Neighbors gathered at St. Charles Senior Center this past Monday, February 26 to attend the first public community meeting for the project proposed at 2401 Washington Avenue. This project was presented by ‘2401 Team’ with lawyer Hercules Grigos of Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel LLP and Agata Reister of Landmark Architects. Also represented is Noah Ostroff of Philly Living.
First, an overview was of the project site was made by the team. The lot is 45,000 sqft along Washington Avenue. The site will be built around the existing autobody and car wash businesses on Washington & 25th. The lot is currently zoned I-2 industrial and is surrounded by IRMX, RSA, I-2 and other various zoning categories in the neighborhood. The site is being designed to the IRMX standard. (See Philadelphia Zoning Guide for more information).
The 2401 Team has met with SOSNA’s Architecture Review Committee (ARC), North of Washington Avenue Coalition (NOWAC), and near neighbors on Kimball Street for additional feedback to bring together this design. The Team stated that this is a work in progress and any input in appreciated and considered.
They are proposing 80 units and 8,000 square feet of commercial space on Washington Avenue. They have designed the project to have a majority of the height on Washington Avenue and step down as you get closer to Kimball.
Mr. Grigos stated a few important aspects of this development:
Diverse housing stock: There are two full-rent apartment buildings, a variety of single family homes, duplexes, condo/flats, which creates price points that improve the housing stock - both rental and for sale.
Affordability: They are reserving 10% of total units to be moderate income/workforce (60% AMI of Philadelphia County, 8 of 80 units). These metrics are in alignment with Philadelphia’s Inclusionary Zoning bill but this project will not pursue the inclusionary zoning.
High-quality materials: The project will respect industrial character of Washington Avenue with brick facades, industrial sized windows, etc.
Commercial Space: 8,000 sqft of commercial space will hold the corner of 24th & Washington Avenue. The team wants to work with neighborhood to find what they want to see there and break it up into a number of different businesses. They stated their intent to to incorporate local businesses and less big boxes.