1541 South Bambrey Street

Urban development is a delicate balancing act, and sometimes we must say goodbye to cherished local destinations in order to make way for a plan that is ultimately more beneficial to the community and to the city at large. One of such trade-offs is slated to occur at 7619 Germantown Avenue in Mount Airy, Northwest Philadelphia, where the Trolley Car Diner is set to meet the wrecking ball, to be replaced by a six-story, mixed-use residential development designed by Morrissey Design. Although the charming chrome, neon, mural, and freestanding trolley of the diner will be missed, the proposal at hand makes for more effective use of the site, bringing significant residential density within a two0-block walk of the Mount Airy Station of the SEPTA Regional Rail and replacing the auto-centric restaurant with pedestrian-friendly retail.

A recent Civic Design Review submission has revealed a set of new renderings for a 12-story, approximately half-million-square-foot mixed-use building proposed at 3201 Cuthbert Street (alternately 3200 Arch Street) at the Drexel University campus in University City, West Philadelphia. The 252-foot-tall structure (measuring from Cuthbert Street) will house 423,450 square feet of office and life sciences laboratory space, 12,365 square feet of retail on the lower two floors, 141 parking spaces spanning 56,802 square feet, and 12,887 square feet of accessory areas. The project team consists of Drexel University as the owner, Gattuso Development Partners (GDP) as the developer, and Robert A.M. Stern Architects (aka RAMSA) and Kendall Heaton Associates as the architects; the team also includes the firms Thornton Tomasetti, Burohappold Engineering, James Corner Field Operations, Perroni, and West 8.