Riverfront site of failed Trump Tower Philadelphia for sale as townhouse project

The Delaware River pier where the ill-fated Trump Tower Philadelphia was to have been built is back on the market, with plans for a townhouse development designed by architecture studio Cecil Baker & Partners at the site.

Northern Liberties-based Shovel Ready Projects, which represents the 2.13-acre tract's ownership, has secured permits for a 41-home development on the property known as Pier 35 1/2 at North Delaware and Fairmount Avenues, spokesman George Polgar said in an interview.

The four-story homes would each be about 2,800 square feet, he said.

Shovel Ready commissioned the townhouse-development plan from Baker's studio in Philadelphia after permits expired in July for the project previously proposed there, a 45-story condo-and-hotel tower planned in a licensing deal with the Trump Organization, Polgar said late last week.

When it was proposed, the $300 million Trump project —with 263 units, a landscaped garden, and a high-end spa — was to be completed by mid-2008. By the time the necessary permits and building rights had been  acquired from the city, however, the housing market's downturn had doomed the project.

The company formed to develop the tower filed for bankruptcy in 2013, and the pier was sold later that year by its mortgage holder to a company in Minneapolis for $86,300.

The group of investors represented by Shovel Ready bought the property for $2.4 million in April 2015. It is now being listed for sale, with plans and permits, for $12.3 million, Polgar said.

A marketing brochure for the project features a photograph of now-President Trump, along with a quote from him taken from a promotional video for the tower project that was to bear his name.

Polgar said the townhouse plan is a more feasible concept for the location.

"From a practical standpoint, while everybody liked the soaring prospect of some great waterfront tower thing, the reality is it's an expensive proposition," he said.