While the commute from Center City is further than we'd like, the neighborhoods of northwest Philly appeal to our more scenic and geographically diverse sensibilities. The Wissahickon Valley bisects this section of the city and we've spent some time on the western half in East Falls, Roxborough, and Manayunk. We've spent very little time covering the eastern half, which is made up neighborhoods of historic German Township (which included present-day neighborhood, Germantown). In the past decade or so, this area has seen a slow increase in housing investment. Whether it’s simply market conditions, or it’s the purposeful efforts of developers involved with Jumpstart Germantown, Mt. Airy and Germantown, especially the western halves of both, are seeing some pockets of construction activity. While driving along Germantown Ave recently, we noticed an interesting mixed-use building going up at 6765 Germantown Ave.
From our initial glance, this building looked like entirely new construction, but after looking at the permits, we found out it was classified as an “alteration” and that the second two stories were simply added on to an existing structure. A streetview from Google gives a clear view of the before and after of this project.
As you can see, this project actually involved two properties which used to house Germantown Montessori School. In the redevelopment, it seems that the developer divided the two properties and is rehabbing the residential building at 6767 Germantown Ave., with a fresh coat of paint and a rehabilitated porch as obvious improvements.
6765 Germantown Ave will house one floor of commercial and two apartments above it. After doing a little searching one the City’s property search sites, we found that the property is owned by a company called Neighborly Living, which lists its office 6767 Germantown Ave. No information was available as to what was going on the bottom floor of 6765, but we were able to find a listing for one of the two-bedroom apartments, asking for $1,595 a month. All in all, this seems like a quality project for this section of the city. We expect we'll hear about more development in this area in the coming years.