Chestnut Street on the eastern side of West Philly has seen project after project rise in the last few years. This summer, Evo @ Cire Centre South opened to students, and the green space on the roof of the parking garage offers some sweet views. Oh and there's a solid coffee shop on the first floor, too. Moving west, Chestnut Square opened last year on the 3200 block of Chestnut, with dorms for hundreds of Drexel Students and a bunch of new retail. With those projects complete, we look to the other side of 33rd Street to check in on two projects currently in progress.
On the northwest corner of 33rd & Chestnut, there's a new hotel that looks like it's just about ready to get topped off. Remember, we first told you about plans for the Study back in the fall of 2014. Digsau did the design work for this ten story building, which will include 212 hotel rooms, a restaurant, and meeting and banquet facilities on the second floor. It's right on the border of Penn and Drexel, but it will apparently target Drexel families coming in from out of town. This makes some sense, as it replaced the James E. Marks Interculural Center, a Drexel building. But Penn is getting something shiny and new also.
Hill Field was a great place to hang out or toss a football until about two years ago, when construction got underway for the "New College House" on the south side of the 3300 block of Chestnut Street. The dorm will have housing for 350 students, a new dining hall, a conference space, and a meeting space with a huge television. We can't quite figure out whether the dorm is called "New College House" as a placeholder, or whether some guy named New donated a bunch of money and it's been named in his honor. The project will be finished for the fall semester of 2016.
These two projects are changing the face of an entire block of Chestnut Street, similar to the way that Chestnut Square changed the next block over. While Chestnut Square added to the retail mix, it seems the new dorm will look instead look inward. We would have maybe liked to see some additional retail here, especially since the building is replacing a large green space. We're not entirely sure that the corridor needs more retail, perhaps that was studied as part of the project.
And by the way, once the dorm is done, Hill College House will apparently be getting a long-awaited renovation, per the Daily Pennsylvanian. Good news indeed for the Penn's incoming freshman class.