In January of 2022, the City of Philadelphia hit developers with a double whammy: a reduction of the value of the property tax abatement and a new construction tax. In anticipation of this change, developers rushed to pull building permits to vest their projects under the old, more favorable tax rules. Nearly eleven thousand units were approved in December 2021, the equivalent of several years’ worth of permits. But building permits eventually expire if a project isn’t built, and as you might expect, there are a number of permits that were issued in the waning days of 2021 where that’s exactly what’s happened. One example is at 912-22 Locust Ave. in Germantown, where permits for 43 apartments plus commercial are now null and void.

The history of this stretch of Locust Ave is a bit murky. At some point, the site served as the club house of the Germantown British American Beneficial Association, but other than a newspaper record of a donation to support British civilians during WWI and an obituary notice, the organization doesn’t seem to have left much of a record. Maybe it was related to the Germantown British American cricket team? Interestingly enough, this is the second apartment building we’ve seen proposed on the site of a former club house in Germantown in the last few months.

With the 2021 permits now lapsed, one might expect to see nothing much happening on this block anytime soon. But a sale in 2023 and recently approved zoning permits indicate that indeed, something might soon rise here, after all. Like the previous project, the new project will also include 43 units, but those units will be more spread out in a four-story building. With the plans from Eustace Engineering and Blackney Hayes indicating age-restricted housing, it appears that the units will be offered as senior housing, with a community center replacing the retail space from the previous plan.

The brick veneer along the front facade will match many of the nearby rowhomes, while the north elevation will be clad in fiber cement panels. Eventually, we would hope that another building will rise immediately next door, obscuring the relatively boring side of this new building. Regrettably, the property is owned by the City, so it could be awhile before anything goes up here. Or who knows, maybe the City will be inspired to sell this lot to the same development group and we’ll eventually see a second phase for this project that adds even more senior housing units to this area.

As we’ve seen at this very site, permits don’t guarantee that a project will be built, or even started. Senior housing with a community center would be a terrific outcome for this drawn-out development, though we would expect there will be some funding public funding to secure before the project starts construction. For now, we’ll just hope the developers find a way to clear all the hurdles ahead as we keep our eyes out for building permits.