A recent submission to the Philadelphia City Planning Commission’s Civic Design Review committee shows extensive information for University Place 5.0, a five-and-a-half-tier, 495-car parking garage proposed for construction at 17 North 41st Street in West Powelton, West-Philadelphia. The structure will rise as part of a greater University Place complex, which has been under development over the course of the past several years. Developed by the University Place Associates and designed by ISA (Interface Studio Architects), with IMEG as the architect of record, the proposed building will span 165,950 square feet. According to the developer, the facility will both support the existing University Place campus as well as provide general public parking as well as neighborhood amenities that include a dog park and a community garden.
University Place 5.0 Parking Garage at 17 North 41st Street. Site map. Credit ISA via the Civic Design Review
University Place 5.0 Parking Garage at 17 North 41st Street. Site plan. Credit ISA via the Civic Design Review
University Place 5.0 Parking Garage at 17 North 41st Street. Project rendering. Credit ISA via the Civic Design Review
University Place 5.0 Parking Garage at 17 North 41st Street. Project rendering. Credit ISA via the Civic Design Review
The garage at University Place 5.0 will rise at the northwest edge of the greater University City neighborhood, with the T1 trolley passing next to the property and two blocks to the northwest of the 40th Street Station on the Market-Frankford subway line. The route 40 bus also runs in the vicinity.
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Officially named 5.0 University Place, the garage will be located at 17 N. 41st St. and replace a surface parking lot. The project’s purpose is to provide dedicated parking for the city’s new police forensic laboratory, which is moving into the neighboring 3.0 University Place.
According to project plans, 29 spaces on the garage’s ground floor will be reserved for the lab with a separate secured entrance. Another 100 spots will be reserved for city employees, and the remainder of the garage will serve as paid public parking for nearby office and life sciences buildings.
This 495 stall multistory concrete auto parking garage is a travesty of urbanism.
First of all, 3.0 University Place already has 108 underground parking spaces.
Second, the new structure will physically and psychologically overwhelm the residents of the adjacent two story row-houses on Filbert St. and the three story’s on Powelton Ave. Imagine being in your backyard facing a five story solid concrete wall with a pink, green, and yellow mural plastered with random geometric shapes and eyeballs staring back at you and your burgers grilling on the barbecue.
City and Regional Planning assistant professor Xiaoxia Dong at Penn’s Weitzman School of Design has noted several issues, including “impact on the local community,” “air pollution in the surrounding area,” and “visual impact on the existing neighborhood”.
Where’s the bicycle parking?
5th Square is a Philadelphia-based urbanist political action committee. Brennan Maragh, co-chair of the organization’s Housing Committee, commented that… parking garages… “are not sustainable. They bring a lot of cars into a neighborhood, they don’t generate positive consequences like people riding public transit, … and they further encourage things like car use and air pollution”..
Maragh goes on to explain that the necessity for a parking garage is diminished by the fact that West Philadelphia is “one of the more transit-rich areas of the city. There’s the trolley network, there’s plenty of busses, things like that [including the Market-Frankford Line],” Maragh said. “And it’s also near a college campus, where obviously a lot of folks… don’t own cars and take transit around every day.”
5th Square’s Housing Committee co-chair Natasha Tabachnikoff highlighted that there “really is still a lot of parking vacancy in University City already.” Tabachinikoff cited a 2023 city study, which found that garages in West Powelton — where the project site is located — were only 58.3% occupied. “We just don’t think this is necessary,” she said. “We’d like to see some more emphasis on transit and pedestrian and bike connections.”
I say that any additional University Place parking needs should be placed underground or in a podium under office and lab space in a future building. The proposed free-standing garage as designed is an affront to the neighborhood, to West Philadelphia, and to the City itself.