East Falls Gets Its First Hotel

The 142-unit Driftway apartment building at Ridge Avenue and Calumet Street in East Falls is also home to the 33-unit ROOST Kelly Drive flexible-stay apartment hotel. / Photography by Gina DeSimone via Method Co.

The apartment construction boom is changing the face of some neighborhoods more than others, but few neighborhoods in the city are totally unaltered by it.

East Falls is one of those neighborhoods the boom has largely left unchanged. But one large project there has made a big splash right in its heart.

That project is The Driftway, the new 142-unit apartment/hotel/retail development designed by Morris Adjmi Architects at Calumet Street and Ridge Avenue.

Residents have been living in the Driftway since January, and more recently, the building welcomed its first hotel guests.

The Driftway also contains a ROOST apartment hotel, Method Co.’s flexible-stay hotel operation. Method founder and CEO David Grasso explains that his company built this hybrid building to meet a need.

The building lobby

“Our three other locations are in Center City, and they do great,” he says. But, he adds, “We know there’s demand for a location outside of Center City from our existing customers, who we’ve had for years.

“And a lot of that demand travels to Conshohocken or Plymouth Meeting or Horsham, where there are other large office populations. East Falls is remarkably centrally located to all of these, including Center City and University City, being right on the on-ramp to I-76. And it has great train service” — the Driftway sits within walking distance of East Falls station on the SEPTA Manayunk/Norristown Line, and a bus route also connects it to the next station northwest, Wissahickon.

“It’s extremely well located,” Grasso concludes. “You can get anywhere in about 15 minutes.”

The living room in a typical ROOST apartment; many of the apartments offer views of the Schuylkill and the Falls Bridge

Flexible-stay apartment hotels like ROOST cater largely to travelers who need to stay more than a few nights. They include businesspeople on extended assignments, people who relocate to a new city and need temporary lodging, and similar types of travelers. The apartment-style units and amenities at ROOST are designed to make them feel at home — or maybe a little bit better.

But Grasso says that ROOST Kelly Drive’s location also allows it to reach an underserved market of leisure travelers who may not want to stay either in the middle of the city or out on a suburban highway. “There aren’t many really good options in the East Falls, City Line Avenue, Manayunk area,” says Grasso. “So we feel like we’re in tune with an audience that is in need of a quality hotel as well as our base of monthly business travelers.”

An apartment kitchen

Method acquired the lot on which the Driftway sits from the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority in 2015. It sought even then to build a development that would serve multiple purposes.

“Part of the plan was to develop a multifamily [building] that would have retail along Ridge Avenue to activate that stretch of the commercial corridor,” says Grasso, “as well as adding much-needed road improvements to Ridge Avenue and Calumet Street that the community was really anxious to see completed.”

An apartment bedroom

Grasso says Method began pursuing this project even before its first ROOST property opened in The Girard, part of National Real Estate Development’s East Market project in Center City, in 2015. As the years passed and the company noted the growing demand for lodging outside Center City from its customer base, he says, his commitment to this project became stronger.

The neighbors get something out of it besides a new apartment building, as well.

“The neighborhood has always been interested in food, both restaurants and retail,” says Grasso. “We are doing a restaurant at Kelly Drive and Calumet Street with an outdoor terrace overlooking the Falls Bridge.” Method is negotiating with what Grasso could identify only as “a great restaurant operator who has several locations in the city already” to run it; he said he hopes to announce who that is within the next month.

Method also wants to land a neighborhood-scale grocer for the Ridge and Calumet corner; failing that, a fitness club along the lines of Barry’s Boot Camp or Orange Theory could go there. One retail tenant that is confirmed is Philadelphia Federal Credit Union, which will open a branch there in a few weeks.

The pandemic slowed the pace of the project, as did the need to redesign after the original design proved unworkable. But Grasso described his relations with both the Redevelopment Authority and East Falls’ two neighborhood groups as being “healthy” and “cooperative.” Both the East Falls Community Council, representing residents, and the East Falls Development Council, representing businesses, worked closely with Method to shape the development.

Hotel guests can also use the residents’ lounge

Guests who stay in one of ROOST’s 33 rooms have access to all of the amenities the Driftway offers its residents. The first guests arrived at the end of February. “We’ve had great business so far,” Grasso says. “The monthly customers, as we expected, are embracing this location. And we’re starting to see the shorter-term stays.”