MOUNT POCONO – A car wash is finally coming to Mount Pocono!

That’s the information given to the Mount Pocono Planning Commission at its February 17 meeting when Kevin Derick, owner of the Sparkle Car Wash chain and inventor of the patented technology used at his operations, presented a sketch plan to the commission. Similar to the very popular Sparkle in Stroudsburg, the Mount Pocono store is destined for the Hirschland development being constructed across from Lowe’s. Sparkle will be joining WaWa and Taco Bell in the multi-building retail center over ten years in the making.

The single-conveyor wash will have 23 vacuum spaces, 21 queuing spaces, and
8 parking spaces, as well as a small retail space within the car wash facility. Situate on the sites “Lot B” retail plot, the eastern portion of the lot will also have about 13,000 square feet of retail space. No tenant is currently signed up for the retail portion of that lot. No action was sought or taken. The presentation was informational and intended to suss out any potential issues. The developer will now proceed with securing the necessary sewer EDUs and other permitting requirements for the proposal. No firm timeline for the opening of the car wash was discussed at the meeting.

Also at the meeting were representatives of Clarius Partners LLC who are proposing to construct a warehouse on the old gold course property. The location is on the north side of 940, east of the Walmart, and south of the recently constructed 750,000 square foot warehouse on Market Way, which has a tenant in waiting and is expected to be occupied by October this year.

The structure, proposed to be built on speculation that one or more tenants will be found, is to be nearly 1.2 million square feet, with the potential to generate several thousand trips per day in and out of the facility.

In prior presentations, council member Fran O’Boyle pushed the developers to include a connector road along the northern edge of the property, which, if completed, would provide an alternative feeder road from route 611 north of the Five Points intersection, to the retail stretch along 940, running to Industrial Park Road using already secured right of ways on the norther edge of the Walmart property. The developers have agreed in principle to the concept, but it will require cooperation among a number of land owners and PennDOT, not to mention Coolbaugh Township, to accomplish the long-sought alternative access road.

The developers were at the meeting to secure commission recommendation of the proposed warehouse use, which is a designated “conditional use” under current zoning. Before starting the discussion, the solicitor needed to explain to the commission members what “conditional use” meant due to their general lack of familiarity with zoning terms. (A conditional use is one permitted by the zoning ordinance but subject to certain special or ah hoc requirements depending on the precise lot configuration and location.) The commissioners granted the request.

In other business, the commissioners moved Mount Pocono mayor Michael Christopher Penn into the chairperson’s seat occupied for three decades by Kevin Kirkwood, who just retired from public service. Council person Patty Bucco, who also sits on the commission and who, like Penn and new commission member Nancy Folger, recently moved to the borough, was named vice-chair.

The planning commission meets the third Wednesday of each month at 7 pm. They do not follow recommended COVID meeting procedures and meet in person, although this meeting was partially online because Bucco revealed she had been exposed to COVID.