Foundations Underway At 1801-05 North 2nd Street In Olde Kensington

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Permits Issued For 4245 Sansom Street In Spruce Hill

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Construction Complete At Shepherd Lofts At 314 South 46th Street In Garden Court

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Renderings Revealed For 2552-56 North 3rd Street In West Kensington

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Oh wow what an ugly project. I'm all for adaptive re-use but what a miss from a design perspective. The contrast with the beautiful Georgian rowhouse next door...oof.

See that's funny. I think it's novel and very pretty.

I think the intention is to have it blend with the sanctuary (which doesn't match the houses next door) and not the houses. It can't do both.

^ Novel is a good word. For me it sits in the category of not exactly aesthetically pleasing, but weird enough to be interesting while not so weird as to be offensive. I wouldn't want to see this become a design trend, but I'd stop for a few minutes to look if I happened to be passing.

(Though I would open up the street level some.)

I saw this in-person a couple weeks ago. It looks really good. The cladding is high quality and very textured. I actually think this project and RAY in Kensington should be the standard for cladding wood frame apt complex.

This will be the exterior for Rays Project

It's a bit funky-looking but I don't know that I'd call it ugly.

Ha, my friend lives in that church! It's nice, the reuse was well-done. I can see why it might seem jarring in photos but it honestly all does look great in person. It's a lovely neighborhood too.

I think people tend to forget in this era that cities are the way they are today because construction was quirky, and all types of things were built and destroyed creating a very unique place.

In this generation we tend to try to recreate the wheel that is cities, and that will never work being cities are not uniform structured places.other than the grid it sits on.

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I found the reason why new construction tends to have the "Curvy road syndrome".
It seems FHA guidance promoted and still promotes to this day that grids are a NO-GO. I think thats a very bad policy, and it needs to be reverted.

It's a bad policy and needs to change but it did make sense if you are designing around the car and for children playing in the streets/when the front part of yards were used as gathering spaces. But yes over time it created a lot of issues like in one of my old neighborhoods, where a grid was cut off and emergency vehicles had to go all the way around to enter the other part of the neighborhood, adding unnecessary and what can be crucial minutes to their travel.

23 PROJECTS TO WATCH
Billions of dollars in new development will shape the region for years to come
https://www.bizjournals.com/philadel...-projects.html

CITY
The Bellevue
New Morgan Lewis building
Parkway Corp.’s 31-story Center City apartment tower
1706-10 Walnut St.
76ers’ proposed arena at Fashion District
Jefferson Health Specialty Care Pavilion
Durst developments along Delaware River
501 N. Christopher Columbus Blvd.
Capping I-95 at Penn's Landing
Navy Yard
Bellwether District
Lower Schuylkill Biotech Campus
1001 S. Broad St.
Schuylkill Yards: 3151 Market St. and 3025 John F. Kennedy Blvd.
Pennovation Works
Gattuso and Drexel's 3201 Cuthbert St.

REGION
Cooper University Health Care's Camden expansion
Mall conversions
MLP Ventures expanding King of Prussia life sciences
Keystone Trade Center
Wilmington’s Avenue North
SEPTA King of Prussia Rail sites
Atlantic City’s Bader Field

VTV Construction Update

Hey y'all, Ive been real busy putting stuff together so sorry I haven't been posting more pics and drone shots, however I do have this video I just put together for the 36-38 S 2nd st project in old city, what do you guys think? if y'all like it ill continue to make these.

• Video Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBPLpPGu_kE

Love it, thank you for posting.

2nd that, appreciate the update

I grew up on a perfectly rectangular 1/8 mile by 1/16 mile grid and played in the streets, hung out in the front yard and traffic was not an issue. You could see cars coming half a block away, get off the street, and resume playing after they passed.

FHA regs make traffic more dangerous by funneling the same #of cars onto fewer roads and making people drive longer distances to get where they're going.

It was for speed control, curvy streets slowed cars down. And not being connected reduced the amount of cars using neighborhoods as cut throughs and kept the traffic to destination traffic.

We see the flaws in this now but it's not like it was illogical at the time when cars were gigantic and just becoming a main part of life.

Paul Levy to step down as Center City District president and CEO after 33 years
https://www.bizjournals.com/philadel...Pos=0#cxrecs_s

Paul Levy will step down as president and CEO of Center City District at the end of 2023, closing out a 33-year run leading the organization.

Prema Katari Gupta, CCD's vice president for parks and public realm, will replace him in both roles effective Jan. 1, 2024.