At Wednesday, January 4th meeting of Conshohocken’s Borough Council there was a discussion on the status and future of Leeland Mansion, the home of a former tire magnate and eventual borough hall that sits at West 8th and Fayette.

If you haven’t followed the status of the mansion in recent years, a mold issue drove the Borough to move to leased office space in a building at West 1st Avenue and Fayette. The Borough eventually rehabbed the former Verizon Building and moved into that building in 2016.

Gary DeMedio, a commercial real estate broker with a longtime presence in Conshohocken, was asked in 2016 to prepare a report on Leeland Mansion. Borough President Ike Griffin asked DeMedio to attend the meeting last week and speak on the subject.

In a nutshell, DeMedio believes that due to the desirability of Conshohocken, that the Borough is in a strong position. The Borough can establish requirements on how it wants the historic nature of the building maintained and seek a buyer or tenant for a use the Borough believes would be a good addition for the town. Basically what DeMedio said is that there will be a lot of interest and the Borough can be selective.

Last year there was debate about the Borough keeping the building vs. selling it. Based on what was said during the meeting on January 4th, it definitely sounded like the “sell” side won the debate.

One thing that was also mentioned is that the Borough can’t sit on the property for additional years. The building needs work, so the Borough needs to move quickly to determine how it wants to move forward.

More to come.