Urban planning analysis

4251 Sansom Street. Looking northwest. Credit: Google Maps

Permits Issued for Four-Unit Building at 4251 Sansom Street in Spruce Hill, West Philadelphia

7:00 am on September 9, 2021 By Vitali Ogorodnikov

Permits have been issued for the construction of a three-story, four-unit multi-family building at 4251 Sansom Street in Spruce Hill, West Philadelphia. The structure will replace an ornate two-story prewar rowhouse located on the north side of the block between South 42nd and South 43rd streets. The new building will rise from a 1,780-square-foot footprint, will contain 5,613 square feet of interior space, translating to a spacious 1,403 square feet per apartment, and will feature full sprinkling. Permits list Charnelle Hicks as the owner, Kevin Korejko as the design professional, and Northeast Builders LLC as the contractor.

1130 North Delaware Avenue. Credit: Varenhorst Architects

Fishtown Takes the 20th Place on Philly YIMBY’s First Anniversary Countdown

7:00 am on September 2, 2021 By Vitali Ogorodnikov

Philadelphia YIMBY’s month-long First Anniversary Countdown, which looks at the most frequently mentioned article categories over the course of the past year, makes it past the one-third-of-the-way mark as it finds the neighborhood of Fishtown at the 20th place, with a total of 40 category tags. It is hardly surprising to see this well-known, long-running development hotspot among last year’s top 20 most frequently mentioned categories. If anything, it is impressive that the increasingly built-out neighborhood is still churning out new development at such a consistent rate even after more than twenty years of steady growth.

The view from The Laurel Rittenhouse looking west toward Center City West and University City. Photo by Thomas Koloski

Center City West Lands at the 21st Place on Philly YIMBY’s First Anniversary Countdown

7:30 am on August 29, 2021 By Vitali Ogorodnikov

Yesterday, Philadelphia YIMBY’s First Anniversary Countdown, which looks at the most frequently mentioned article categories over the course of the past year, looked at Market East, which scored 35 category mentions. Today we visit a Market Street-anchored neighborhood on the opposite side of Center City, where Center City West noted 36 category mentions and as such arrived at number 21 in the countdown rankings. The forlorn neighborhood, a domain of block-spanning parking lots, garages, and otherwise underutilized properties, is the remaining development frontier of Center City, and is finally witnessing a major development surge, albeit one on a smaller scale than it deserves. Today we look at a few of the projects transforming its rather inhospitable streetscape into Philadelphia’s newest neighborhood.

Current view of The Maven. Credit: Khosla Properties.

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

8:00 am on August 20, 2021 By Vitali Ogorodnikov

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.

2043 Fitzwater Street. Looking northwest. November 2020. Credit: Google Street View

Ornate Prewar Townhouse Makes Way for Similarly-Sized Building at 2043 Fitzwater Street in Graduate Hospital, South Philadelphia

7:30 am on July 17, 2021 By Vitali Ogorodnikov

Philadelphia’s ongoing construction surge is a major boon for the city, and occasional demolitions are needed for the city’s continued growth. However, some teardowns are rather unfortunate and unnecessary, to put it mildly, particularly when they take down a preservation-worthy edifice in apparently sound structural condition, or when the replacement offers no notable increase in scale, density, or functional use. The proposal at 2043 Fitzwater Street in Graduate Hospital, South Philadelphia, checks off on both of these concerns, where a finely ornamented, contextually appropriate, apparently well-maintained prewar townhouse is being demolished to make way for a four-story, three-unit building that will offer only a marginal boost both in scale and density.

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