From industrial space comes MM Partners' lofts/retail project
For a native such as David Waxman, Philadelphia's current building boom is one for the books. "It's crazy," said Waxman, who, with Aaron Smith and Jacob Roller, is developing for-sale and mixed-use properties as MM Partners.
For a native such as David Waxman, Philadelphia's current building boom is one for the books.
"It's crazy," said Waxman, who, with Aaron Smith and Jacob Roller, is developing for-sale and mixed-use properties as MM Partners.
"I grew up here," said Waxman, a graduate of Friends Select School and Boston University. "I've never seen anything like it."
The trio has long focused on Brewerytown - the five-story Braverman Building at 2617-19 W. Girard Ave. is their latest - but MM Partners' $45 million in completed projects since its start in 2008 are not limited to one neighborhood.
The newest piece of MM's portfolio is, at $12 million, also its most expensive: A.F. Bornot Lofts at 17th Street and Fairmount Avenue, a mixed-use project with 17 loft-style rental apartments, two for-sale townhouses, underground parking, and five retail businesses made up of 15,000 square feet.
It's a sea change for the A.F. Bornot Bros. Dye Works Co. headquarters, designed by Baker & Dallett in 1901 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In that building and other sites in the city, "the most delicate fabrics" were cleaned or dyed "without possibility of harming them," as an early 20th-century advertisement boasted.
The project consists not just of the Bornot building itself, Waxman said, but also of the adjacent Security Elevator Co. building, a vacant lot next to that, and two warehouses behind it along Melon Street.
"Four buildings and a vacant lot gives you a large parcel to work with," he said, noting the value of such a large property available for development in the Spring Garden/Fairmount neighborhoods. Such properties are much less common than they once were.
Although the first floor was occupied by the long-shuttered Country Fresh market, "the upstairs floors had been mothballed since A.F. Bornot closed shop there many years ago," Waxman said. The warehouses and Security Elevators' building also had long been vacant, he said.
The buildings "were in rough shape, including structural and roof issues," Waxman said, "but it resulted in a better end product."
"The buildings' bones and the location couldn't be beat," he said. "It is great to be able to bring new life to the blocks."
All the buildings and the lot were owned by Spring Garden Community Development Corp., which sold them to MM Partners in November 2014.
Waxman said that the late Tony Goldman, of Goldman Properties, had the buildings on the site under agreement, but that the sale never went through.
Because the site is in the Spring Garden Historic District, "we got to use federal historic tax credits," Waxman said, and, in fact, "won the lottery last year for Pennsylvania's first historic tax credits."
MM Partners has used federal tax credits before - in the restoration of the Waterworks at 3 Rector St. in Manayunk, a mill built in the 1860s that is now office space.
A.F. Bornot Lofts' 17 one-, two- and three-bedroom loft apartments range from 900 to 1,650 square feet, Waxman said.
Monthly rents, which average $2.50 a square foot, are admittedly a bit high for neighborhoods outside Center City, but the size and high-end finishes are designed to attract professionals and empty-nesters looking for that urban lifestyle, Waxman said.
The pre-sold townhouses went for $350 a square foot, he said.
Retail includes Valley Green Bank, a cafe, a hot-yoga studio, an Anytime Fitness center to which tenants have 24/7 access, and a gift shop.
"We could have fit a lot more units in these buildings, but there is a big market for larger units that are more like homes," Waxman said.
More units also would have created noise issues for the neighbors, he said.
Many developers who target millennials say smaller units are preferable because renters are more interested in common-use indoor and outdoor spaces for socializing.
"That's fine in New York," he said, "but Philadelphians are homebodies."
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