The municipal council has approved plans for a mixed-use development at 257 East Main Street in Norristown, PA, a town located near Philadelphia. Upon completion, the building will rise five stories tall and will feature a commercial space on the ground floor with 19 residential units above.
Since the late 1980s, Philadelphia’s Center City skyscrapers featured appealing decorative lighting schemes. The first tower to be lit up was One Liberty Place at 1650 Market Street, completed in 1987, with lights accentuating the angled crown and the sharp spire. Over the years more high-rises towers were constructed that also displayed standout nighttime lighting, with one of the biggest recent additions being the Comcast Technology Center with its massive lantern at the top. Even more recent was the W/Element Hotel at 1441 Chestnut Street, where intensive testing of its the decorative lighting started just a few months ago.
Construction work has nearly wrapped up at The Poplar at 900 North 9th Street in Poplar, North Philadelphia, converting the prewar structure into residential space. Formerly known as the Quaker Building, the structure stands 11 stories tall next to the elevated SEPTA regional rail rail line, and was completed in 1918 as a factory loft. The 285-unit conversion project has been designed by Cosica Moos Architecture and developed by the Post Brothers, which is also responsible for the massive Piazza Terminal project in Northern Liberties.
Permits have been issued for the construction of a four-unit multi-family development at 2118-20 Fitzwater Street in Graduate Hospital, South Philadelphia. Upon completion, the building will rise three stories tall and will also include a mezzanine. The structure will hold 3,550 square feet of space and cost an estimated $400,000 to build.
In the late 1980s, in rapid succession, a series of skyscrapers broke through the long-held “Gentlemen’s Agreement” that unofficially restricted Philadelphia’s buildings from rising above the 548-foot-tall pinnacle of City Hall, creating the now-iconic skyline of Center City. While the skyscraper cluster transformed the area to the west of City Hall, the Market East district to the east continues to lag behind in terms of an imposing skyline. However, East Market Phase 3, developed by National Real Estate Development as part of the East Market complex and currently under construction at 1101-53 Chestnut Street, will boost the local skyline with a pair of towers rising 364 and 288 feet tall. The buildings will bring one million square feet of medical office, residential, and retail space to the neighborhood, and add a sizable public plaza. Today we take a detailed look at the transformative project.
