Construction Progressing at 1300 Fairmount Avenue in Poplar, North Philadelphia

Broad Street, the city’s primary north-south thoroughfare, is seeing an influx of development proposals, particularly on the stretch between Center City and Temple University in lower North Philadelphia. At 1300 Fairmount Avenue, just off Broad Street and near the iconic Divine Lorraine Hotel, RAL Development is currently constructing a 185-foot-tall, 14-story mixed-use building totaling 625,000 square feet. The structure will contain a 58,700-square-foot Aldi supermarket, a 12,000-square-foot preschool, and 487 apartments. Cope Linder Architects is the designer.

The structure consists of an L-shaped tower that sits atop a three- to four-story podium clad in beige, gray, and copper-colored panels. The tower features a beige exterior with large windows and a glass-clad bay at one end. At the corner on the upper floors, a projecting bay cantilevers outward.

Excavation began at the end of September 2018 and the foundation was complete by the end of June 2019. The steel superstructure for the tower and prefabricated concrete panels for the garage followed. Cladding began to go up at the start of this year, and the structure was topped out in July. At the moment, curtain wall installation is nearly complete.

1300 Fairmount Avenue sits a block away from the Fairmount station of the Broad Street SEPTA line, near the confluence of Broad Street, Fairmount Avenue, and diagonal Ridge Avenue. The historic Divine Lorraine Hotel has dominated the small triangular square since 1893, and its long abandonment served an harbinger of the neighborhood’s decline. Similarly, its 2016 reopening as an apartment building was a sign of the area’s revival, which continues with the construction of 1300 Fairmount Avenue.

The building is scheduled to be completed near the end of the year.

Subscribe to YIMBY’s daily e-mail

Follow YIMBYgram for real-time photo updates
Like YIMBY on Facebook
Follow YIMBY’s Twitter for the latest in YIMBYnews