The construction at 205 Race St. (the project is now called Bridge) has proceeded quickly since we visited last fall. At that point, the construction site was basically a hole in the ground and we were pleased as punch, since the site had enough false starts to cover an entire football season over the last fifteen years. Where there was once a large hole, we now see a large building which will eventually include 146 apartments, over 13K sqft of retail space, and a landscaped terrace on the 5th floor. Check it out:
Earlier this week, Philly.com published a story that detailed plans for another project across the street, on the southwest corner of 2nd & Race. Currently, there are a pair of one-story buildings on this corner which have historically been home to restaurant equipment businesses. But no more! Greythorne Development and the Flynn Company are partnering on a project that will demolish the existing buildings on the property and replace them with a five-story building with ground-floor retail and thirteen apartments on the upper floors. Canno Design did the architecture work.
In general, we can absolutely get behind the new building. Five stories and mixed-use are certainly a major step up from one-story buildings, given the location. And from what we can tell, it looks like the architects are attempting to echo the industrial look of other buildings in the neighborhood, so that's a cool element. Compared to most of the buildings nearby, the scale is fairly appropriate and we have to imagine that this project will be moving forward by-right. That being said, it's gonna look a little dinky next to the big ol' Bridge project across the street, even at five stories. Then again, the same could probably be said if it were eight, or even ten stories tall, and we'd say there's a real difference between the sides of this block thanks to the hulking Ben Franklin Bridge to the north.
What do you think would be a good fit for the retail space? At the risk of redundancy, we'll repeat our request for no more coffee shops.