87 apartments proposed for former beer distributor site on border of Fishtown, Kensington, Port Richmond

The late Philadelphia Beer Co. at 2525 E. York St. was appreciated for its selections that catered to the IPA and domestic beer crowds alike and for the abundant parking available in the surface lot that encased it.

But this sprawling lot in the hazy borderland between Fishtown, Port Richmond, and Kensington now sits in one of the city’s most desirable residential neighborhoods, and that much barren asphalt couldn’t last.

» READ MORE: Mid-rise apartment building is proposed above Chinatown parking lot

If Lark Management, a Lower Gwynedd Township-based developer, has its way, the site will be replaced by an 87-unit apartment building, with half as many parking spaces, and a 7,781-square-foot commercial space.

“Our goal is to have a modern reinterpretation of the city block,” said Eric Quick, director of design at Harman Deutsch Architecture, which is working on the project. “That’s the reason we tap into the four-story height. We didn’t want to block or overshadow or overwhelm the surrounding streets, especially because they’re a little bit smaller.”

Ten percent of the units will be affordable to residents at 80% of area median income — about $60,000 a year for an individual or $84,000 for a family of four. Lark Management is offering these reduced rents in exchange for a zoning bonus, which allows them to build more units on the site than would otherwise be allowed.

The commercial space will be on the ground floor, along with two of the residential units, and the developer hopes for a coffee shop or a “trendy bar or restaurant,” Quick said. Parking for the building will be screened from the street.

The project will undergo Philadelphia’s advisory Civic Design Review on June 6. No other approvals are needed.

The neighborhood group, the Olde Richmond Civic Association, is unhappy with the proposal. At a community meeting in April, few attendees had kind words for it, even though the property is acknowledged as a good place to add housing to the neighborhood.

“Right now, it’s a gigantic asphalt space fenced off and used by nobody, so bringing back some kind of residential use is returning it to its natural state,” said Dan Martino, president of Olde Richmond Civic Association. “But the number of units seems pretty crazy. This is a single-family home neighborhood. We recognize that we’re very popular now, so we’re caught in the middle.”

The trash trucks that would service the rear of the apartment building’s commercial space would have to navigate narrow, one-way Almond Street. The group fears the loading zone will consume some of the street parking, as would the driveway entrance on similarly slender Boston Street.

“The neighbors who live there now are not only losing spaces physically because of the building, but because 87 folks are moving in whether or not they all have cars,” said Martino.

The zoning underlying 2525 York St. does not require the developer to offer any parking spaces. But the plan includes roughly one for every two units — most of which are one-bedrooms or studios.

Quick says they would have offered more parking if it had been possible.

“We’re offering more than the highest parking requirements in the city,” said Quick. “This was the max parking that we can fit on the site with our other first-floor requirements.”