Politics & Government
King George Inn Could Be Torn Down for a Bank
The owners of the King George Inn said he had been steadily losing business and had difficulty selling the building.
The developer who wants to demolish the 257-year-old King George Inn and replace it with a commercial development told officials Wednesday night his plan will improve flooding, traffic and other problems at the the corner of Cedar Crest and Hamilton boulevards.
Developer Atul Patel, of HMB Management, presented his plans to buy the historic building at the South Whitehall Township Zoning Hearing Board meeting. Patel would tear the building down and replace it with a 4,020-square-foot bank.
Patel's plan also calls for a 100-room motel and a drug store or restaurant on adjacent lots he bought last year where a former Burger King and Carvel Ice Cream store stand.
"What we're going to have when we're finished with this is going to be much better than what you have there today," Harold Newton, the plan's engineer told the board.
The plan was designed with improved setbacks, right-of-ways, turning lanes, storm drainage, sidewalks and landscaping, he said.
McDermott, 84, said he had depleted his life insurance money and other assets and could not find a buyer until Patel.
McDermott and Patel, whose company Hotel Hamilton LLC is developing the site, appeared at the board meeting to ask for variances on the township's ordinances on building height, right-of-ways and parking lot setbacks. After three hours of testimony, the board decided to continue the meeting on Aug. 28.
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The proposed development originally called for an extended-stay hotel, but Patel and his attorney William Malkames changed it to a motel during the meeting after the board's solicitor Maria Mullane said hotels and extended-stay motels are not permitted in a highway commercial zone.
Storm water management is a major problem at the site, Newton said. McDermott said his restaurant routinely flooded and suffered severe damage at times. Flooding has been so bad at the intersection that a boy drowned when he was swept into a storm drain on the property more than 20 years ago.Newton said the property's two 36-inch storm pipes and swale are not adequate to handle the more than 600 cubic feet of water it gets in a bad storm. He said the intersection of Cedar Crest and Hamilton boulevards becomes flooded from storm water that starts further west at Lehigh Valley Health Network and picks up as it moves east.
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