Developers plan 32-story apartment building in Washington Square

A partnership is proposing a 32-story residential tower on what is now a surface parking lot.

An affiliate of Mack-Cali Realty Corp. is expanding its local footprint and is proposing to construct a 32-story apartment tower on what is now a narrow surface parking lot at 709 Chestnut St. in Center City.

Roseland has teamed up with Parkway Corp. of Philadelphia to build the structure. Preliminary plans have the project with 300 high-end apartments along with 11,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor amenity space. The development will also include a 125-vehicle automatic parking garage.

The project is in the early stages and still needs to go through the approval process.

The property, owned by Parkway, sits between a building that houses the former Union Trust restaurant and a mixed-use structure. It stretches all the way back to Ranstead Street and is on the edge of the Historic District.

Parkway also owns the Union Trust building. While no development is planned on top of that historic structure, the developer wants to combine the parcels as a way to seek an increase in the so-called FAR, or floor-to-area ratio, so it can build up to 32 stories.

There are not a lot buildings on that scale in the Washington Square neighborhood though there are a few. One example is the St. James, which is a 45-story apartment building at 200 W. Washington Square. The University of Pennsylvania Health System recently constructed a 260-foot tower at 800 Walnut St. And, Scannapieco Development Corp. is constructing a 26-story condominium building called 500 Walnut.

With this latest proposal, Roseland is making a big push into Philadelphia, signaling confidence and opportunity in the market. In Center City, it is involved with converting a portion of the Curtis Center into apartments. In the suburbs, it is constructing an apartment complex at 51 Washington Ave. in Conshohocken, Pa., and at 150 Monument Blvd. in Bala Cynwyd, Pa. Its parent company, Mack-Cali formed a partnership with Keystone Property Group on the acquisition of the Dow building at 100 Independence Mall West and Parkway was involved in new 110-vehicle underground garage in that building.

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal