[mcgrath618]

Looks like the Historical Commission doesn't quite like this one, but their word isn't binding:


‘Overbuild’ projects planned to turn historic Freeman’s auction house and Nelson Building into condos

Application documents filed on the commission’s website by Cecil Baker & Partners architects identify the buildings’ owners as units of Astoban Investments LLC, suggesting that the firm has the properties under contract, since there is yet no record of them having changed hands. The Nelson Building previously had been under contract to be acquired by the Bucks County-based developer Tom Scannapieco.

Baker’s firm worked with Astoban on a similar “overbuild” project involving a historic property on the 2100 block of Walnut Street.

The three-story Nelson property, which is listed on the historic register, is made up of three adjacent buildings constructed between the mid-1850s and the mid-1950s behind a common facade. Plans for the property call for the demolition of the rear sections of the older of the two buildings at 222-24 and 226 Walnut St. to make room for a 19-story tower, with the newer section being converted into a “multilevel townhouse unit,” for a total of 18 dwelling units.

The staff of the Historical Commission recommended that the project be denied, saying that the “massing, size, scale, proportions, and height of the proposed tower with overbuild are not compatible with the complex of buildings or historic district.”

https://www.inquirer.com/real-estate...-20190619.html