12 New Philly Real Estate Projects to Dream On
From sprawling life-sciences complexes to a face-lift for 30th Street Station to downtown-redefining highway-cap parks, here are the projects we’re unabashedly excited about.
From parks to a face-life for 30th Street Station, these upcoming real estate development projects make us hopeful for Philadelphia’s future.
Any discussion about development in Philadelphia eventually ends up at the elephant in the room: 76 Place, the proposed downtown basketball arena that is, depending on your perspective, either a game-changer or a world-ender. But lo! There’s a whole city full of other, less contentious development projects to get excited about. From sprawling life-sciences complexes to a face-lift for 30th Street Station to downtown-redefining highway-cap parks, here are 12 projects we’re unabashedly excited about.
1. RiverMark Northern Liberties
501 North Columbus Boulevard
What it is: A mixed-use complex at the former Festival Pier site consisting of two main buildings that will house a total of 470 apartments.
Why it’s cool: Thanks to Philadelphia’s Percent for Art ordinance, the site may include a proposed 60-foot sculptural installation called River Soundings that would be visible from New Jersey.
ETA: Fall/winter 2024.
2. 30th Street Station Redesign
30th and Market streets
Rendering courtesy of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) / Daroff Design
What it is: A $550 million interior and exterior renovation of William H. Gray III 30th Street Station, meant to create a more welcoming experience (and better food!) while preserving the architectural grandeur.
Why it’s cool: Amtrak’s third-busiest hub will keep pace with its NYC and D.C. counterparts. Plus, they’re ditching part of that nightmarish ring road for a farmers’ market.
ETA: Set to wrap by October 2027.
3. I-676 Cap Park
The Vine Street Expressway between 10th and 13th streets
What it is: A two-and-a-half-block cover of green space over the Vine Street Expressway canyon between 10th and 13th streets. The city has requested $160 million from the feds to complete the project.
Why it’s cool: Chinatown has long borne the brunt of Philly’s urban-planning misadventures. This could be a salve.
ETA: 2030 at the earliest.
4. I-95 Cap Park
Old City to the Delaware River between Walnut and Chestnut streets
Rendering courtesy of Hargreaves Jones
What it is: A nearly 12-acre, $329 million green-space-rich highway cover that will reconnect the city to the waterfront.
Why it’s cool: Unlike the inferior covered area it replaces, this will extend over I-95 and Columbus Boulevard, making it possible for folks to stroll jauntily to the waterfront. The plan also includes a sorely needed new South Street pedestrian bridge.
ETA: Under construction now; due in 2028.
5. The Bellwether District
The vast expanse between I-76 and the Schuylkill in Southwest Philadelphia
Rendering courtesy of Hilco Redevelopment Partners
What it is: A 1,300-acre property that may eventually house a warehouse and truck-bay complex next to a life-sciences and e-commerce office park in South Philly.
Why it’s cool: After one of the nation’s biggest oil refineries (and the city’s largest source of air pollution) suffered a major explosion here in 2019, this offers a new direction for the area.
ETA: The project is expected to take 10 to 15 years to complete.
6. Parkside-Cynwyd Trail
Between the Cynwyd and Bala SEPTA stations
SALT Design Studio/Newel Tereska & MacKay Engineering
What it is: An extension of the Main Line’s Cynwyd Heritage Trail that will run along SEPTA Regional Rail’s Cynwyd Line and connect the bike-and-foot path to neighboring West Philly.
Why it’s cool: In 2015, the reopening of the Manayunk Bridge connected the other end of the Cynwyd Heritage Trail to Manayunk, meaning that in theory, we’ll soon be able to walk the trail all the way there from the Bala Station.
ETA: TBD, but work on the extension has already begun.
7. North Station District
2900 North Broad Street
Mixed-use real estate development North Station District / Rendering courtesy of Coscia Moos Architecture
What it is: A mixed-use five-acre project on Amtrak property along North Broad, meant to revitalize the North Philadelphia train station and Temple’s medical complex.
Why it’s cool: It has committed to “social impact development” to give the community a role in shaping the result. One of the firms attached is former Eagle Jamar Adams’s Essence Development.
ETA: TBD.
8. Budd Bioworks
2450 West Hunting Park Avenue
What it is: At the site of North Philly’s former Budd manufacturing campus, a 2.5-million-square-foot, three-building proposed life-sciences and residential complex helmed by New York’s Plymouth Group, which bought the property in 2019.
Why it’s cool: The space is uniquely equipped for manufacturing. Bringing such jobs back to this facility would be a boon for the neighborhood.
ETA: TBD.
9. Graffiti Pier
Pier 18
What it is: A park on the waterfront in Port Richmond with a preservationist slant: It will maintain the outdoor street-art gallery that gave it the name “Graffiti Pier.”
Why it’s cool: Graffiti Pier is a public-art treasure, and one well worth making accessible to everyone.
ETA: TBD.
10. Schuylkill Yards
Market Street and JFK Boulevard between the Schuylkill River and 32nd Street
What it is: A massive collaboration between Drexel University and Brandywine Realty Trust that will house, among many other things, the headquarters of Philly-grown Spark Therapeutics, which opened in the Bulletin Building in 2020. (Spark is also building Gene Therapy Innovation Center—not a part of Schuylkill Yards—nearby on Drexel’s campus.)
Why it’s cool: Joining the renovated Bulletin Building (capped by an already unmissable neon SCHUYLKILL YARDS sign) and the 1.3-acre Drexel Square public park, is a recently completed 28-story mixed-use tower on JFK Boulevard.
ETA: Ongoing. Tenants will start moving into a completing-soon life-sciences building at 3151 Market Street in early 2025.
11. One Thousand One
1001 South Broad Street
Real estate development rendering: One Thousand One / Image courtesy of BKV Group
What it is: A collab between Post Brothers and Bart Blatstein that will turn a whole city block at the corner of Washington Avenue and Broad Street into a 15-story, 1,111-unit megaproject.
Why it’s cool: Urbanists like the current plan after balking at the controversial original design.
ETA: To be built in three phases and completed in 2026.
12. AVE Navy Yard
4747 South Broad Street
Real estate development rendering: AVE Navy Yard / Rendering courtesy of Korman Communities
What it is: The first new residential development in Philadelphia’s Navy Yard.
Why it’s cool: People haven’t lived at the Navy Yard since the base closed in 1996. And 92 out of 614 apartments are designated deed-restricted workforce and affordable-housing units.
ETA: 2025.
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Published as “A Dozen City Projects to Dream On” in the April 2024 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
This story has been updated to clarify that Spark Therapeutics’ headquarters is part of the Schuylkill Yards project, and that its forthcoming innovation center will be nearby on Drexel’s campus.
