Councilmember Gauthier pressures 4601 Market developer to include affordable housing

The sprawling 13 acres of land at 4601 Market St. could soon be home to 1,240 new homes in six apartment towers, the largest housing development in this corner of West Philadelphia in decades.

Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, however, wants Iron Stone Real Estate Partners to go back to the drawing board and ensure that at least 20% of the units be earmarked as affordable housing. Specifically, she wants those units reserved for households making about $30,000 for an individual, or $42,000 for a family of four.

“I would endorse residential development at 4601 Market because of the site’s proximity to high-quality jobs, transit, and community resources,” Gauthier said in a letter to Iron Stone, “but I do not support building a luxury housing complex unaffordable to those in the surrounding neighborhood on a property heavily subsidized by taxpayers.”

Gauthier concluded her letter by asking the developer to back out of an upcoming mandatory design review session and enter negotiations with the city.

Iron Stone declined to comment on the letter and its contents.

The company won bidding for 4601 Market, and the stately Provident Mutual Insurance Co. headquarters that sits on it, in 2019. The City of Philadelphia had sunk $52 million into renovating the almost 100-year-old structure for the new Police Headquarters.

But the department rejected the idea of being centered in West Philadelphia. Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration relented and allowed police to instead move into the longtime Inquirer headquarters on North Broad Street.

Iron Stone won the bid for $10 million and turned the Classical Revival-style insurance headquarters into a health and education campus that now hosts outposts of Public Health Management Corp., Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and a KIPP charter school.

Last summer, Iron Stone revealed plans for a vast residential development at the site as well. Currently, the Providence Mutual building is surrounded by surface parking lots and sprawling lawns. But it is right next to the 46th Street Market-Frankford line stop and near booming University City.

Gauthier agrees that adding a substantial amount of housing density to the site makes sense, but given how cheaply Iron Stone acquired the site she says the developer should include homes affordable to people who already live in the area.

“Given that the city and state spent $52 million taxpayer dollars to improve 4601 Market before you acquired the site, anything less than an inclusionary housing proposal would be an injustice to the community and the City of Philadelphia,” reads Gauthier’s letter.

During a tour of the campus last summer, Iron Stone said it could not commit to affordable housing at that point in the planning process.

“We really want to get a sense of what our community partners are interested in,” Andrew Eisenstein, partner with Iron Stone, said in August. “I know one project down the road where the community partners wanted to ensure there was no affordable housing. So, we want to get a sense as to what the community partners are interested in.”

Gauthier did not serve in City Council when Iron Stone won the bidding for 4601 Market, and her options for influencing the developer’s actions now are limited.

The project is zoned to allow for midrise residential projects, and the 46th Street Market-Frankford Line stop includes a transit-adjacent bonus meant to encourage additional residential density. As a result, the only community engagement required of Iron Stone is a presentation to the Civic Design Review (CDR) board. This advisory panel of city-appointed planners and architects offers nonbinding critiques of the structure but has no other power.

Developers must meet with community groups before presenting to the CDR board. Iron Stone is meeting with the West Powelton Saunders Park community group on March 1 at the Alain Locke School. Iron Stone then presents at the CDR on March 7.

In her letter, Gauthier argues that the agreement of sale Iron Stone signed with the city “clearly states that 4601 Market must only contain commercial development.” She claims that the company’s zoning application is speculative in nature and didn’t reflect sufficient collaboration with the city “as required in the agreement of sale.”

Gauthier’s office said it could not share the agreement of sale. Administration spokespeople did not respond to a question about their interpretation of the terms of the sale or a request to review it.

Gauthier said she is not considering further incentives to encourage affordable development on the property, such as the property tax abatement for below-market projects introduced last year.

“It’s not clear to me what incentives would be needed on a gigantic piece of public land that already had millions and millions of dollars of investment within it,” Gauthier said in an interview.

Gauthier said she has not yet heard from Iron Stone.