Campus Apartments’ latest plans for Walnut Street in West Philly come into focus

The new headquarters for Campus Apartments, a national student housing business, got its public debut Tuesday.

The city’s Civic Design Review Committee — a board of architects, planners, and developers who offer nonbinding suggestions for major developments — praised the developers for conducting extensive community engagement in West Philadelphia and altering the project design accordingly.

“The idea here is really to develop a very high-quality building that means something to the neighborhood and is part of the neighborhood,” said Jon Chopp, vice president of development at Campus Apartments.

Campus Apartments is owned by David Adelman, one of the leaders behind the proposed new Philadelphia 76ers basketball arena in Center City.

The apartment building is planned for 41th and Walnut Streets, just off of the University of Pennsylvania’s campus. It would consolidate the company’s many offices in University City into one building, on the second floor of a 12-story tower.

The developer tweaked the building to add warmer design touches, such as wood-like paneling, in an attempt to have the building better match its surroundings.

» READ MORE: A developer in the new Sixers arena is building 136 apartments and new office space in West Philly

Two residential spaces and a handful of parking spaces would be on the ground floor. The project includes 23 parking spaces overall. The 10 stories above will include 136 apartments with 295 beds, including a penthouse level.

Campus Apartments will take advantage of the city’s Mixed Income Housing Bonus — which Adelman mistakenly said the company didn’t plan to use — to build more densely than allowed under the site’s zoning. The company will pay $2,353,593 into the city’s Housing Trust Fund, which is used to back affordable housing projects throughout Philadelphia.

The project needs no zoning relief, and neighborhood groups legally have little influence over its outcome, but Campus Apartments has met repeatedly with the Spruce Hill Community Association, other neighborhood groups, and Councilmember Jamie Gauthier’s office.

“We see the design as … superior to other similar-scale buildings in the immediate vicinity,” said Andrew Goodman, director of equitable development with Gauthier’s office.

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Goodman noted that the developer has entered into a voluntary “economic opportunity plan” with Gauthier’s office and hired a third-party monitor to oversee local hiring and diversity goals. Campus Apartments wants to ensure that 45% of its construction jobs go to city residents, that 25%-to-35% of that work goes to female or nonwhite workers, as well as 13%-to-17% of related professional services jobs.

“We’re appreciative since that usually is only triggered by legislation,” said Goodman.

But Goodman also noted that Campus Apartments had filed the permits for the new tower before Gauthier’s mandatory inclusionary zoning law went into effect throughout much of University City. That would have required that 20% of the available units be below market rate rents, to ensure available housing for people with lower incomes.

Adelman’s involvement in the Sixers’ arena did not come up during the presentation, nor did Adelman himself attend. But one neighborhood representative felt that the developer’s solicitous attitude toward community groups was meant to show that the developer is a good faith actor in light of his larger ambitions downtown.

“It’s very likely they think this will reflect on how they are perceived in relation to what they’re doing in Chinatown,” said Timothy Reimer, president of the 27th Republican Ward. “Those aren’t the highest numbers I’ve ever heard, but considering it’s a voluntary agreement, it’s a pretty good step up from nothing.”