11/12/2019

North Front Street Apartment Building Adds to Developing Corridor

North Front Street has been experiencing much new development in recent years.  The corridor has seen new residential, creative, office, and retail space, recreating a once barren stretch of the street, which runs underneath the Market/Frankford El up to the York/Dauphin Station.  As the surrounding neighborhoods of Fishtown and South and East Kensington have improved with much new development, it has encouraged the kind of new development that keeps North Front Street busy day and night.  Several new apartment buildings are being built along North Front Street, including one at 1350 North Front Street, where eight properties are being combined into one site. This new building is being designed by Bright Commons Architecture.

The new apartment building at 1350 North Front Street will be five stories tall on the Front Street side and three stories tall on the Hope Street side in back.  It will have fourteen rental apartment units. The units will be one and two bedroom units. The top floors will have a bi-level unit. The first floor will have 2,500 square feet of commercial retail space on the Front Street side.  The Front Street facade will have a four-story mural and arched windows. The building will have five bicycle parking spaces and one accessory parking space, accessed by Front Street. The new apartment building is just two blocks north of the Girard Avenue Station of the Market/Frankford line and just as far away from the Route 15 trolley along Girard Avenue.

Redevelopment of long vacant parcels along North Front Street helps improve the neighborhoods of Fishtown and South and East Kensington.  New apartments and new retail, creative, and office space are important for North Philadelphia’s economy, all with easy access to Center City by the Market/Frankford line above.  A colorful mural adds to the creative environment of the surrounding neighborhoods and helps create a precedent that encourages private developers to contribute to Philadelphia’s preeminent collection of murals around the city.  The new apartment building at 1350 North Front Street is a welcome addition to the growing North Front Street corridor in North Philadelphia.