Manayunk’s PHS beer garden could be replaced by 73-unit apartment building

A proposed 73-unit apartment building is stirring controversy in Manayunk, as neighbors raise concerns about height, density, lack of retail, and parking.

The project is slated for 106 Jamestown Ave., where the Philadelphia Horticultural Society (PHS) has one of its two pop-up beer gardens.

The proposed six-story, 60-foot-tall building would have 36 parking spaces and abut SEPTA’s Manayunk/Norristown Regional Rail line.

The Manayunk Neighborhood Council hasn’t taken an official position, as that will be decided by a vote among attendees at a neighborhood meeting this Thursday night.

But the group’s zoning committee made their feelings clear after a meeting with the developer at the end of last year.

“The project hits all the buttons of what we don’t need and don’t want,” said Kevin Smith, president of the Manayunk Neighborhood Council.

The proposed apartment building comes from local developer Dan Greenberg, with architecture by Norristown-based Barton Partners. Neither responded to requests for comment.

The property is zoned for industrial and commercial uses. It is a block off Main Street, and most of the surrounding properties are zoned for residential use.

Greenberg’s team will need multiple permissions from the Zoning Board of Adjustment at an August hearing to move forward.

That’s because the proposal is for a residential project in an industrial zone, and taller than the 38-foot height limit, which was imposed by a zoning overlay created in 2012 to limit development around the core of Manayunk. They also need permission to build without ground-floor retail.

The Manayunk Neighborhood Council wants to see one parking space for every apartment. They argue that unlike Center City, University City, or South Philadelphia, Manayunk is not an area where residents often live without a personal automobile.

“Providing half of that will create more parking pressure on the streets and hardship on the neighborhood,” said Smith. “We tend to have high vehicle ownership in Manayunk and there’s no reason to think an apartment building on Main Street would be any different.”

Many neighbors are also saddened to lose the PHS beer garden, which is a popular neighborhood gathering space.

The nonprofit has long used vacant land to temporarily set up beer gardens, often for only a year at a time.

But that paradigm shifted during COVID-19 pandemic, and PHS has been established at its two current locations for years, which has led customers to become more attached to the current locations.

PHS signed the lease for the Jamestown Avenue location in 2019 and it opened in September of 2020.

“The understanding in the program is always that it’s a temporary space that is going to be developed or made into something else,” said Cristina Tessaro, director of activation with PHS. “Our lease is up [at 106 Jamestown Ave.] at the end of the year and it’s under an agreement for sale.”

PHS is on the lookout for new nearby opportunities and has been in touch with Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr. for help.

“There’s actually been a few opportunities in the area, which may or may not come to fruition, but in light of this [we have been] shown other opportunities to potentially stay in Manayunk, which we would really love to do,” said Tessaro.

Greenberg’s 73-unit apartment building proposal comes amid several other recent developments in Manayunk, which as planned would add a couple hundred new units to the neighborhood.

To the chagrin of some neighbors, these have been approved by the city’s zoning board, despite a lack of ground-floor retail. Many multifamily developers in the city have struggled to fill ground-floor retail in recent years, and have instead tried to add more apartments or amenities for residents.

“I’m most disappointed that the project is not even mixed-use,” said Rhiannon Smith, who lives a block from the project.

“They are asking for all these variances [from the zoning board], at the very least, these large developments should be giving back to the community in some way and having community green space or a commercial element,” said Smith.