Septa’s Germantown Station is located at 120-28 E. Chelten Ave., providing access to Chestnut Hill and Center City on the Chestnut Hill East Regional Rail line. If you hop off the train at this station and walk in either direction on Chelten Avenue, you’ll see a mix of vacant lots with older mixed-use and commercial buildings. But if you walk a couple blocks south to Germantown Ave. and then a couple more blocks in the direction of Mount Airy, you’ll see several mixed-use projects that are either under construction or were completed in the last few years. Now it seems like some of that activity is pushing its way closer to the station with a few mixed-use projects at different stages of the development process.
Let’s tackle the easiest, most straightforward project first. At the corner of Baynton Street and Chelten Avenue, developers are planning a four-story mixed-use building with 32 apartments. Twin homes were located on this property historically, so residential use here is hardly unprecedented. The added density next to the train station is a nice touch, but we’re most excited by the fact that this property is finally getting developed after about two decades of vacancy.
The developers of the 32-unit building also own the adjacent parcel, labeled ‘TBD’ in the image above. That property, 168 E. Chelten Ave., has a fascinating history as it was once home to a club called Hecate’s Circle. In 1970, Philadelphia legends Hall & Oates, then known as Whole Oats, played their very first live show. Alas, the former club was demoed in the early 1990s. It’s unclear if there are plans to redevelop this property simultaneously with the corner, as we don’t see any permits just yet. But it’s quite reasonable to expect that the developers will at some point construct a sister building to the one at the corner. We can only pray that they name one building ‘The Hall,’ and the other ‘The Oates.’
The section marked ‘Septa’ in the image above is simultaneously the most exciting and nebulous of the three properties in question. This sizable property has been vacant for over a decade and was most recently home to a beer distributor. The parcel measures over an acre and a half and Septa is now actively working to find a development partner to pursue a mixed-use project on a portion of the property through its Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) program. A large section will be used as green space, to provide a buffer from the rail line. But the space dedicated to a new project will be larger than the combination of the two properties on the other side of the tracks.
As this is land that’s owned by a public entity, look for considerable community outreach, an involved RFP process, and an extended development timeline. Chestnut Hill Local reported on the project ahead of a public meeting back in March. Even before that meeting, Septa officials were anticipating a desire for affordable housing and senior housing and indicated a desire to find a development partner who could put together a plan that would be supported by the neighborhood. Even though this isn’t in the 5th council district, Septa and said development partner will probably also want to make sure the district councilmember is on board as well.
Septa is currently expecting to select a developer in 2025 or 2026 and refine the project in 2026 or 2027, and isn’t even committing to a time frame for permitting and construction. So we don’t expect we’ll see anything here before 2030, and even that might be aggressive. By the time this project finally moves forward, we’d guess that both ‘The Hall’ and ‘The Oates’ will be completed and occupied, and hopefully those projects will inspire developers to consider some of the other vacant lots nearby. We’re truly excited for all this new transit oriented development, assuming that Septa still has the money to run trains when all these projects are completed.