant space with a patio fronting North College Avenue once construction is complete.

He said Unique Impressions will move its printing facility and production area offsite, with the possibility of maintaining a small retail space in the new building. Endless Summer Salon may also move back in, Lang said.

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36 apartments planned for North College Avenue