For over a hundred twenty years, Saint John the Evangelist Episcopal Church proudly stood on the northwest corner of 3rd & Reed. And a year ago, we visited the site as a crew demolished the gorgeous old building, which was coming down in favor of a new twelve-home development dubbed Constitution Court. Though we're generally very much in favor of new construction, we lamented that it was coming, in this case, at the expense of such a great building.
Shortly after demolition was completed, four foundations were poured and construction was underway on the first two homes. By last fall, two homes had been framed out right at the corner. And then, nothing. Work was completely stalled on the site. The reason, according to Plan Philly, is that the new homes were 22 inches taller than was permitted by the zoning variance the developers received. As a result, L&I shut down the site until the developers could resolve the problem.
The solution ultimately entailed raising up the framed homes off their foundations, chopping off the overbuild, and dropping the shorter homes back onto the foundations. At some point in the last few months that apparently happened, as work resumed at the site in April. Passing by a couple of weeks ago, we saw that the facades are finally going up around the framing. With two more foundations ready behind the two homes under construction, we wouldn't be shocked to see additional framing very soon.
You can bet that the next ten homes will be exactly as tall as they're supposed to be, no more, no less. In case you've forgotten, here's what the development, designed by Harman Deutsch, will look like when its done.
