King of Prussia could get 200+ more apartments in proposed project
The Montgomery County suburb is already a majority-renter community. The latest plan from Greystar would mark the developer’s third complex in the area.
A King of Prussia office building could be razed and replaced by more than 200 apartments.
Greystar, the Charleston-based residential real estate company, has submitted plans to knock down the structure at 720 Vandenburg Rd. and build a six-story, 205-unit complex in its place, according to documents filed this summer with the Montgomery County Planning Commission and first reported this week by the Philadelphia Business Journal.
The building is currently home to Arcfield, a government contractor with a lease about to expire. Last year, Arcfield and its partners announced plans to relocate its King of Prussia office to a renovated business park at 1400 Morris Dr. in Chesterbrook. It was unclear when exactly the company plans to move.
Greystar, in an application letter to the county, wrote that it wishes to demolish and “redevelop the site as the existing structure is now functionally obsolete in the context of current market demand and development trends.”
If the plans are approved, Greystar would turn the nearly seven-acre property near the Schuylkill River Trail into a residential complex with an approximately 3,000-square-foot outdoor pool, a clubhouse, and a 300-spot parking lot, according to the documents. It would mark the developer’s third property in King of Prussia, after Indigo 301, in the King of Prussia Town Center, and Skye 750, a mile from the Vandenburg Road site.
The proposed location for its latest project is across the street from the 300-apartment Park Square complex, which opened in 2018; less than two miles from the King of Prussia Mall; and within a suburb that has become home to more renters than homeowners in recent years. According to the most recent Census Bureau data, renters lived in about 52% of King of Prussia homes in 2023, a jump from 41% five years earlier.
In King of Prussia’s township, Upper Merion, more than 4,000 rental units have been built in roughly the past eight years, Eric Goldstein, president and CEO of the nonprofit King of Prussia District, recently told The Inquirer. Most of those units are in King of Prussia, he said.
The developments mirror national trends, with more people renting for a variety of reasons, including the increased costs of homeownership and lifestyle preferences.
» READ MORE: King of Prussia now has more renters than homeowners, joining hundreds of major suburbs nationwide
Greystar, which did not return a request for comment by Thursday afternoon, has capitalized on growing rental demand.
In the Philadelphia region, it is working on several projects. These include a conventional apartment complex and a 55+ “active adult” community, both on Route 29 in Malvern, that are expected to be completed in the next two years, and a modular-home development in Woodbury Heights, Gloucester County.
Greystar already manages many existing complexes across the region, including in Center City, Conshohocken, Bala Cynwyd, Wynnewood, and West Chester.
As for its Vandenburg Road plan, the Montgomery County Planning Commission “generally supports the applicant’s proposal,” county environmental planner Ryan Lamberti wrote in a July letter.