PMC
Preliminary project sketch.
A Philadelphia-based developer revealed plans to build a 13-story apartment building on the ever-densifying border of Downtown and Wooster Square — if it can win a requested zoning change.
The developer in question, PMC Property Group, is seeking to build 136 new one-bedroom apartments on the same lot as a building it already owns: the Strouse-Adler apartment complex at 78 Olive St, between Court and Chapel. The new apartments would form a separate building from the Strouse-Adler apartments, on the Chapel Street side of the lot.
The lot is currently zoned as a BA (General Business) district, but PMC has applied to reclassify it as a BD‑1 (Central Business/Residential) district. That change would allow for a higher density of residential units. Without the rezoning, PMC would not be able to go forward with the additional units.
Chris McKeon, a local attorney representing PMC, explained the potential zoning change on Tuesday at the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team’s online January meeting. McKeon suggested that the proposal would be a “simple” shift.
PMC
Lot in question.
As McKeon noted, several other former industrial buildings between the railroad tracks and the rest of the Wooster Square neighborhood have been rezoned to a BD‑1 status over the past decade. The series of zoning changes paved the way for a wave of forthcoming residential developments along Olive St., including 87 Union St. and the former Comcast building at 630 Chapel St.
From 2016 to 2018, PMC filed lawsuit after lawsuit to prevent the latter development at 630 Chapel from materializing — including one suit that challenged the lot’s rezoning, and that named the City Plan Commission as a co-defendant. (All of PMC’s legal challenges were unsuccessful, but they did delay the competing developer’s plans to build new apartments in the area.)
McKeon said that PMC is waiting to hear from the City Plan Commission before beginning the design process in earnest; the matter is expected to come before the City Plan Commission Wednesday night.
Meanwhile, he shared preliminary sketches of the potential new apartments with the management team on Tuesday.
At the moment, PMC is planning to build exclusively one-bedroom apartments. Early drawings project 11 floors with 12 units each, plus a 13th story with four apartments and a fitness center. PMC plans to include 59 total parking spaces, 18 of which would be offsite.
Laura Glesby Photo
The Strouse-Adler building at 78 Olive, next to the potential new development.
One neighbor, Tony Kosloski, shared concerns that a 13-story complex would tower over other buildings in the neighborhood, most of which are a handful of stories tall.
“They propose a building that is twice as tall as any of the surrounding buildings, whether old or the ones under construction right now,” Kosloski said. “There’s a large spatial issue here.”
In response, McKeon stressed that the preliminary concepts for the building are far from final. He offered to meet with the management team’s Development Committee to include neighbors in discussions about the building’s design.
If there was a zoning rule that required for a new apartment building to have double the number residential units from other buildings in the area, then that means that there would have to be around 500 units in one building.
So, imagine if this building was 40 stories tall.