A single vacant, blighted building can bring down the rest of the block. And when such a building stretches over an entire city block, it's lousy for the whole neighborhood. Such has been the case with the former Mount Sinai hospital at 4th & Reed, closed since 1997. Since the hospital closed, only a small section at 5th & Reed has come back into use as senior housing while the rest has simply sat, looking crappier by the day.

Vacant former hospital

Several proposals have come down the pike for this property over the years, including a plan in 2006 for 201 condos and 27 homes. Last year, there was a proposal to convert the building into 198 apartments and build 38 townhomes around it. Earlier this year, the Concordia Group came forward with a new plan, according to Passyunk Post, to demolish the old building and build 95 homes in its place. That plan has been before the community several times, went to Civic Design Review this month, and will come back to CDR in September. So we're fairly optimistic that this thing is gonna happen.

Here, check out the site plan to get an idea of exactly what you can expect:

Project site plan

You can see, plans not only call for homes on Dickinson, Reed, 4th, and 5th Streets, but also for four rows of homes interior to the project. Also, there will be four little green spaces that are ostensibly for the enjoyment of people living in the development but look like they'll be open to the public. While the project is very auto-centric, with each home having one or two parking spaces, there are two pedestrian access points from Reed and Dickinson Streets, and of course people will be able to walk in via the main drive-aisle that runs between 4th and 5th Streets. The homes will generally fit in with the aesthetics of the neighborhood, as you can see from the renderings from Barton Partners.

Project rendering from 4th & Reed

Rendering, view from 5th & Dickinson. One older building on the corner.

Another Dickinson Street rendering

Courtyard rendering

As we said before, with this project many months into the process and coming back to CDR for a second go-round, we expect that it's going to happen. And we ponder this with mixed emotions. On the one hand, it's wonderful news that this parcel, after almost twenty years of vacancy, will get redeveloped, especially for the neighbors who have suffered for so long. On the other hand, we're a little sad that the project will involve only new construction and won't reuse any of the existing structure. Other projects considered for this site included more than double the density now proposed, so it seems like a missed opportunity.

If we accept that the project will involve only new construction single-family homes, it does seem like a nice enough project to us. What do you think?