Back in November of 2015, news broke that one of the most prominent empty lots in Northern Liberties, officially addressed as 1002 N. 2nd St., was finally being sold to a developer after serving as a lot that was occasionally used for parking. This lot is right across the street from Schmidt’s Commons (formerly known as The Piazza at Schmidt’s) and just to the south of Liberties Walk. On the other side of the property, there was once a small industrial building, fronting American Street, previously used by a company called Unipro. We’re a little unsure what this company was doing but it looks like it was either light industrial services or wholesale foods, but what’s clear is that they’re gone and so is the building. Take a look:
The developer, HOW Properties, is planning a 53 unit apartment building with commercial space on the bottom floor of the building. Last week, HOW reached out to us with renderings showing the front and back of the building, which will fill out the lot entirely. Compared to the elevations drawings we had before, these renderings do a much better job showing what we can expect in the future. As you can see above, construction is progressing, and we’re looking forward to the results.
While the developer was able to provide us some details in terms of what the building will look like, they cannot yet share who will be their commercial tenant on the large bottom floor. They did tell us that it will be a “national credit tenant” and that they believe the neighborhood will be excited about it. We've covered many HOW Properties projects in the past, including student housing in West Philly, new mansions in Spring Garden, and the conversion of a former police station into apartments in Fishtown. This is their second major project in Northern Liberties, following up another mixed-use building on 2nd Street which has a vet clinic on the ground floor. As they've been big players in the market over the last few years, we're not only interested to see how this project turns out, but we'll be keeping an eye out for their next big development, wherever it may happen.