PHILADELPHIA-CAMDEN-WILMINGTON-ATLANTIC CITY-READING | Metro Development Thread

[Capsule F]

Originally Posted by Urbanthusiat

There are some big projects moving forward in Phoenixville.

Reps from Rockwell Development Group have been working to get entitlements for "French Creek West" which is on the for Phoenix Steel site opposite of Toll Brother's Riverworks. This particular plan is for 240 apartment units and 311 townhouses and stacked townhouses, however I believe it has since been tweaked. There will also be public parking, improvements to the Schuylkill River Trail, some public open space, a vehicular connection to Paradise street off of the west end of the site, and a pedestrian bridge over French Creek connecting to Bridge Street. It'd be a substantial investment, but probably one that will make a lot of money.



More info: https://sites.google.com/site/pxvgre...nch-creek-west

Barclay Garden's was recently approved to begin construction. It'll be 125 age-restricted apartments on the former Borough Hall site. It's right off Bridge Street so this should add more pedestrians.



Site: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.1331...7i13312!8i6656

Bonus: The planning commission's August 2018 agenda references "Demolition of all existing structures and construction of a mixed-use development with rear parking." at 348-370 Bridge Street. I imagine some sort of residential over a floor or two of retail/office. That's the current site of Stable 12 Brewing Company. So if this goes through, either they'll be moving somewhere else soon, or temporarily relocated and take up space in the new building - which would be pretty cool.

Site: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.1329...7i13312!8i6656

I'm surprised there hasn't been a major hotel project done here yet this cycle. I think it'd do well.

Phoenixville needs to demand better development than this Barclay's Garden. Yuck.

[Jawnadelphia]

Former polluting site could offer a new development option along Wilmington's
Riverfront





David Chameli, general counsel and vice president of Heritage Crystal-Clean, said the company knew almost immediately that it wouldn't keep the facility open.

“We’re cognizant of the fact this site is smack dab in the middle of some pretty aggressive development,” he said. “We want nothing more than to let a responsible developer develop the property to benefit the citizens of Wilmington and the state of Delaware. It would fit nicely with what’s there with the Riverwalk, the children’s museum, the stadium across the street.”

Twenty years of revitalization along the riverfront has meant new businesses, places to live and ways to interact with the natural vistas of a river once overwhelmed by contaminated sites and decrepit buildings.

Projects spearheaded by the public-private partnership Riverfront Development Corp. of Delaware have been underway for years to revitalize sites along the Brandywine and Christina rivers, although most work has been on the Christina."
https://www.delawareonline.com/story...nt/1042352002/
---------

This is directly across the river from the 2 new hotels being built.

If any of you guys have worked on remediation projects, I'm really curious how clean these places ever "get"? The entire Riverfront was an industrial shipyard for decades, and then an industrial wasteland for decades.
Now it is all luxury condos/apts, restaurants, hotels etc., etc ... remediation projects really wipe away a century of pollution... just like that?

[mcgrath618]

It seems the 5 story SEPTA parking garage has started construction in Ardmore.
This place is really on the up and up

[Urbanthusiat]

New office building for Ellis Preserve, Whole Foods finally progressing

Equus Capital Partners has received approval to build a five-story, 378,000-square-foot office building along with a three-level parking garage at Ellis Preserve in Newtown Square, according to township documents.

...

Last but not least, a long-awaited Whole Foods is finally showing signs of progress. While a building shell had been built, the grocer made no sign for a couple of years that it was moving forward with it. Whole Foods had signed in November 2014 a 20-year lease on 51,700 square feet at Ellis Preserve and it was expected to open by July 2017. That never happened.

More than a year later, there are signs of progress at the site. Build out of the interior of the Whole Foods is now under construction and a grand opening is scheduled for Jan. 18, 2019, according to a person familiar with the situation.

https://www.bizjournals.com/philadel...wn-square.html

[AbortedWalrus]

Wow that Phoenixville development is terrible for the location. It's right next to the prime walkable downtown of Phoenixville and they're building an unwalkable monstrosity right there. They really need to go for something more urban if they want to keep things on the right trajectory.

It needs dense blocks that terminate just before the SRT with footbridges connecting to Bridge Street. It would be amazing for the area. They are also building like 1500 parking spaces? Parking isn't even a premium in Phoenixville. They should build one garage for the entire area and save the footprint.

[Urbanthusiat]

Originally Posted by AbortedWalrus

Wow that Phoenixville development is terrible for the location. It's right next to the prime walkable downtown of Phoenixville and they're building an unwalkable monstrosity right there. They really need to go for something more urban if they want to keep things on the right trajectory.

