Thursday, November 28, 2019

Giant 30-acre Development Planned for Philly Waterfront

A vacant 30-acre site on the Delaware River will soon be getting nearly 1,100 new homes, including apartments and row houses.

The development spans a plot of land between the waterfront and Beach Street in Old Richmond, just below Graffiti Pier. 

The project is designed by ISA Architects and Hickok Cole.

The overall development which is billed as a “hybrid community,” will include four seven-story apartment buildings on the eastern side of the site with 850 units, ranging from one to two-bedrooms. 

The apartment buildings will also include 744 parking spots, a community center with an outdoor plaza, and a community pavilion.

A road separates the apartment buildings from the complex of 248 row houses on the riverfront side of the land, ranging from three to five bedrooms with roof decks and parking for two cars.

As part of the Delaware River Waterfront Cooperation’s master plan, the project includes green space between the buildings, a pedestrian connection to trails on the water’s edge, and an access point to a public park.


The overall design echoes the row homes built in adjacent Fishtown and Old Richmond.

It’s the largest project to tap the northern banks of the Delaware River for residential development.

Further south, multiple projects like the Views at Penn Treaty, a luxury development with 19 townhouses, and Pier 35 1/2, a 41-townhouse development will soon be moving forward as well. 

Thursday, November 21, 2019

47-story Luxury Tower Planned at Broad and Spruce St

In the heart of the city, new 47-story skyscraper with luxury condominiums and amenities is set to go up at the corner of Broad and Spruce Streets, overlooking the Kimmel Center. 

The tower, named Arthaus, is being developed by Carl Dranoff, who had previously planned to construct a 45-story SLS International Hotel & Residences on the site. 

The hotel plan was downsized last year, and then scrapped entirely, in favor of the new, solely residential, Arthaus building.

The $275 million tower will include 108 condominiums ranging from 1,600 to nearly 5,500 square feet, along with 151 parking spaces.

The building’s luxury amenities will include a 75-foot pool, a dining salon which will feature celebrity chefs doing demonstrations, and a sky garden with a greenhouse.

The Arthaus name is inspired by the Bauhaus—an architecture movement founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 that helped shape modern design and architecture for decades to come.

About the Arthaus design, “excess was replaced by beauty that will also meet the needs and desires of real people.” 

They point to the tiered facade of the primarily glass building, which is aesthetically pleasing and which, “gives every unit its own corner, with two full exterior walls of breathtaking views.”

Carl Dranoff said it was the goal of his team and architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox to bring a vertical tower that would be a sort of landmark for the Avenue of the Arts. 

The upper levels look like steps going to the sky, while the lower levels feature brick and clay tiles that relate to the Kimmel Center across the Street.

The condominium units, which start at two bedrooms, feature floor-to-ceiling glass, terraces, kitchens with marble backsplashes and a marble waterfall countertop. 
The largest unit stretches over two stories with four bedrooms, five baths, a private elevator, and a massive terrace. 

The bottom floors will have four units a piece, with that number decreasing as you move up the building. 

The units will cost around $1,200 to $1,500 per square foot, with the largest unit costing as much as $8.2 million and the smallest as low as $1.9 million. 

When factoring in the location, the luxury nature of the units, and the amenities, it’s a bargain compared to similar New York condos, the developer says.


The tower is a far cry from the earlier plans for the site, which has been empty for years but once held Philadelphia International Records. 

It wasn’t until late last year that Dranoff announced he was scrapping the hotel portion of the project entirely, after only receiving $1.4 million of the $19 million he needed from a Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant to complete the hotel portion. 

This time the money they did secure from RACP grants, amounting to about $2.4 million, will go toward a restaurant on the first floor of the building.




The Arthaus tower is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2021.

Thursday, November 14, 2019

New 30-Story Tower to Rise on North Broad St

The latest project in the wave of new development along North Broad Street is 30-story mixed-use tower named “Mural West,” a 30-story apartment building slated to rise on a parking lot at 523 North Broad Street.

The tower will have 290 residential units on the upper floors with ground-floor retail space. 

Also included on the lot is a separate, one-story restaurant and 24 on-site parking spaces.

Mural West sits just next to Meg Saligman’s popular 1999 mural “Common Threads,” which provides inspiration for the new development. 

A diagonal open space called “common ground” runs between the tower and the restaurant, directly below the mural.

The development plan preserves the mural, while the park enhances the viewer experience by providing a quiet respite from the urban neighborhood with trees, seating, and information about the mural and its creation.

The building is designed by AOS Architects and will be developed by EBRM, the group behind the Divine Lorraine Hotel.

The project is the latest in a recent boom of development along North Broad Street. 

In 2017 the Divine Lorraine Hotel was restored, followed by the Met Philly in 2018. The Nest,  new development geared toward Temple University students opened last year, while another new, 14-story project behind the Divine Lorraine recently broke ground. 


Thursday, November 7, 2019

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.