It was about a year and a half ago that we first told you of plans to convert the Annunciation BVM school at 12th & Wharton into apartments. As the time has passed, the project wound its way through the neighborhood association process, the zoning process, and now much of the construction effort. Obviously, there's been a ton of work done inside the building, but the most noticeable exterior change has been the replacement of most of its windows. Check it out:
As you can see on the sign on the building, apartments are now available here for lease. Their Craigslist ad suggests that units will be available by April or May, and anyone who signs a 14 or 15-month lease for one of the building's forty-five units will receive a free month of rent. Not bad. The ad also goes through the building's amenities which are pretty standard, and mentions the fact that many of the units will feature original building details. Very cool that the developers were not only able to reuse the building but also preserved many interior details.
Meanwhile, as the Wharton Street Lofts project moved through the development gauntlet from idea to reality, the parcel next door is at the very early stages of the same process. According to Passyunk Post, Leo Addimando, the guy who developed the Lofts, has his sights on the City-owned surface parking lot next door. Recently, he presented two different plans for the lot to the Passyunk Square Civic Association. Plan A would mean the construction of a five-story building with 34 apartments and thirty-nice public parking spaces on the first floor, down one from the current forty. Plan B would entail a six-story building with the same number of apartments, but with thirty-one public spots on the first floor and twenty-eight parking spots for building residents on the second floor. Early reviews had neighbors complaining that both proposals had too much impact on the neighborhood, specifically with regard to parking. Sigh.
We'll be keeping tabs on these proposals and will be interested to see whether it's ultimately Plan A, Plan B, a yet-undetermined Plan C, or Plan Status Quo. Hopefully it's anything but the latter case. You know how little love we have for surface parking lots.