I'm not sure I agree - this development really embodies "new urbanism" in that it puts hundreds of people in walking distance to shopping (and hopefully a future rail stop) and offers a mix of housing types on a former brownfield. I don't think it's crazy to say this development is more urban than the vast majority of new development in the suburbs.

Originally Posted by AbortedWalrus

It needs dense blocks that terminate just before the SRT with footbridges connecting to Bridge Street. It would be amazing for the area.

The SRT front's the entire development, which does indeed go right up to the trail. It should be walkable enough, as there will be sidewalks, greenspaces, and there will be a pedestrian bridge connecting the development to Bridge Street. There's geographic and topographical issues that prevent this site from fully integrating into surrounding neighborhoods. The South and West sides face French Creek, the North faces a 15 foot cliff and former rail easements (likely to be converted to trails connecting to Great Valley - the "Devault Trail"), and the East side has a relatively short frontage along Main. The site is a "black hole" if you will in that you'd hardly notice this vast space is in the middle of town unless you're looking at it from above.

If what you're talking about is more retail/office on site, I think that's probably a no-go because there's still a number of places along Bridge Street for mixed-use development and I think the town doesn't want to pull people away from Bridge Street. There's also the issue of the site being relatively isolated so not many retail or office users would want to be there anyway.

At the end of the day, there's just a ton of demand for single-family housing in the western suburbs, this kind of housing is really popular, and I bet a lot of people would like to own homes here. I certainly like the idea of adding hundreds of new homeowners, people with a stake in the community, right in the middle of town. So I mean looking at the bigger picture, we're looking at adding hundreds of residents in mix of housing types that's relatively dense for the suburbs, on a former brownfield that has the potential to be a multimodal transit center (SRT, future Devault Trail, hopefully someday regional rail), with public greenspace, connected via sidewalks and pedestrian bridges to neighborhood retail - and you think that's not urban?

[AbortedWalrus]

Originally Posted by Urbanthusiat

I'm not sure I agree - this development really embodies "new urbanism" in that it puts hundreds of people in walking distance to shopping (and hopefully a future rail stop) and offers a mix of housing types on a former brownfield. I don't think it's crazy to say this development is more urban than the vast majority of new development in the suburbs.



The SRT front's the entire development, which does indeed go right up to the trail. It should be walkable enough, as there will be sidewalks, greenspaces, and there will be a pedestrian bridge connecting the development to Bridge Street. There's geographic and topographical issues that prevent this site from fully integrating into surrounding neighborhoods. The South and West sides face French Creek, the North faces a 15 foot cliff and former rail easements (likely to be converted to trails connecting to Great Valley - the "Devault Trail"), and the East side has a relatively short frontage along Main. The site is a "black hole" if you will in that you'd hardly notice this vast space is in the middle of town unless you're looking at it from above.

If what you're talking about is more retail/office on site, I think that's probably a no-go because there's still a number of places along Bridge Street for mixed-use development and I think the town doesn't want to pull people away from Bridge Street. There's also the issue of the site being relatively isolated so not many retail or office users would want to be there anyway.

At the end of the day, there's just a ton of demand for single-family housing in the western suburbs, this kind of housing is really popular, and I bet a lot of people would like to own homes here. I certainly like the idea of adding hundreds of new homeowners, people with a stake in the community, right in the middle of town. So I mean looking at the bigger picture, we're looking at adding hundreds of residents in mix of housing types that's relatively dense for the suburbs, on a former brownfield that has the potential to be a multimodal transit center (SRT, future Devault Trail, hopefully someday regional rail), with public greenspace, connected via sidewalks and pedestrian bridges to neighborhood retail - and you think that's not urban?

The main issue I have is that it's really going to feature people walking anywhere, and I do believe it should features some mixed use in the development. Maybe it's just the render, but because the only pedestrian connection is past Gay street it's going to be double the 400m ideal standard that people are typically willing to walk to get to optimize walkability. It's going to be closer to 1000m for many destinations, which I think is close to the point that people will switch to using a vehicle rather than walk the distance. There should be higher density closer to the trail with additional footbridges over the trail.

I give them credit that they put the densest portion of the development in the golden walkability zone, at the very least, and that portion of it I'm fine with. The townhouse portion of it is the portion I think is bad. If the entire thing was oriented like the eastern portion of the development I would be entirely in favor of it, but it's less than a third of the development in terms of space that actually does that.

I agree that it's a good development for a suburb, but I don't necessarily agree that it's the best for a small town core. If it was the fringe of the town it would be better. I was obviously hyperbolic in my initial post due to my distaste and overstated my disdain, I just don't think it's the best they could do on the site. Why do they need 1500 parking spaces at that location? The parking, the poor walkability of the townhouse section, and the complete lack of commercial in the development itself are my criticisms.

