Permits have been issued for the construction of a three-story, 104,100-square-foot self-storage facility at 4890 Summerdale Avenue in Lawncrest, Northeast Philadelphia. The development will rise on a large site situated just to the north of Roosevelt Boulevard and just to the east of the Northeast Tower Center shopping mall. The building will be fully sprinkled. Permits list Truman Gee as the design professional, Swinerton Builders as the contractor, and a construction cost of $6 million.
The permit is one of the first to be issued for new construction in Philadelphia in 2022, coming during a slowdown following an end-of-year permit issue frenzy when developers raced to secure permits before the expiration of the full ten-year tax abatement program.
The multi-acre lot is largely vacant, partially occupied by a large warehouse-style structure. A MapQuest listing specifies Jimmys Tree & Landscape Contractors as situated at the location. A still-posted listing by Corporate Partners & Co., Inc. specifies the site as for sale for $5 million.
4890 Summerdale Avenue. Credit: Corporate Realty Partners & Co., Inc.
4890 Summerdale Avenue. Credit: Corporate Realty Partners & Co., Inc.
The development site is situated in the southwest section of Near Northeast Philadelphia, reasonably proximate to the dense, mass-transit-oriented Upper North Philadelphia communities of Olney and Fern Rock. However, despite a relatively high residential density, Lawncrest has a distinctive suburban, sprawled-out, auto-oriented flair similar to numerous other Northeast Philly communities, notably those along major thoroughfares such as Roosevelt Boulevard.
4890 Summerdale Avenue. Credit: Google
The site at 4890 Summerdale Avenue sits between a residential enclave to the south, a playground with baseball fields to the east, the aforementioned shopping mall to the west (notable to drivers on Roosevelt Boulevard via the prominent “Home Depot” lettering painted onto a tall prewar chimney), and vacant commercial-industrial lots to the north.
Given these surroundings, a self-storage facility seems oddly appropriate, where it would act as a transitional element between the residential community and the adjacent mall and vacant land. And while we generally see high-rise construction as the proper design solution to many urban needs, we are glad that the building is planned to rise only three stories tall, as a larger, hulking self-storage facility would have overwhelmed the surrounding community.
4890 Summerdale Avenue. Looking north. Credit: Google
While the development is appropriate for the site’s current conditions, we hope that one day the city constructs the subway line that was once proposed for Roosevelt Boulevard, allowing the surrounding area to transform from a middling urban-suburban area into a walkable, transit-accessible community.
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The city won’t construct the subway line as cost will be 5-7 billion dollars and the subway station built in 1967 underneath the parking garage next to Sears & Roebuck built in 1954 was torn down along with 2M in storage space gone when the buildings were imploded in 1994 for the power center in use today.
In May 2020 a proposal for storage space went to CDR and never got to construction at the same location. Now somebody sent a proposal for the construction of self storage units and it went through CDR. Now they got permits for a self storage facility and the lot along with permits are put up for sale at 5M. The next owner will either build self storage or spend money getting the zoning changed to allow large storage warehouses to be built close to Roosevelt Blvd.
Navair Philadelphia is not too far away. Were they to relocate to other States in a future BRAC, this 100 acre lot would easily be converted by right to storage facilities with ease to the Boulevard.