For roughly 60 years, the Sidney Hillman Medical Center stood as a Modernist landmark on the 2100 blocks of Chestnut and Sansom. You’re probably aware though, that Sidney Hillman was demolished a few years back, replaced by the 2116 Chestnut apartment building. We were happy with the swap of the Modernist building for a contemporary building, but some preservationists preferred the old building. The rear of the property, which was previously the Charles Weinstein Geriatric Center, was left as a vacant lot after the high rise was built and we never knew why. It was generally used as a disorganized parking lot for the last few years, but things have changed considerably, of late.

You can see in the image above, there’s some new construction at the corner of Van Pelt & Sansom the former site of the geriatric center. Developers bought this property for a rather reasonable in the winter of 2016, and went to CCRA a few months later with a plan to build four homes with six parking spots. The community didn’t oppose the plan, and the ZBA approved the project with little fanfare. We now see that the project is well underway, and with the homes pretty much framed out, and we can get a pretty good idea of the massing of the new residences.

High end homes make all kinds of sense at this location, and we’ve seen similar construction right around the corner on Van Pelt Street between Sansom and Walnut. Those homes have sold for prices beyond $2M, and we would expect these homes to trade at a similar number. It isn’t every day that new mansions get built in Rittenhouse, but when it happens, buyers are generally willing to pay top dollar. Has anyone seen renderings of this project or heard more specifics about what kinds of homes we can expect here?