Over a year ago, we wrote a post titled 1919 Market Should be Moving Forward Soon. Soon being a relative term, this technically wasn't an incorrect assertion even though the site has sat dormant since we wrote the post. That is, it was dormant until very recently when earth finally started moving around. We zipped over there to see the (extremely limited) progress in person.
In case you don't remember, the plans are for a twenty-eight story building with 278 apartments, 223 parking spaces, 108 bike parking spaces, retail on the first floor, and offices on the second floor. Brandywine Realty Trust is the developer behind the project, having purchased the lot back in 2011 for $9.3M. Amazingly, this parcel has sat vacant for decades, ever since the Penn Center Inn was demolished in anticipation of twin to the Blue Cross Blue Shield Building that never got built. A number of other plans have come along and not happened over the years, but it looks like Brandywine is finally winning the race against nobody to develop this property.
Once this building gets built, and it finally looks like that process is moving forward, a long-standing gap in our central business district will finally fill in. Incidentally, it will join a collection of other residential towers that have gone up in the area in recent years, though we don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. Demand to live downtown is clearly at an all time high, and the proximity to 30th Street Station will make this building attractive for people who work downtown as well as people who work in the 'burbs. With the addition of this building and the still newish 2040 Market Street, we wonder now whether we could eventually see the 2100 block of Market Street turn around. Hopefully that will take less time than it's taken for 1919 Market Street to get moving.