Sidewalk grab on South St.

In a lively real estate market like Philadelphia's, where condo buyers and cafes are always clamoring for more space, what developer doesn't dream of squeezing a few more square feet out of his property?

Samir Benakmoume has found what may be the most novel way yet to stretch the capacity of his South Street building lot. Unfortunately for city residents, it involves annexing a 6-foot-wide strip of public sidewalk.

Without waiting for Streets Department approval, the city says, Benakmoume constructed a broad raised-concrete platform that runs the entire length of his new condo building - 1352 Lofts - leaving only a stingy ribbon of sidewalk for pedestrians. The platform was intended as a handicapped ramp, but more closely resembles a terrace. Benakmoume freely admits he plans to set up tables there for his restaurant tenants.

The platform takes up so much territory on the 1300 block of South Street that pedestrians may feel as if they are navigating a tightrope. Just east of Broad Street, a major subway juncture, South Street's normal 12-foot-wide sidewalks contract to a 3-foot-wide sluice, just enough room for adults to walk single file past the building's $1.3 million duplexes.

If you're traveling in a wheelchair or pushing a baby stroller, you may have no choice but to cross to the north side of South Street. Though the sidewalk is theoretically wide enough to accommodate a standard wheelchair, the addition of street lights, parking signs, and planters turn the narrow passage into the equivalent of a Special Olympics slalom run.

The wide platform is clearly "unacceptable," said Streets Department engineer William P. Mautz, who is the guardian of the city's rights-of-way. The only question is what to do about it.

Mautz sent Benakmoume a letter dated May 11 ordering him to remedy the problem. Yet workers have continued to put the finishing touches on the terrace, installing a decorative handrail last week. A handmade sign advises pedestrians to use the opposite sidewalk.

"I'm just flabbergasted. You can hardly walk there," said Patricia Bullard, president of the Hawthorne Empowerment Coalition, a neighborhood group that has been working to overcome the blight left after the 1999 implosion of the nearby Martin Luther King towers.

Like others in the neighborhood, she welcomed Benakmoume's project, a commanding loft-style building that makes a neat urban transition from the Arts Bank on Broad Street to the rowhouse structures on South.

Neighbors also were pleased that 1352 Lofts includes a full row of retail spaces and underground parking. So they were baffled to see such a fine urban building treat the public realm with disdain.

Benakmoume acknowledged that the terrace is a "problem, absolutely," but he said he expected to "work it out with the neighbors." One option, he said, is to remove the city's decorative street lamps so wheelchairs can maneuver better.

That has Bullard upset. "Why should we have to work it out?" she asked. "Why should those beautiful light poles be removed? We don't get much in this neighborhood."

The city initially offered to forgive Benakmoume his trespasses. Councilman Frank DiCicco sponsored a bill to legalize the terrace. Before a scheduled June 6 vote, the bill was withdrawn, but only after neighbors turned out to protest.

When Mautz inspected the platform, he said, he discovered that its dimensions differed radically from Benakmoume's approved architectural drawings, done by Granary Associates.

Benakmoume, who describes himself as the building's designer, said the city misread those drawings. Because the site slopes, he contended, an exterior ramp is the only way that wheelchairs can access the retail spaces.

Nearly every Philadelphia building must deal with sites that slope. Architects typically accommodate the handicapped by adjusting the floor levels within the property line. Benakmoume could have gradually stepped the shop floors so each retail space could be entered at grade from the sidewalk.

In an interview, Granary architect Gary Schwartz said Benakmoume objected to that standard solution. "He wanted the retail to be entered all on one level," Schwartz said.

Mautz said the city is refusing to issue a certificate of occupancy for the retail tenants, including Bobby Chez Seafood, until Benakmoume comes to terms with the neighbors. The city, however, has green-lighted a zoning change so Benakmoume can build two 395-foot-tall towers at Broad and Washington.

Mautz acknowledged it's unlikely that Benakmoume will ever be forced to jackhammer the oversized terrace. It may hamper people in wheelchairs on South Street, but without some kind of ramp they will have no way to enter Benakmoume's shops.