Plans for apartments near Penn Treaty Park will be scrapped to build more townhouses
The abundance of apartments in the Fishtown area has made it hard to finance new multifamily development.
A further 219 single-family townhouses are slated for the North Bank development at 2001 Richmond St. in Philadelphia, between the Battery and Graffiti Pier on the Delaware River.
The proposal, from Concordia Group and D3 Real Estate Development, is the second phase of their project. The first is composed of 475 single-family townhouses at 2001 Beach St., which have sold out.
In 2024, the developers planned to include a 307-unit apartment building on the western side of the second phase of North Bank — closer to Richmond Street — along with 8,425 square feet of commercial space and 135 townhouses closer to the river.
But the apartment boom along the Delaware River and in Northern Liberties and Fishtown has made that proposal unworkable, the developers say.
“There’s just such an abundance of apartments” in this area, said Greg Hill, cofounder and managing partner of D3 development.
“We were surprised. Although the market has certainly slowed down for multifamily, there are still lots of new starts happening in this neighborhood,” Hill said. “The investment team just felt the timing was not optimal to come on with another 300 units at this location.”
The 2001 Richmond St. portion of the project is on the southern end of the property, near Penn Treaty Park.
“Our development team felt it was in the best interest of the community we’ve developed to date to complete the project and build it out with houses, as opposed to leaving the land to sit vacant any longer,” Hill said.
The designer for the project is the Philadelphia-based Interface Studio Architects. The team anticipates a construction timeline of 24 months.
The 219 townhouses will have 284 parking spaces for residents, along with another 85 public parking spaces.
The developers plan to extend the Delaware River Trail to Graffiti Pier from where the trail currently ends at Penn Treaty Park. They also plan additional green space throughout the development.
Matt Ruben, chair of Central Delaware Advocacy Group, had praised the earlier plan to bring apartments to the riverfront.
“Still seems to have the original issue — shared by many waterfront townhome developments of the past decade or so — of facing neither the river nor the street and instead turning a ‘shoulder’ (side) to the water and the street,” Ruben said in a text message.
But Ruben praised the developer’s plan to extend the river trail, the commitment to adding green space, and a change from an earlier plan that would have blocked public access to Graffiti Pier.
“We were disappointed that the multifamily will not go forward, but we feel we have a nice site plan with lots of green space and lots of extra parking, which we think the community needs,” Hill said.
