Airbnb Building Proposed for Old City Parcel Sandwiched Between I-95 and Billboard
Airbnb Building Proposed for Old City Parcel Sandwiched Between I-95 and Billboard
The Delaware River front and the broader Old City neighborhood attract plenty of out of town tourists. However, convenience to the sites, shops, and restaurants in the historic community comes with the tradeoff of having to deal with a lot of auto-infrastructure. So how close is too close?
A recently proposed luxury Airbnb building along Front Street brought to you from Vich Properties indicates investors are still optimistic that visitors are eager to stay in the neighborhood, even if it means putting up with a little bit of noise.
A zoning permit issued last week reveals plans for a three story building on a currently vacant lot at 336 N. Front Street, currently filled with overgrown vegetation.
336 North Front Street lies within the Old City Historic District, created in 2003. But because the property is undeveloped the jurisdiction of the Historical Commission is limited to review and comment at an upcoming public meeting. So while the Commission's staff have indicated they would prefer the developer adjust the project to make it more compatible with surrounding buildings (e.g. changing the color of the facade from gray to red to reflect the brick red in the area and losing the over-sized window that connects the third floor and the mezzanine) their approval is not required for the project to proceed.
In fact this site evokes some interesting questions about the purpose of the Old City Historic District: for a neighborhood that was absolutely devastated to make room for highways and arterial roads, does curtailing infill development like this project do more to preserve the legacy of late 20th century urban renewal than colonial era charm? What role should a historic commission have in dictating what can and cannot be built next to a giant highway billboard?
But what about the building itself? Schematic plans from Gnome Architects reveal the four units will include some amenities like a kitchen and office space not typically found in many tourist oriented hotels. For visitors coming to town for a few days it’s easy to imagine these comfortably sized, purpose-built visitor accommodations will be large enough to feel like a home away from
home, without that awkward feeling that can come from staying in someone’s lived-in apartment.
Using this property for commercial services instead of apartments or condos would typically be a smart way of avoiding the parking minimums that come along with the base CMX-3 zoning for residential projects, but this land lies within the core of the Old City Residential Area within the Center City Overlay District, so that requirement is no longer applicable. Boy would we like to see more of that in Philadelphia! But it especially makes sense to curtail parking minimums in a walkable neighborhood like this only a few minutes away from the Spring Garden MFL Station.
Overall this is an exciting project on a piece of land that’s gone underutilized for decades, and it is a nice addition to a block that’s long had a broad diversity of structures.
