PHILADELPHIA | The Arbour House @ 708 Sansom | 414 FT | 35 FLOORS

[iheartphilly]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

I don't disagree. They're all great. But they're in the $1MM+ space. These days, mostly $2MM+. And, they're all building in the same exact vernacular.

Again, I think this region lacks a semi-custom product in the $500K-$1MM range. There's a whole segment of the market that exists in other regions that doesn't really exist here. Here, we have very high end custom, then Toll, then schlock.

I've said it before, but there are cottage industries of builders in other regions who buy middling homes in nice towns on smaller lots and knock them down to build custom product in this price range.

We have custom homes on acre+ lots on the Main Line and exurban sprawl. Nothing else. No reason why you can't knock down a middling $350K house on a third of an acre lot in Havertown or Whitemarsh or Wallingford and replace it with a new home for $850K or $900K.

If it can happen in Upper Arlington outside of Columbus Ohio, or all over the inner ring suburbs of Atlanta and Charlotte and Nashville, it can happen in Wallingford which is in a top flight school district on transit 10 miles from Center City.

Sure, you can put and spend however much you want but from an economic standpoint, if you spent 850-900k in a neighborhood in these places, and homes are selling in the sixes, it might be hard to convince a buyer to pay that when you want to sell. Now if the comps are comparable, which in some neighborhoods they are, then that's fine. Personally, I would never do it because it would be hard to impossible to recoup your investment when you are ready to sell when the price of your home is an outlier to the nearby comps.

[skyhigh07]

Originally Posted by PHLtoNYC

You missed my point again. The damage is done, lets build something noteworthy rather than a 300' glass shoebox. Why not something like 56 Leonard, Beckford House, Rose Hill (all in Manhattan), all stunning new towers. (look them up).

(Again, I never advocated for the demolition, this is after the fact).

I don't think I missed your point. My initial point, which you seem to keep skirting around, is the emphasis on "making it taller" over good planning and design. The priority should be on the latter, not the former. I don't see how adding 8 extra floors is going to make a difference frankly. It certainly doesn't seem to be the case in any successful low rise city. A smaller structure might better preserve the historical aesthetic and integrity of the block. Unless your position is to further diminish it.

[allovertown]

Originally Posted by skyhigh07

I don't think I missed your point. My initial point, which you seem to keep skirting around, is the emphasis on "making it taller" over good planning and design. The priority should be on the latter, not the former. I don't see how adding 8 extra floors is going to make a difference frankly. It certainly doesn't seem to be the case in any successful low rise city. A smaller structure might better preserve the historical aesthetic and integrity of the block. Unless your position is to further diminish it.

I agree that I care more about them improving the street level design than adding height.

All else being equal though, give me some height here. It will be set back anyway, the difference between a 300 foot tower and a 400 or even 500 foot tower won't make any significant difference at street level. I always err on the side that bigger and denser is better, even if that isn't the main concern here.

[mcgrath618]

An ugly building is ugly whether it’s 300 or 500 feet. I’d rather something be well designed (contextual, thoughtful) and shorter than tall and ugly.

[skyhigh07]

Originally Posted by mcgrath618

An ugly building is ugly whether it’s 300 or 500 feet. I’d rather something be well designed (contextual, thoughtful) and shorter than tall and ugly.

Exactly! That's what I was trying to say. Thanks for summing it; I was struggling to convey the right words.

[allovertown]

Originally Posted by mcgrath618

An ugly building is ugly whether it’s 300 or 500 feet. I’d rather something be well designed (contextual, thoughtful) and shorter than tall and ugly.

Just to be clear, I agree. If I had my way, the original buildings would have never been demolished.

[City Wide]

Originally Posted by mcgrath618

An ugly building is ugly whether it’s 300 or 500 feet. I’d rather something be well designed (contextual, thoughtful) and shorter than tall and ugly.

All things being equal, I'd rather have tall, then not tall. But things aren't equal. If a building is going to be ugly and/or boring, I'd rather it be short, just so it has less chance to be seen. Too bad there's no way the City can give out points, allowance for being taller, if the design is truly top end----who would decide, City council?! Unfortunately I think there are many of us here in Philly when we get a building like the Laurel, and our attitude is, well at least its not terrible. And it isn't; it could be alot worse, but likewise it could have been alot better.

