>4080 Olive 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.

Philly YIMBY’s recent site visit has observed that demolition work has still not begun at the site of a 191-unit mixed-use complex planned at 1600 Carpenter Street in Graduate Hospital, South Philadelphia. Designed by Harman Deutsch Ohler Architecture and developed by Streamline, the complex will replace a suburban-style shopping mall with a stately, traditionally-styled six-story building facing Washington Avenue, which will offer 23,185 square feet of ground-level retail and 131 rental apartments, ranging from studios to two-bedrooms, many of which will rank as affordable housing. To the north, 60 multi-family townhouses will be situated, which will match the scale and the material palette of the surrounding area. The development will boast publicly accessible pedestrian promenades and landscaping, as well as 141 parking spaces, of which 119 will be located in an underground garage in the apartment building, and 22 more will be situated in the townhouses.