Even after all these years of former textile factories being converted into apartment buildings in old manufacturing neighborhoods, there are still a decent number of conversion candidates remaining in Philadelphia. The latest empty plant slated for redevelopment is the former Oak Worsted Mills in North Philadelphia, which once manufactured menswear and dress goods.
The two story industrial building at 3408 B Street has been sitting vacant since at least 2017. Years of vacancy seemingly haven’t impacted its structural integrity, as plans from Rola Architects ahead of a Civic Design Review meeting propose to add four floors on top of the building. With the ground floor largely dedicated to the 38 parking spots, 75 apartments will be spread over the top five floors, with a mixture of 60 one-bedroom units and 15 two-bedrooms.
Two other adaptive reuse plans have gone before the ZBA for this building over the last several years, obviously to no avail. In 2017, developers presented a plan for a one floor addition with 28 apartments. In this plan, the first floor would have been dominated by commercial uses, and while the ZBA granted the requested variance, they banned medical use on the first floor for some reason. Last year, the ZBA approved another plan for a for a one-story addition, but with less commercial space and more density. That 50-unit project also has not gone anywhere.
We can see from the renderings, the mass of the new addition will be broken up with alternating colors of paneling and some Juliet balconies along B Street. The CDR board members may have some feedback about the use of black and gray metal siding for the addition and we wonder whether that might prevent approval at the first review. That being said, we’d posit that this project is going to be extremely challenging from a financial perspective and are pleasantly surprised by just how little value engineering has occurred, based on the renderings.
The previous version of this project faced no opposition from the local RCOs or the Councilmember, so we’re inclined to believe that project with more density but way more parking will eventually secure the green light from the ZBA. As we’ve seen with this very site, a permit doesn’t mean that a project actually gets built, especially in the current real estate environment. But we can dream, right? Surely the folks who live nearby would be delighted to see this dilapidated vacant building come back into active use.