[iheartphilly]

^
Unfortunately, I can count on one hand how many bldgs in Phily I really like the design and exterior fit and finish of a building. Just have to accept that we don't regularly get first rate designs. When it comes to new construction of low to high-rises, Philly is NOT of the first order in this space. But, hopefully that will change in the future as our profile continues to rise and we attract developers and people in this business that want to put their stamp on designs and have competing signature buildings. We can then all do our ohhs and awws when we stare at these buildings from afar and near.

[PHLtoNYC]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

I don't disagree. They're all great. But they're in the $1MM+ space. These days, mostly $2MM+. And, they're all building in the same exact vernacular.

Again, I think this region lacks a semi-custom product in the $500K-$1MM range. There's a whole segment of the market that exists in other regions that doesn't really exist here. Here, we have very high end custom, then Toll, then schlock.

I've said it before, but there are cottage industries of builders in other regions who buy middling homes in nice towns on smaller lots and knock them down to build custom product in this price range.

We have custom homes on acre+ lots on the Main Line and exurban sprawl. Nothing else. No reason why you can't knock down a middling $350K house on a third of an acre lot in Havertown or Whitemarsh or Wallingford and replace it with a new home for $850K or $900K.

If it can happen in Upper Arlington outside of Columbus Ohio, or all over the inner ring suburbs of Atlanta and Charlotte and Nashville, it can happen in Wallingford which is in a top flight school district on transit 10 miles from Center City.

I have mixed opinions. Vernacular, I assume you mean similar design / inception? The Pennsylvania farm house holds strong in this region. I would like to see more modern takes in some circumstances.

Second: We have a lot more than custom homes on the Main Line and exurban sprawl. Some of the most charming homes and communities in the nation exist around Philadelphia, a lot of which don't justify teardowns. I wouldn't look to Atlanta and Nashville as housing inspiration since they didn't have much to work with in the first place, and a vast majority of their new construction is suburban tract housing. Brentwood and Buckhead are moot examples since they compare to the Main Line.

And Havertown is a middle class community (with a solid housing stock), homes don't sell at $900k price points, therefore its not a lucrative investment, Upper Arlington isn't the best comparison (IMO), not to say your point isn't valid in some circumstances. I agree, you would expect more teardowns and open lot development in Wallingford, Middletown, etc. communities that are always in demand and can easily support those price points. (Swarthmore housing stock is already stunning, so no need there).

But I did do some digging, and while it's not common as you'd like, there are quite a few "semi-custom" homes built in and around desirable communities (excluding the Main Line, and below $1M).

Here is Media: 8 new homes, $750-$1M. https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9253...7i16384!8i8192

Another similar strip of ~8 homes is planned down the street.

More in Media: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9199...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9116...7i13312!8i6656

A new community in Edgemont I stumbled upon "Ventry": https://www.keystonecustomhome.com/f...mont-preserve/

Not to ramble, the Philadelphia area is large, I don't know what is happening in the reaches of Bucks, Montgomery, Chester Counties, but I don't see the lack of single new-builds as pronounced as you state. I found more than I expected in a 10 minute search of Delaware County.

Lastly, while the Main Line is no stranger to very expensive custom housing, it covers a huge area, and I found quite a few single new-builds that are not estates on vast properties, but still expensive because it is the Main Line.

(sorry to take this thread off topic, I'll end my comments here).

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by iheartphilly

Sure, you can put and spend however much you want but from an economic standpoint, if you spent 850-900k in a neighborhood in these places, and homes are selling in the sixes, it might be hard to convince a buyer to pay that when you want to sell. Now if the comps are comparable, which in some neighborhoods they are, then that's fine. Personally, I would never do it because it would be hard to impossible to recoup your investment when you are ready to sell when the price of your home is an outlier to the nearby comps.

There are comps that support these prices. There's a lot of wealth in this region and very good public schools. I found a website recently that shows you income stratification by zipcode. There are many modest towns close in in Delaware County where 20%+ of households earn more than $200K a year. In many places its 30 or even 40%, not even on the Main Line.

In a way, you would need somebody to create the market but what you say would have been true of many close in suburbs of Chicago in DuPage County 10-20 years ago.

And now you have this:

https://goo.gl/maps/5vmDhgYxdNePqLiL6

Across the street from this:

https://goo.gl/maps/bHLUqm7FAJF4rnqs8

Nearly all of Elmhurst used to look like the house in the second picture.

Nobody there says the neighborhood can't support new construction at higher prices.

I mention the towns I mention as examples (Havertown, Wallingford, etc) because there's already a variety of housing stock which sells in the $1MM range in parts of those townships, it's just not as ubiquitous as it could be. But for sure the market could support it.

