Permits have been issued for the construction of a four-unit apartment building at 1307 West Erie Avenue in Hunting Park, North Philadelphia. Designed by KCA Design Associates, the building will rise four stories tall and will include a basement. Permits call for 6,880 square feet of space. A roof deck with an access structure will be located at the top of the structure.
One of the most exciting new developments in the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area is currently underway not in the city itself, but rather in an exurban part of Mantua Township, New Jersey, 14 miles to the south of Center City Philadelphia. Designed by Ennead Architects, with KSS Architects as the architect of record and Gallagher & Associates behind exhibit design, Rowan University’s Jean & Ric Edelman Fossil Park and Museum rises from a scenic bluff overlooking a former marl quarry, which holds 66-million-year-old fossils dating to the age of dinosaurs. The $73 million visitor center, avant-garde in design yet naturalistic in material palette and setting, will offer 44,000 square feet of interactive exhibits, presentation space, socializing areas, and more.
A recent site visit by Philly YIMBY has revealed that demolition has begun at the historic Columbia Theater at 2709 Cecil B. Moore Avenue in Cecil B. Moore, North Philadelphia. The 100-year-plus-old structure, situated at the north side of the block between North 27th and Marston streets, will be replaced by a four-story, 18-unit apartment building. Designed by Kore Design Architecture (KCA), the new development will span 21,030 square feet and feature elevator service, full sprinkling and a roof deck. Permits list Bloomtown Holdings LLC as the owner, GRIT Construction as the contractor, and a construction cost of $3.16 million. The Columbia Theatre, as it was originally known, was built in 1911 in a grand Beaux-Arts style. The massive, dramatic marquee and vertical sign that once adorned its front entrance are long gone. Still present, however, is the symmetrical facade with Palladian and oeil-de-boeuf windows, a garland-adorned crown, and a dentil course cornice. Even the elegant bishop’s crook light sconces continue to grace the structure at the second level. The roughly 30-foot-tall building is at once in scale with the avenue’s rowhouses and offers a distinct sense of urbane grandeur.
Philadelphia YIMBY continues to look for ways to make our news outlet into resource both useful and enjoyable to everyone from industry professionals and casual enthusiasts of all things urban. As part of this drive, at the start of the year we introduced a new series of building categories, which allow readers to browse articles based on building unit count, square footage, and more. Today we put the spotlight on one such category: new multi-family developments with 100 and more residential units. In general, these large projects come in the form of high-rise towers, hulking mid-rise buildings, and sprawling townhouse complexes. Below we offer a sampling of several such developments that we have covered so far this year.
The idea of building higher than the William Penn statue atop Philadelphia City Hall was roundly rejected by city planners and the public for a long time. Boldly, in 1983, Willard G. Rouse III of Rouse and Associates bought a large plot of land and scouted for an architect to design a pair of limit-breaking towers. In April 1984, a proposal was revealed to the city, which was met with with heavy opposition, though the decision to go ahead with the project was eventually approved via a vote. In May 1985, the official designs by Helmut Jahn were revealed at the groundbreaking, inaugurating the construction of two office towers and a hotel, which lasted from 1985 and 1990 and changed the Philadelphia skyline in the process. Although Philly YIMBY has already looked at One Liberty Place shortly after completion, today we take look at more perspectives of the iconic structure from the time when it finished construction.
