Apartment building to join Yards and Target at former Northern Liberties warehouse site

The owner of the former Spring Garden Street warehouse that now houses Yards Brewing Co. and central Philadelphia’s biggest Target Corp. store is planning its first ground-up construction project at the Northern Liberties site: a four-story apartment building with ground-floor shops to rise on part of what’s now a parking lot.

Alliance Partners HSP LLC's plan calls for a building of 50 apartments that would run along Fifth Street from just south of the former warehouse building to Willow Street, Matt Handel, a vice president with the Bryn Mawr-based development group, said Wednesday. Its 11,000 square feet of retail space would largely face a remaining section of parking to the west.

As part of the project, Alliance HSP aims to restore Noble Street as a thruway across the development site, bounded by Willow and Spring Garden Streets, between Fifth and Sixth Streets, Handel said. Work on the new building is expected to begin early next year, he said.

The Target at the site, previously a Destination Maternity warehouse, began receiving shoppers this week. Other plans at the property include the installation of a 740-kilowatt rooftop solar array and the completion of a wall mural by Mural Arts Philadelphia that will feature the art of Gina Triplett and Matt Curtius, Handel said.