It looks like North Broad Street will soon get another residential tower. We saw Morgan Hall arrive on the scene in 2013, and the 27-story building at Cecil B. Moore Ave. now houses hundreds of Temple undergrads. While the Divine Lorraine isn't a new building, its renovation is nearing completion and there's a waiting list for apartments in this building which was sitting empty and blighted for decades. In between Morgan Hall and the Divine Lorraine, developers are now eyeing 1324 N. Broad St. for another building and the CDR plans show us exactly what we can expect.
According to a story from the Temple News, the Freedom Theatre had been using the one story building at this address for storage but sold it off about a year ago for $2.2M. Nice work by them. The new owners are looking to demolish the building now on the site and construct a 17-story tower with 180 apartments, 13 parking spaces accessed from Carlisle Street, and a bilevel retail space on Broad Street. Cecil Baker + Partners did the design work for the project, and some renderings follow:
This project went to CDR today and goes to the ZBA tomorrow, and we assume that it will likely move forward. We'd think that the project will target Temple students, but it's also possible it will attract young professionals looking to take advantage of the relative proximity to Center City and easy subway access. As North Broad Street continues to take positive steps, more and more non-students could look to live here, even though it's quite close to Temple.
Speaking of positive steps for North Broad Street, has anyone heard any updates about the Legendary Blue Horizon boxing gym next door? Last we heard, maybe a year and a half ago, a hotel proposal for this historic building was on hold, pending funding. The exterior of the building has been designated as historic, and we see that permits were most recently updated this past spring. Could a renovation and and addition be close on the "horizon"?
See what we did there?