Apartment building proposed near Italian Market increased to eight stories, 182 units

Midwood Investment & Development of New York is scaling up its proposal for an apartment building on Ninth Street in South Philadelphia's Italian Market, with plans for more than twice as many dwellings in the project as previously anticipated.

Midwood's latest plan for the site on the southeast corner of Ninth and Washington Avenue calls for an eight-story building with 182 apartments, up from the five-story, 70-unit building proposed in 2015, according to documents filed with the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections last month.

It would occupy the current location of the Anastasi Seafood fish market and restaurant, which is moving elsewhere within the Italian Market, and surrounding vacant land.

As in Midwood's previous proposal, most of the building's ground floor is to consist of street-facing shops or restaurants, with the building's two stories of parking being built below ground, according to the plans. Those features will help the building fit into the lively shopping corridor, which spans to its north and south along Ninth Street, Midwood's lawyer on the project, Peter Kelsen, said in an interview this week.

The project's architect, the studio of New York-based Morris Adjmi, also has revised its approach to the building, jettisoning its previous plan for a facade of undulating brick with a design that emulates some of the multistory, broad-windowed industrial buildings on nearby streets, Kelson said.

The project is permitted under the commercial and mixed-use zoning designation that the parcel was granted by City Council in 2015, but it still must be presented to neighborhood residents and to Philadelphia's Civic Design Review board for nonbinding suggestions as part of the city's building-approval process.

Midwood also owns the nearby building at Ninth and Christian Street that's currently home to the restaurant Monsu and is a large owner of property on South Street's eastern end. Its Center City holdings include the glass structure at 15th and Walnut Streets that accommodates a Cheesecake Factory restaurant.

A Midwood spokeswoman declined to share any additional details of its plan for the Italian Market site.