Permits Issued for 166-Unit Building at 1201 West Girard Avenue in Yorktown, North Philadelphia

Permits have been issued for the construction of a four-story, 166-unit multi-family building at 1201 West Girard Avenue in Yorktown, North Philadelphia. Designed by Landmark Architectural Design LLC, the 118,298-square-foot structure will reintroduce significant residential presence to a site formerly occupied by a suburban-style pharmacy, helping restore the area to its vibrant prewar density level. Permits list OCF Construction LLC as the contractor and a construction cost of $17.2 million.

1201 West Girard Avenue. Credit: Landmark Architectural Design LLC

The development will span an entire city block, which is situated between West Girard Avenue to the south, Flora Street to the north, North 12th Street to the east, and North 13th Street to the west. The L-shaped structure will create a continuous street wall along Girard Avenue and North 12th Street. The street wall’s urban-minded, pedestrian-friendly presence will be further enhanced by the building’s traditionally styled design, although a lack of ground-level retail and a parking lot along Flora Street will be somewhat detrimental to the streetscape’s potential vibrancy.

1201 West Girard Avenue. Credit: Landmark Architectural Design LLC

1201 West Girard Avenue. Credit: Landmark Architectural Design LLC

1201 West Girard Avenue. Credit: Landmark Architectural Design LLC

1201 West Girard Avenue. Credit: Landmark Architectural Design LLC

1201 West Girard Avenue. Credit: Landmark Architectural Design LLC

1201 West Girard Avenue. Credit: Landmark Architectural Design LLC

According to a Civic Design Review submission, the building’s residential offerings will consist entirely of one-bedroom units ranging from 547 to 730 square feet in size. Apartment layouts are somewhat compromised by most bedrooms being located within the unit’s interior, with windows opening into the living rooms and kitchens rather than directly outside. However, the blame with this inconvenient layout does not lie with the designer.

Instead, the problem stems from the city’s illogical zoning laws, which, ostensibly in the name of “proper urban planning,” severely restrict building heights (the project at hand maxes out its height allotment), forcing developers to build squat “landscrapers” with deep units and limited interior sunlight. Without these detrimental limits, the builders would have been able to arrange the same volume of residential space in a taller, slimmer structure that would allow for shallower floor plates that offer direct sunlight to every room.

1201 West Girard Avenue. Credit: Landmark Architectural Design LLC

1201 West Girard Avenue. Credit: Landmark Architectural Design LLC

The project’s exclusively one-bedroom composition may also stem from its location within a ten-minute walk to Temple University to the north and a 20-minute walk (or a five-minute subway ride) to Center City to the south. Both the university and the business district are likely to appeal to students and young professionals, who do not tend to have large families and tend to sacrifice residential space in favor of commute convenience and surrounding urban amenities.

While the younger demographic may find it acceptable to reside in compact quarters, there is no reason why they must be relegated to deep, sun-starved units. As stated above, the arrangement stems almost entirely from city ordinances that forbid developers from employing flexible design arrangements, forcing them to build squat buildings with deep floor plates and interior bedrooms (a similar concern may be observed at 741 Spring Garden Street). We encourage city residents to contact their local representatives and ask them to address these unduly restrictive height limits that hurt the quality of the city’s housing stock.

Building height diagram. Credit: A Country of Cities by Vishaan Chakrabarti, p.22

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