Crossing the Walnut Street Bridge, you quickly notice two of the newer buildings to join Philadelphia's skyline. And really, they're just two parts of the same project.
FMC Tower at Cira Centre South is the one with frontage on Walnut Street and it's more easily identified as the one that's very much under construction at the moment. We first showed you a rendering of this building a couple years ago, but haven't checked in since very early on in the construction process. In the time that's passed, the designs have changed some, and we can now expect a 49 story building with office space for FMC Corporation, 268 apartment units, and 25K sqft of retail space. The building, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli and BLT Architects, will cast a unique silhouette.
Just a block to the north on Chestnut Street, Evo at Cira Centre South is pretty much finished. This building targets students and contains a mix of studios, one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms, three-bedrooms, and four-bedroom units. All of those apartments make our college accommodations seem sad and hilarious by comparison. The building has a concierge service, a pool on the roof (we saw it but thought that taking pictures would creep out the people enjoying it), and will soon have a green space atop the parking garage that separates it from the FMC Tower.
Oh, and there's a coffee shop on the first floor of Evo that just opened a couple of days ago. It's the fourth OCF Coffee House location and it's got a great industrial look and super-high ceilings.
If you want to check it out, we suggest you visit in the next couple weeks. About 150 students are moving in on August 1st, and another 300 are coming a month later. Always a good idea to try to beat the crowds.
Disclosure: OCF Realty is the parent company of OCF Coffee House and Naked Philly, just in case you didn't know.