I'd much rather see some of these close in towns upgrade and evolve than continue to sprawl outward toward Western Chester County.

[iheartphilly]

^
I don't disagree that there are pockets of homes in say Havertown or outside of the Mainline that you mentioned in those prices range. But those aren't the majority of the existing house stock selling at those prices. And, for the established towns/townships with very little land to build new construction homes, you are working with existing housing stock built many decades ago. So, if those homes get an addition or a remodel to upgrade, we still need to consider square footage to determine final price. But from a buyer standpoint, older homes even remodeled or with an addition (equaling to new home construction square footage), aren't as attractive as new home construction to most buyers at the same price points.

I agree you can create a new market for 1MM+ homes in existing neighborhoods that aren't currently in that price range if buyers are willing to buy in the town/zip code for whatever reason they find attractive (i.e., top-rated schools) and do a complete knockdown like the Illinois examples you shown. That happens around here too when people want to be in the Radnor School District or the TE School District. If the old property has land, and people have money, they will knock down the old home and build a new home on it to be in those zip codes for school or other reasons.

What website did you use to find the income stratification by zipcode? I'm curious to see the data myself.

[PurpleWhiteOut]

Getting very off topic. Can we get back to seething over this hole in the ground?

[Boku]

Originally Posted by PurpleWhiteOut

Getting very off topic. Can we get back to seething over this hole in the ground?

Someone posted on Twitter that L&I granted Toll an extension to keep this hole in the ground. Can anyone confirm?

[PHLtoNYC]

Small update. I posted an article in the Broad & Noble thread, but there is a snippet about this project (below). Looks like Toll will actually start next year, even though I don't like their approach, I figured they wouldn't sit on this long, unlike some other developers in town (cough *Goldenberg*).

"Toll Brothers plans to restart its Jewelers' Row condominium project in 2022...The project is scaled down from the original version with the number of condominiums decreasing from 86 to 63 and the height of the building from 329 feet to 307 feet. It remains 24 stories."

"The revised timing of the Jewelers' Row project means it will have less competition in Center City’s high-end condo market. Three other projects that are currently under construction — Arthaus, 2100 Hamilton and the Laurel — are competing for similar buyers."

https://www.bizjournals.com/philadel...Pos=1#cxrecs_s

[summersm343]

Nice! Excited to see this one finally happen.

[cardeza]

ill believe it when i see some building permits. We've heard all this before....

[mcgrath618]

Originally Posted by cardeza

ill believe it when i see some building permits. We've heard all this before....

I think they already have permits in hand.

[Jayfar]

Originally Posted by mcgrath618

I think they already have permits in hand.

I only see zoning permits so far. Construction permits will follow in due course I'm sure.

[Urbanthusiat]

I did see there was some permitting activity lately though I'm not sure anyone noticed it because it's actually for a different property but it's connected to this project.

Permit Number ZP-2021-011660 for 900 CHESTNUT ST, Philadelphia, PA 19107-5008

DATE ISSUED
10/25/2021

FOR THE RELOCATION OF ONE (1) REQUIRED OFF-SITE VAN-ACCESSIBLE PARKING SPACE FROM 708 SANSOM STREET (SEPERATE APPROVAL REQUIRED). FOR NO CHANGE OF USE FROM PREVIOUS APPROVALS.FOR NO CHANGE IN THE NUMBER OF OFF STREET PARKING SPACES.

On the daily zoning report it says

In connection with an existing, approved project at 708 Sansom Street-- See ZP-2020-007212, ZP-2020-002719 -- 1. Provide one (1) ADA van accessible parking space for use by 708 Sansom Street project, pursuant to ZP-2021-011244 and Parking Agreement.

So that's pretty recent, just two weeks ago, so that does seem to suggest they're pushing this forward.

[kool-ski]

COMMERCIAL BUILDING PERMIT CP-2021-005961
ISSUED: Dec. 1, 2021

NEW CONSTRUCTION OF A 26 STORY HIGH-RISE STRUCTURE FOR USE AS SIXTY-THREE (63) DWELLING UNITS WITH ACCESSORY AMENITY SPACES AND A SHELL COMMERCIAL SPACES (SEPARATE FIT-OUT PERMIT REQUIRED PRIOR TO OCCUPANCY) AS PER APPROVED PLANS

Additional Info:
Building GFA (Square Feet): 135,540
Commercial Area (Square Feet): 4,066
Land Area (Square Feet): 12,265
Project Nickname: 708 Sansom
Development Type: Mixed-Use