As the borders of greater Center City continue to expand farther and farther from City Hall, developers are giving consideration to properties they might have ignored until quite recently. For example, just earlier today, we showed you an old warehouse at 31st & Jefferson which was torn down in favor of a condo building that’s now under construction. Even five years ago, an industrial building was the correct use at that location, but today that’s no longer the case. Life comes at you fast, Brewerytown. In South Philly, we have a similar situation on our hands, as an old industrial building got demoed at 2015 S. Hutchinson St. and a row of new homes has appeared in its place. Check it out:

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View of the block in the past
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View up Hutchinson Street
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Closer look at the homes

We first brought this property to your attention a little less than two years ago, sharing a proposal to tear down the existing buildings at this address and build eight duplexes in its place. But the community wasn’t into the project, and the developers decided to withdraw the application rather than see it through to the ZBA. Instead, they have opted to build something by right, which entails eight homes on Hutchinson Street. When we wrote about the property previously, we mentioned that a part of it goes through to Percy Street and we assumed that the rear portion of the property would be used for parking. And it seems that’s what’s happening now, at least for the contractors for the project.

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Rear of the property, on Percy Street
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Looks like a parking area in the rear

We have to think this is just a temporary condition though, as the zoning application specifically calls out a new building on Percy Street with three levels of commercial use. Clearly, the developers are moving forward with the residential component first and will look to tackle the commercial aspect of the project at some point in the future. Or else they’ll take another bite at the ZBA apple once the homes are built and try to get a variance for no commercial on Percy, but parking instead. Assuming that the community concerns related to density/parking in the first place, we’d think that the neighborhood would get behind such a request.