We sure have been busy along the east side of the City, especially along the central part of the Delaware River Waterfront, which is currently experiencing a huge wave of development. We covered many of these projects recently as we made our way through a development tour of the area, but neglected 2001 Beach St. at the time. It was back in the spring of last year when we last visited the sprawling Northbank community, which had already added hundreds of homes to the former Conrail riverside property.

If you haven’t been to this neck of the woods recently, we can assure you that those train tracks are long gone. The Northbank project has been under construction for a few years, and it looks as if the plans are shifting to Phase 2. Let’s quickly recap, in case you didn’t make it through the entire video above: Toll Brothers has teamed with The Concordia Group and D3 Development on this project, which is absolutely massive in scale. Phase 1 called for 387 single family townhomes and 52 duplexes, with the various designs coming to us from the boundary-pushing ISA. Most of the homes that are part of this phase are complete, as construction now turns to the southern portion of the site, where Phase 2 will bring 120 single-family homes, 50 duplexes, and an 80-unit apartment building. Let’s make our way east down Schirra Drive, where we can get a good look at the progress thus far as well as the huge amount of work still to come.

As things get started on the next part of the development, we had to take a moment to cruise around the first phase to get a better idea of how this lonely new neighborhood is filling in. Though the streets and sidewalks are still a bit of a jumbled mess, we were pleasantly surprised by how complete things are starting to feel. Many streets are done, landscaped, and seemingly filled with residents, as there were plenty of folks walking and driving around when we were scooting through. A central lawn offers space for congregating as the landscaping works down to the river. And along the riverfront, there are actually two pathways that run between the river’s edge and the houses: a sidewalk that connects with the rest of the development, as well as a paved pathway that will serve as a future connecting point of the Delaware River Trail.

This is quickly becoming a lovely little neighborhood where there was literally nothing previously. Once the second phase is complete and the landscaping matures, this will be a gorgeous enclave along the waterfront. And while the site is currently a bit isolated, there are plans to extend the trail in both directions, with a push to tie together the loose ends from Penn Treaty Park at Columbia Ave. to the south with Graffiti Pier and Lehigh Ave. to the north. Want even more fun trail news? There are also plans to eventually connect the revamped Graffiti Pier to the Lehigh Ave. viaduct, with this awesome interactive document from Rails to Trails Conservancy explaining the plans for a possible Richmond Industrial Trail. Connecting all the way up from the waterfront to American St., this growing network of trails will only make it easy to get from the river, deep into North Philadelphia and beyond. We are already checking our tires and tightening our helmets in anticipation.