New building will bring 46 apartments to Germantown

A new 46-unit apartment building is coming to 5322-28 Germantown Ave., from longtime Northwest Philadelphia developer Ken Weinstein.

The five-story building is in Germantown’s Penn Knox area. It also will include over 1,600 square feet of commercial space and 17 parking spaces.

The project comes amid a burst of new multifamily construction in Germantown, a neighborhood that garnered little interest from few developers in the second half of the 20th century.

“The demand for housing in Germantown continues to outpace the supply so more housing, at all income levels, is needed,” Weinstein said.

“Germantown is located near good public transit and Fairmount Park and is viewed as much more affordable than hot city neighborhoods in and around Center City,” he said.

Weinstein said that he will break ground on the building during the first week of January and that funding and contracting is already secured.

The project did not require any relief from the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment, so Weinstein was not legally required to consult with the neighborhood group, Penn Knox Neighborhood Association.

But he met with the community group anyway to hear concerns they might have with the project.

“This is not an out-of-town developer; this is a developer from the area. He’s part of the community,” said Deneene Brockington, chair of the Penn Knox Neighborhood Association. “So I think there is a level of respect, and I think willingness to do as much as possible [in response to neighborhood concerns] as long as it doesn’t compromise the project.”

Brockington said that the community group’s main concerns were about building materials and lighting and that the developer had addressed both.

Weinstein said parking wasn’t the principal concern he heard from neighbors because the building is in a commercial corridor.

The apartment building’s 17 spaces are not required by the zoning code. Weinstein said he would have liked to include more, but he was constrained by the fact that all the spaces had to be on the ground floor and that the site’s land use rules require that he include commercial space.

“Underground parking is too expensive in middle neighborhoods like Germantown,” Weinstein said. “There will always be a divide between the number of parking spaces developers want to provide and what neighbors want.”

The building will include 28 one-bedroom apartments and 18 two-bedroom units, with rents ranging from $1,450 to $2,200. There will be no subsidized or affordable units set aside.

The project is expected to be completed within 18 months of the groundbreaking next month.

There is no definite tenant for the commercial space, but Weinstein has some ideas.

“With Uncle Bobbie’s moving to a new location, I would love to see a cafe or coffee shop lease the first floor,” Weinstein said. “There would be a lot of demand from students and staff at GFS [Germantown Friends School] and from the community.”