139 North 23rd Street. Credit: Solomon Cordwell Buenz

Permits Issued for 139 North 23rd Street in Logan Square, Center City

Permits have been issued for the construction of a 115-unit multi-family building at 139 North 23rd Street in Logan SquareCenter City. Designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz and developed by the PMC Property Group, the building will rise four stories tall and will feature a roof deck with a green roof. In total, the building will hold 122,576 square feet of space. The developer was permitted to include the higher-than-standard unit count through the utilization of green roof and mixed-income density bonuses. A below-grade garage will hold 42 parking spaces. Construction costs are estimated at $35 million.

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Mural West site looking east. Photo by Thomas Koloski

Murals Rank at Number 29 on Philly YIMBY’s First Anniversary Countdown

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.

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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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Arthaus architectural model crown. Photo by Thomas Koloski

Looking at the Architectural Model of Arthaus in Center City

In contrast to smaller developments, major skyscraper projects are backed by large teams, which include promotion staff and sales galleries that are open to the public, many with physical models of the building exterior and interiors. Arthaus is a 542-foot-tll condominium under construction at 311 South Broad Street in Center City. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox and developed by Dranoff Properties, the tower rises 47 stories and will include 108 residential units, with leasing currently underway. In this publication, Philadelphia YIMBY takes a look at a physical model of the skyscraper, which stands at the sales gallery located at the northeast corner of the ground floor of the Symphony House.

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