Permits Issued for 4159 Westminster Avenue in Belmont, West Philadelphia

Permits have been issued for the construction of a three-story, three-unit apartment building at 4159 Westminster Avenue in Belmont, West Philadelphia. The project will rise from a vacant lot sited on the north side of the block between Holly Street and North 42nd streets. The structure will span 2,615 square feet and feature a basement a 618-square-foot roof deck, the latter accessible to the third-floor unit only. Permits list JPL Construction as the contractor and indicate a construction cost of $310,000, of which $40,000 will be allocated toward excavation.

The structure will measure 15 feet wide and will be set back 12 and a half feet from the sidewalk, matching the street wall of the adjacent rowhouses. Although the setback is laudable, the lack of a contextual covered front porch to match its neighbors is unfortunate.

The structure will extend 58 feet long, leaving space for a ten-foot-deep, 145-square-foot rear yard. A 13-by-four-foot courtyard will feature an exit to the rear yard. The building will rise 36 feet high to the main roof, 39 feet to the top of the parapet, and 46 feet to the top of the pilot houses.

Although the facade depicted in documents submitted to the city is quite plain, extensive use of brick will provide a reasonable contextual nod to the building’s prewar neighbors.

4159 Westminster Avenue is situated just to the south of the Keystone Corridor rail track, quite distant from booming University City to the south. As such, the 4100 block of Westminster Avenue has remained untouched by the building boom to this day, with 4159 Westminster Avenue being the first new structure on the block in decades. However, its arrival is a positive sign of things to come, as the block, hit rather hard by depopulation and demolitions in the postwar period, currently features ample land ready for development.

Route 38, 40, and 43 buses run within a several-block radius of the property. Both the route 10 trolley on Lancaster Avenue to the southwest and the route 15 trolley on Girard Avenue to the north may be reached within a five-minute walk. Fairmount Park is situated within a ten-minute walk to the north.

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