The 374-foot-tall, 31-story One Dock Street is underway in the Society Hill neighborhood in Center City, near the Delaware River. Designed by Bower Lewis Thower Architects and developed by LCOR Incorporated, the tower will feature 272 residential units. One Dock Street will add new mass to the far east side of the city skyline as it will join the Society Hill Towers by I.M. Pei.
One Dock Street from the Walt Whitman Bridge. Photo by Thomas Koloski
Back in 1681, a small dining establishment called the Blue Anchor Tavern was prefabricated in England and built in 1682 for William Penn’s landing in October on the current site of One Dock Street. Nearly 340 years later, site work had started on the site, which was a small plot of land with vegetation. In June 2021 permits were green lit for the construction, and in August equipment was arriving on site. Excavation was quickly underway, as by September a pit was had already formed in the ground, with much activity evident at the site.
One Dock Street and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge from the Walt Whitman Bridge. Photo by Thomas Koloski
By now, a tower crane has been erected on the site for the construction of the tower. The crane can be seen from multiple angles to the east, including from the Walt Whitman Bridge and the Camden waterfront. On the ground, foundation work is well underway as the structure is nearly ready to rise above ground. The columns and core are being fabricated as the structures can be seen forming along with rebar protruding. The tower may rise above the neighboring building to the north by the end of spring.
One Dock Street. Photo by Thomas Koloski
One Dock Street tower crane (left) from Cooper’s Poynt Park. Photo by Thomas Koloski
No projected completion date has been announced, though construction may be finished by 2024.
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A highrise of this extent creates a terrible precedent in this uber historical part of the City. -Jim
Making every neighborhood the same is the idea of boring tasteless izombies who have no urban experience who think their cool. History will not be kind to these people whose only concern is building tall on every lot to trick their mind into believing they live in New York. Their insipid beliefs leave no room for architecture that’s good or serves a purpose. Their group m**********n has blinded them and you have to look no further than this blog and place like skyscraper page.com to witness this circle***k.
[Edited by the moderator for language. We welcome discussion, contentious as it may be, and are more or less OK with mildly coarse language, and we’d rather not delete posts when it can be helped, but come on, let’s keep things PG here]
I hear I.M. Pei turn in his grave……..
Lol at these people ^ It’s a terrible precedent to build a tower next to…three other towers? Being rich doesn’t exempt your neighborhood from development.
The people living in those towers are not rich. They are some of the lowest prices in the entire area.
Lol the NIMBYs here are wild. This is right next to three ugly brutalist towers and a collection of 70s-era lowrises. It’s a good project, but they’re acting like it’s a tower between two colonial homes on Delancey.
LoL at the urban newbies who point to marginal architecture to justify something far worse.
Good place to go is Poynt Park for a great view of the city
This is a start, but we need much more density on this side of the city. Hoping that the DRWC project is a success and that they end up capping more of 95.
Lots of discussion on propriety for the location here. On one hand, I strongly support the integrity of the historical sections of Old City and Society Hill. Then again, we’ve got to keep in mind that this building rises in a corner of Society Hill oddly removed from historic buildings. The nearest prewar building is situated nearly 500 feet and over a block away from the site, and the site is fronted by existing high-rise buildings on three sides (which will shield the tower from view from many angles).
Situated next to the I-95, One Dock Street is almost more of a Penn’s Landing development, even though it will rise on the west side of the highway. IMO we should severely restrict new construction in this neighborhood, which is one of the nation’s oldest, yet if we were to build a high-rise anywhere in Society Hill without imposing upon nearby historic buildings, it is hard to find a better location than here.
“…keep in mind that this building rises in a corner of Society Hill oddly removed from historic buildings.”
Precisely because the historic buildings have been torn down…-Jim
Which is a darn shame, to put it mildly. I, and most of us I’m sure, would be aghast if those historic buildings were still standing at the site and were slated for demolition. However, the reality of the situation is that, at this moment, there is not a single prewar building left within a 450-foot-plus radius of One Dock Street. The most historic element near the site is the cobblestone-paved, curved Dock Street, but the new tower with its relatively small footprint will not change the character of the street any more than it was already altered with the surrounding postwar construction – the Society Hill Towers, the sprawling Marriott hotel, etc.
In addition, there is a cluster of three similarly-sized towers literally across the street that will block the new building from view from much of Society Hill to the west, while a pair of high-rise buildings to the north will block its sightlines from many vantage points in Old City. No, the new tower will not be invisible, but it will hardly be an overwhelming game-changer for the historic blocks a block-plus away.
Precisely. we need to work with what’s been given to us. This tower in this location is a net positive. It is an absolute shame what this city has demolished to build interstate highways and off ramps, Southern northern liberties, the convention center expansion, old dock street, Independence mall, the customs house, market street East, etc. I could go on and on. Prior generations carelessly tore this city apart. Going forward, we need to add density to this city and get away from the car centric decisions that shaped many of the bad decisions of the last 100 years.
Haha this is the crane that broke earlier this month dropping parts from 200 ft up onto two workers and putting them in the hospital.
Imagine that
its probably a native American burial ground.