Over the summer, we told you about an ambitious plan from developer David Perlman to construct new homes on Front & Willow, in the shadow of I95. This location, a short but dodgy walk from the Spring Garden El station, seems like a but of a risky place for any development. But this project, consisting of thirty-two homes, is a bold stroke by a developer with some serious cojones.

Last summer, looking north

Current view

Looking south toward the project. Block doesn't have much.

As you can see from the photos above, lots of progress has taken place here in about six months. It’s actually pretty incredible just how much of the project is framed out. According to notes from JKR Partners, the designers of the development, The Townhomes at 412 Luxe will be 1,750 sqft homes with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, parking, private courtyards and green roof decks. The renderings of the project look phenomenal.

From the south

From the north

Site plan

As you can see, some of the homes will have garages while others will use outside parking spaces. Hopefully though, lots of people will be inspired to walk into town via Spring Garden Street to the north or Race Street to the South. And with the anticipated growth of the Penn Treaty Village neighborhood in the coming years, it should be very easy to get to those amenities as well.

While we would have expected a project like this to get built out in phases, it makes sense that the developer chose to go for all the homes at once. Considering the challenges presented by the location, the homes become infinitely easier to sell with a fully constructed mini-neighborhood, rather than a persistent construction site in the immediate area. Hopefully, these homes will sell quickly and for the right price, and the success of this development will spur additional construction on this block, which still unfortunately suffers from too much blight.

The homes are expected to be completed by the summer, just in time for convenient visits to Morgan’s Pier.