Apartment building proposed under the El adds even more transit-accessible housing in Fishtown

A 114-unit apartment project is planned immediately adjacent to the Market-Frankford Line at 1440 N. Front St. on the border between Fishtown and South Kensington.

This is the latest, and largest, project from Archive Development, a new real estate company that’s been building in the Fishtown area since 2020. The project will contain 2,000 square feet of retail space, which the company wants to go to a restaurant.

“Front is one of the only streets in Fishtown where you can truly build with high density,” said Henry Siebert, cofounder of Archive. “We’ve seen it transition from a former industrial street with warehouses to a true, viable commercial corridor. That’s what attracted us.”

Amenities include a seventh-floor “sky lounge,” with a kitchenette and a roof deck. It will also include a gym, coworking spaces, a dedicated conference room, and a ground-floor garden. There will be five studios, 93 one-bedroom units, and 16 two-bedroom units.

Spaces for 38 bicycles will be included on-site, and there will be a small parking garage with room for 18 vehicles.

“We are required to build parking by the zoning, so our garage is several thousand square feet of space that would have otherwise been retail,” said Ryan Kalili, cofounder of Archive. “Parking requirements on Front Street aren’t the smartest because it’s the most transit-oriented street in Fishtown. It’s going to create some fragmentation of the commercial corridor.”

Archive Development’s project on Front Street comes amid a construction boom directly adjacent to SEPTA’s Market-Frankford elevated tracks. The El has struggled with low ridership, remote work trends, and a surge in antisocial behavior following the pandemic.

To the north of the 1440 Front St. project, the Berks Station served 63,326 riders in December of 2019. But in December 2022, it served just 33,527. In February, the Market-Frankford and Broad Street Lines had a lower ridership recovery rate than the office/commuter-oriented Regional Rail, according to SEPTA’s ridership recovery dashboard.

Siebert said that their project would provide more riders “when work-from-home dies down,” and office workers are confronted with limited and expensive parking downtown.

A return of office workers to Center City at pre-pandemic levels is by no means guaranteed, however, and recent trends suggest remote work is here to stay.

Some neighborhood advocates fear that the explosion of market-rate development along the Market-Frankford line is not providing new homes for the lower-income and working-class residents most likely to actually ride the train.

“As I look at Front Street, you really didn’t see any affordable units being built,” said Eileen Divringi of the South Kensington Community Partners. “Is it really transit-oriented if these kind of projects price out people who are going to be the most transit reliant?”

Kalili and Siebert say that building right next to a high-frequency elevated train line has its complications. That’s why they’ve made the front facade and entrance to the building on Jefferson Street, instead of on Front in the shadow of the El. They also designed the structure out of steel plate and embellished it with faux squared-off arches to echo the monumental piece of infrastructure mere feet away.

Their project is within a couple minutes of walk of new standouts such as Middle Child Clubhouse and old favorites such as El Bar, both of which are also adjacent to the elevated line on Front Street. Archive’s founders say they want to add to the food and drink options in the area.

“Front Street is going to transition into the next frontier in Fishtown from a retail standpoint,” Siebert said. “We want to be picky. We’re willing to wait to find the right tenant that is an amenity to the building and to the neighborhood, not just to fill the space for the sake of filling it.”

Archive Development plans to break ground by the end of summer 2023, and they estimate construction costs at about $20 million. They do not require any permissions from the Historical Commission or zoning board to move forward but will present the project to the advisory Civic Design Review board on May 2.