Raise your hand if you enjoy getting important emails on Friday afternoon. No, just us? We kid, but today, we actually received a bit of exciting news via Friday PM emails. We won’t beat around the bush, because the Garden Court Community Association (GCCA) informed us that a proposal at 4726-28 Spruce St. is on tap. If you’re not familiar with the area, this nook of Garden Court in West Philly has some fantastic architectural gems, including the West Philadelphia High School that we covered a decade ago (!), and which got converted to the West Lofts apartments. Let’s take a moment to get our bearings before we get to the details.

If you’re concerned that we will be losing an important piece of our architectural heritage, rest assured we should be OK. Unlike the Emmanuel Church in Philadelphia just across Spruce, the buildings to be replaced aren’t going to win any awards. Let’s see what currently sits at this corner.

So what’s in store? A 13-story apartment tower with 170 units, parking for 28 cars and 76 bikes, and almost 40K sqft of commercial space. Per a summary of this by-right project, a $1.8M payment will be made into Housing Trust Fund, which will go toward affordable housing in the neighborhood.

We have to say, we were not expecting something this slick to rise on this corner. The dark brick and ample glass on the street level will give this project from PZS Architects some pop. This entire side of the city is exploding with development, but something of this scale this far south and west is certainly not something we typically see. What a wildly exciting project from our perspective, as no historic buildings will be lost and no neighbors will be displaced. If this moves along in tandem with the plans around the corner at the Garden Court Plaza garage addition we touched on in 2020, this will add 400 new residents and pedestrians t0 the area. Three cheers for density, affordable housing, good design, and zero displacement. Wins all around (we’re looking at you now, Sixers).