A reader reached out the other day wondering about the activity they recently witnessed at 3423-27 Spring Garden St., very close to the under-construction Dornsife Center. We finally found ourselves in that neck of the woods the other day, and discovered that a foundation in in place for a new structure. Looking at an image of this address from a couple of years ago, it looks like it was a very well maintained vacant lot.

In the past

Current view

From what we can tell, the lot previously belonged to the party who owns the building next door, and it seems that these folks put time, money, and effort into maintaining the lot as an outdoor space. But earlier this year, they lost the property at sheriff’s sale and it was purchased by University Realty. These are the same guys that just built a new building on Hamilton which we just revisited a few days ago.

New building on Hamilton. Hopefully the one on Spring Garden will fit in more with its surroundings

Now, these student housing developers are in the process of building a nine-unit building on this rather large site. Each of the units will have three bedrooms and three bathrooms, and will apparently have stainless appliances and granite countertops. Expect high-end rents even though it’s kind of a shlep from Penn and Drexel.

Maybe it’s just that we’re getting old, but thinking back to the truly repugnant apartments we rented back in college, the idea of granite countertops in student housing still strikes us as strange and maybe a little wrong. Or maybe we’re just jealous?