1900 S. Broad St. bets bigger apartments are better
A new apartment building proposed for South Broad Street would include larger units, after a long period where Philly's real estate market has been dominated by studio and small one-bedroom units.
A six-story, 41-unit apartment building planned for South Broad Street is trying to set itself apart in a Philadelphia apartment market awash in studios and small one-bedroom units.
Instead, developer Max Silverstein wants to offer more sizable apartments.
“There are a lot of apartments being delivered all across town, and the trend has been smaller and smaller apartments,” said Silverstein, owner of Maestro Development. “We see an opportunity in bucking that trend.”
The biggest apartments at the building Silverstein has proposed at 1900 S. Broad St. would be 1,100 square feet, approximately the size of many South Philly rowhouses, and include two bedrooms and a den.
The building is just north of Constitution Health Plaza, a five-minute walk from the Snyder stop on the Broad Street Line, and a bit farther from the bustling commercial corridor of East Passyunk Avenue.
Although South Philadelphia has seen its share of new development and population growth, apartment construction is relatively rare off the Washington Avenue corridor.
“There are lots of buildings across town, but not that many in this little pocket of South Philly,” said Silverstein, who lives in this part of the city.
The building proposed for 1900 S. Broad St. includes 12 parking spaces on the ground floor, and tenants will have access to an additional 35 spaces at an off-site lot.
It will also contain a 2,500-square-foot commercial space, which Silverstein anticipates being occupied by a health-care facility given the proximity to neighboring Constitution Health Plaza.
The building was designed by Eli Storch, a senior associate at LRK, a national architecture firm with a Philadelphia office.
Despite its location on South Philadelphia’s principal thoroughfare, and above one of the city’s only two subway lines, 1900 S. Broad St. is zoned for single-family rowhouse development.
As a result, Silverstein will need permission from the Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) to move forward. A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 15.
A meeting was held with the South Broad Street Neighborhood Association on Tuesday night. Feedback from the meeting will be considered by the zoning board, and members are welcome to attend the board meeting to make additional comments. Although neighborhood feedback is not determinative at the hearings, developers have a better chance of a favorable ruling with community group support.
“Everybody feels that it’s going to be an asset to the neighborhood,” said Peter Zutter, president of the South Broad Street Neighborhood Association.
“We keep hearing from people who want to stay in the city, but they don’t really want to buy a house,” said Zutter. “They want to have kids and rent a two-bedroom apartment or something that’s a bit larger, and there’s just not a very good stock of that available.”
Silverstein said that the deal with a nearby parking lot was made to address community concerns about a lack of sufficient vehicle storage in the building.
The larger apartments are also designed, in part, to appeal to feedback from local residents. Across Philadelphia, neighborhood groups often push back against buildings rich in studio apartments that cannot support families.
“We listened to the community when they said, ‘We want to see the apartment units get larger,’” said Silverstein. “We took that into consideration, and we think that’s made for a better project.”