Blatstein adds new stairway to rooftop village in updated Broad and Washington plans
Bart Blatstein presented new plans for his massive Broad and Washington project to the Civic Design Review earlier this month. After seeing the plans once, they decided that Blaststein should bring amended plans for the development back soon after.
As a refresher, Blastein’s plans for this corner property include 1,000 residential units, 143,000 sq. ft. of commercial space, 625 above-ground parking spaces, and 25,000 sq. ft. for a multi-tenant offices space. While there is ground-floor commercial space, one of this elements of this project that has been highlighted is the fourth-floor rooftop village that is proposed to include more upscale retail and restaurant options.
Updates have been made to these plans in advance of the Civic Design Review’s upcoming meeting. This development now includes a more prominent stairway for access to this rooftop village at the corner of 13th and Washington.
Concerns that the community and the Civic Design Review expressed about this development previously are in regards to things like this development creating a “superblock,” parking problems and general concerns about the rooftop village.
Committee members of the Civic Design Review have concerns about attracting pedestrians to a village that they cannot see from the street. Blatstein is addressing that problem with this new, very prominent corner stairway to attract pedestrians to this commercial plaza.
The Civic Design Review will be seeing this project again on April 2. You can view the full, updated proposal here.
better. Need some credit tenants to pull shoppers to retail that’s not street level. I’m not going up there simply to drop off dry cleaning or get my nails done.
Now it’s just turning into the Winchester Mansion.
Remember the Gallery. The fourth floor walk up retail will not work here. Philadelphia is not the Italian Riviera.
I cant imagine the city sustaining all these apartments
I do like this design better… now if the rest of the project could just match it, this project has to work because if it doesn’t then the largest urban blight project will have been approved by ZBA. I hope their studies are correct and this ammount of apartments can be sustained in this location.
I hope the basketball court is of collegiate and/or pro size. Not the grade school size courts everyone seems to still build.. The 3 point line in college has been moved back a few steps for years now. Not as far as pros, but the grade school 3 point lines need to go. I like the basketball court they have at the Bellevue. Thats what they should be shooting for with court size and line dimensions.