South Philly Shopping Plaza to Become Housing Project

A shopping plaza at 1600 Carpenter Street in South Philly will be razed to make way for a new 44-unit housing development. 

The new housing project will be taking the place of a Vietnamese grocery store.

The project calls for 44 total homes, including 22 attached single-family homes, five two-family homes, and two six-family apartment buildings.

Led by local development group, Streamline, the project will take up 35,300 square feet of space at the corner of 16th and Carpenter. That lot stretches halfway down 16th toward Washington Avenue and is currently home to the Hoa Binh shopping plaza, which has been there for 30 years.

The project will include 48-foot-high single- and multi-family buildings divided in rows that sit parallel to Carpenter Street.

The first two rows of buildings, which are separated by a driveway, will have three-bedroom, single-family townhouses. 

A small courtyard with outdoor seating separates the single family homes from the third row of buildings, which features two-family structures, flanked on either side by six-family buildings.

Plans include 13,000 square feet of open area and 22 parking spots along the driveway off 16th Street. The exteriors will mix fiber cement siding and metal with synthetic wood garage doors.

The project is the latest in several major developments in the neighborhood, the most notable is Lincoln Square, which wrapped up last year with multi-family housing, shops, and a Sprouts grocery store at a previously vacant lot on Broad and Washington Avenue.

Also in the works are plans for the redevelopment of the former Frankford Chocolate Factory into a housing development, while another project plans to bring homes and retail to the 22 and Washington.

Dock Street Brewing Company has recently announced plans to construct a new brewery at 2118 Washington Avenue.