Construction is underway at a five-story, 38-unit mixed-use development at 1600 North Front Street in Fishtown, Kensington, next to the elevated Market-Frankford Street Line. Designed by KJO Architecture, the building will feature retail at the ground floor, which will contribute to the commercial corridor along the street.
The 27th place in Philadelphia YIMBY’s First Anniversary Countdown, which aggregates the 31 most frequently listed article categories over the course of the past year, goes to Norris Square. The North Philadelphia neighborhood featured in at least 29 articles during the period. Unlike most neighborhoods that have been featured in the Countdown so far, such as Washington Square West, Francisville, Rittenhouse Square, and Brewerytown, Norris Square does not boast many headline-making marquee projects with flashy renderings. Instead, the district earned its rank through our coverage of its numerous smaller-scale, low- and mid-rise residential proposals, which is the kind of low-key development that comprises much of the city’s ongoing revival. Today we look at some of the most outstanding projects on the drawing boards within the district.
Philadelphia is famous for its astounding collection of outdoor murals, which count in the thousands. Philly YIMBY does intentionally seek them out as subjects of articles (unless, at some point in the future, we hear an announcement of a particularly notable mural planned somewhere in the city). However, given the pervasive presence of outdoor wall art all around the city, especially near sites with vacant lots, it inevitably makes its way into our content in one way or another. Some murals are located near planned development. Of these, some are in danger of being entirely obscured or torn down. Others are planned to be painted on freshly proposed buildings. In either case, when the opportunity arises, we try to track these murals. Over the past, we have made 29 such tags, earning the category the 29th place (the numbering is coincidental) on Philly YIMBY’s First Anniversary Countdown. Today we look at a few standout examples.
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.
Permits have been issued for the construction of a four-story, seven-unit multi-family building at 4021 Haverford Avenue in Haverford North, West Philadelphia. The development will replace a three-story rowhouse located on the north side of the block between North 40th Street and North Preston Street. The new building will span a ground footprint of 2,413 square feet and will offer 10,134 square feet of interior space, which translates into generously-sized apartments measuring well over 1,000 square feet each. The structure will also feature a basement and full sprinkling. Permits list Mustafa Sencan as the owner and American Reliable Tasks Contracting as the contractor. Construction costs are specified at $1,257,000.