[jmj]

Originally Posted by mcgrath618

It seems the 5 story SEPTA parking garage has started construction in Ardmore.
This place is really on the up and up

Are you sure that isn't the new apt building doing up near the station? Not the Dranoff project. No SEPTA work has started to date AKAIK

[mcgrath618]

Originally Posted by jmj

Are you sure that isn't the new apt building doing up near the station? Not the Dranoff project. No SEPTA work has started to date AKAIK

I don't know of any project planned near the station other than this; I know of the already finished apartments down the street that abutt the tracks and the two projects on Cricket (one of which is Dranoff), but this is on the existing site of the SEPTA parking lot on Coulter.

[Urbanthusiat]

New apartments to be built at Oaklands Corporate Center

Jefferson Apartment Group has broken ground on a $75 million multifamily complex called Parkview at Oaklands in the Oaklands Corporate Center off Route 30 in Exton.

The development is being done in partnership with Jim Gorman and Chris Knauer, the developers of the Oaklands Corporate Center. Parkview will go on 36 acres in the business park and involve four buildings with 291 apartments.

More: https://www.bizjournals.com/philadel...corporate.html





Site: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0208...7i13312!8i6656

[Jonboy1983]

Originally Posted by Urbanthusiat

New apartments to be built at Oaklands Corporate Center



More: https://www.bizjournals.com/philadel...corporate.html





Site: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0208...7i13312!8i6656

Woah! I had no idea that was even in the works. Considering the easement for the Chester Valley Trail goes right behind where this apartment complex is going to go. I wonder if there will be direct access to the trail from these apartments. Plus, they need to consider traffic calming along US 30 considering just on the other side of the road they're building those $half-million carriage homes. Below is the link for the current street view at Lincoln Hwy/Lancaster Ave (US30) and Campbell Blvd looking toward the new carriage homes. Notice the "no pedestrian crossing" signs posted...

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0241...7i13312!8i6656

Exton as a whole is not very pedestrian friendly. According to the CCPC, there are plans in the works to rectify this problem, especially around the Exton SEPTA station considering you have the Chester Valley Trail and Exton Main Street right there as well.

[Urbanthusiat]

Originally Posted by Jonboy1983

Woah! I had no idea that was even in the works. Considering the easement for the Chester Valley Trail goes right behind where this apartment complex is going to go. I wonder if there will be direct access to the trail from these apartments.

They are planning a connection to the CVT, and from there a connection to the Whitford SEPTA stop.

[PhillyEngineer]

Originally Posted by mcgrath618

I don't know of any project planned near the station other than this; I know of the already finished apartments down the street that abutt the tracks and the two projects on Cricket (one of which is Dranoff), but this is on the existing site of the SEPTA parking lot on Coulter.

This is not going to be a parking garage - it's a retail building with storefronts facing Coulter. To replace the parking that has been lost a new commuter parking lot has been created in the existing Suburban Square parking lot across Anderson Avenue.

[PhillyEngineer]

Pics of One Ardmore Place construction taken 8/25/2018:

[Jawnadelphia]

2000 Pennsylvania Ave -


https://2000pennave.com/

Capano - Phase II:

The surface lot is blocked off now, maybe phase II is beginning soon.

[jonesrmj]

Serious question. Does Wilmington, Delaware have a height limit for how tall buildings can be?

[Jawnadelphia]

^Nope, nothing on the books as far as a max ft. allowed.

The 76ers Fieldhouse --


The Hyatt Place, and Homewood Suites projects on the Riverfront continue at basically the same pace:

[Urbanthusiat]

Station Square in Paoli to finally get underway

Linden Lane Capital Partners expects to break ground next month on Station Square, a $50 million apartment complex off Valley Road and next to the Paoli Train Station in Paoli.

The project has been in the works since November 2015 when Linden Lane put an office complex called Station Square under agreement and began to work on plans for an apartment complex that would cater to the high-end of the market. At first, Station Square called for the construction of three, four-story buildings with 150 apartments and three office spaces. The project had then been estimated to cost $40 million.

Station Square is now designed as a single, four-story building with 153 apartments and one office space as well as an underground parking garage. It will also cost a lot more.

https://www.bizjournals.com/philadel...-underway.html

[Knight Hospitaller]

^ There's already something under construction just on the other side of the tracks from the station house. Not sure whether it's related.

[mcgrath618]

Originally Posted by Knight Hospitaller

^ There's already something under construction just on the other side of the tracks from the station house. Not sure whether it's related.

How is the station expansion coming? Last I saw it looked very nice.