North Philadelphia

Current view of The Maven. Credit: Khosla Properties.

Philly YIMBY’s First Anniversary Countdown Looks at Entry Number 30: Francisville

In 1682, William Penn’s surveyor general Thomas Holme laid out a rectangular street plan for the new planned city of Philadelphia. Today, the area covered by the original plan comprises Center City, yet its grid continued to extend in all directions until it either hit a natural boundary, or was shelved in the postwar period when gridded city plans fell out of favor. As such, most of the city’s central neighborhoods follow the rectilinear plan, with a few notable exceptions. One among these is Francisville, a neighborhood situated west of Broad Street in Lower North Philadelphia. Here, a small yet clearly noticeable group of streets run at a roughly 45-degree angle to the main grid, as they follow Ridge Avenue and predate the grid’s extent this far north. The neighborhood fell on hard times in the postwar period, yet today it is awash in new construction as low- and mid-rise buildings are rising in every direction. The construction boom translated to 28 category tags over the course of the past year, landing Francisville at the 30th place on Philly YIMBY’s First Anniversary Countdown, where we track article categories we tagged most frequently over the course of the past year. Today we visit the most notable developments that we have covered in the neighborhood during this period.

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The new Philadelphia skyline. Photo by Thomas Koloski

Philly YIMBY Launches Its First Anniversary Countdown by Looking at Rittenhouse Square and Brewerytown

A year ago, the start of August marked the launch of Philadelphia YIMBY. We were excited to extend New York YIMBY’s years-long legacy of covering architecture, construction, and development to the City of Brotherly Love. Since that time, our staff has shared over 1,000 articles, covering a wide variety of topics that were cataloged into more than 1,800 categories. In celebration of Philly YIMBY’s first anniversary, we look at our most frequently tagged categories in a month-long series of articles that will run as a countdown that starts with the 31th most-popular category and will run until it hits number one. Today we begin our countdown by looking at Rittenhouse Square and Brewerytown, the two categories tied for the 31st place.

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2204 North Marshall Street. Looking northwest. Credit: Google Maps

Permits Issued for Three-Unit Building at 2204 North Marshall Street in North Philadelphia East

Permits have been issued for the construction of a three-story, three-unit multi-family building at 2204 North Marshall Street in North Philadelphia East near Temple University. The structure will span a ground footprint of 1,500 square feet and will contain 3,388 square feet of interior space, which translates to an average of 1,128 square feet per apartment. The development will feature full sprinkling, a basement, and a roof deck, which will offer open skyline vistas due to a lack of significant nearby obstructions. Permits list Church Inc. Pleasantview Baptist [sic] as the owner, Christopher Menna as the design professional, and JPL Construction Inc. as the contractor. General construction costs are listed at $180,000.

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2108 and 2110 North Marshall Street. Looking northwest. Credit: Google Maps

Permits Issued for Two Multi-Family Buildings at 2108 and 2110 North Marshall Street in North Philadelphia East

Permits have been issued for the construction of a pair of multi-family buildings at 2108 and 2110 North Marshall Street in North Philadelphia East near Temple University. Each building will rise three stories and will contain three residential units, with a total of six new apartments. Each will span a ground footprint of 954 square feet and will contain 2,862 square feet of interior space, translating to an average of 954 square feet per apartment. Both buildings will feature full sprinkling and roof decks, which promise to provide sweeping skyline views due to a lack of significant nearby obstructions. The permits are the latest in a series of recent development announcements for the North Central Philadelphia district that was hit particularly hard by depopulation and demolitions in the postwar period.

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