The developers of 4601 Market St., which includes the stately, gold-cupolaed Provident building, are reportedly moving ahead with plans to build six apartment buildings, including an 18-story tower, on the site.
Executives with Iron Stone Real Estate Partners, which purchased the property in 2019, told The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jake Blumgart that the firm is moving ahead with plans to add 1,240 apartments on the site, which stretches west along Market Street from 46th to 48th Streets and north along 46th Street to Haverford Avenue.
The property is zoned CMX-3, a mixed-use designation that means the residential buildings will likely be constructed “by right” with little required community input on things like the inclusion of affordable housing.
Housing has been part of Iron Stone’s plan since they were awarded the bid to buy the property from the city.
Soon after he was elected, Mayor Jim Kenney scuttled a plan to convert the Provident building into the city’s police headquarters and morgue. A series of sometimes heated public meetings followed to solicit public input on what to do with the city-owned property. Kinney moved the police headquarters to 400 N. Broad St. – the old Inquirer building, instead.
Iron Stone won the bid with their plan to convert the Provident building into a health services campus. That part of the plan is almost complete. Public Health Management Corporation will occupy the first three floors of the building and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a charter school each occupy a floor.
The derelict pump house at 48th and Market will likely be demolished as part of the plan to build apartments on the Provident building site. (Photos by West Philly Local)
August 26th, 2022 at 11:08 am
I find it rich that Gauthier, a city goverment official after all, and after the city wasted tens of millions of dollar on this site, calls on the moral fiber of the developers to provide affordable housing. I would ask the city to do their job with the $$ we pay, and leave developers do their job.
August 26th, 2022 at 1:37 pm
This site on 46th Street El Station will be ideal for apartments with walking distance to the MFL 46th station.
See me s to be very odd that it took them three years to give the developers the property to purchase.
We will have my any apartment buildings under construction in West Philadelphia.
August 26th, 2022 at 4:54 pm
Absurd that a public property was not converted to affordable housing in a city with over 50,000 people in dire need of housing for lower income people. Our politicians played fast and loose with this. No reason for developers to criticize Jamie Gauthier–she made sure it landed in their hands, as did Kenney. Both are good friends with wealthy real estate interests in this city. Meanwhile, rents & property taxes are ratcheting up to rates that will drive people out of this real estate playground for wealthy investors, few of whom even live in the city.
August 26th, 2022 at 5:38 pm
A quick google search shows me that Iron Stone Real Estate Partners purchased the property in February 2019 (well after Mayor Kenney’s decision to not build the police HQ there), and then Jamie Gauthier was elected in November 2019.
Perhaps those of you with so much to say about Jamie’s role in this could help me understand how she accomplished that before being elected? Am I misreading the timeline here?
August 27th, 2022 at 7:14 am
This property has an interesting history. I expect it will have an interesting future.
Does anyone know if the ‘derelict pump house’ was originally built for the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane? This hospital was one of the first developers on the site.
The locals at the time had a righteous indignation when the ‘insane’ had more opulent amenities then the local neighborhood did.
A few things in life are assured: death, taxes and indignation.
August 27th, 2022 at 1:27 pm
Consider & Follow the #s:
1. Calculate # of affordable units lost: (WestPark where some affordable will be retained-elderly & new, + UC Townhouses + units sitting vacant)
2. Add value of property going to developers @ bargain prices (WPark-which is FEDERAL LAND) + UCTownhouses (private sale for $75 million after 40 yrs of FEDERAL rent subsidy + construction subsidy + land for $1) + units vacant (e.g. Admiral & Dorset Court on 48th Street-70 families evicted, still vacant – current value unknown)
3. Add the value of the bargain sale of land @ the Providence site (47th & Market), sold for less than the cost to taxpayers who must continue to pay bonds for building renovation, + public dollars that will pay the rent for PMHC’s 3 floors where the City is their biggest client, + the Federal $$ that support Children’s Hospital.
The total says We the People could have paid to build a lot of affordable housing. Score today: Developers – 6 new market rate housing development projects; We the People who need affordable housing – 0
Building affordable housing is hard; it does not cost less than market rate housing but it requires public leaders who commit to EQUITY as the basis for where public dollars go. A scorecard can be done for every new project.
Do we add or subtract the value of a significant change in policy and hardworking, creative public leaders supported with sustained public advocacy? The numbers will get worse (We the People) or better (private profit), depending on where you stand.
August 29th, 2022 at 5:07 pm
North of Market to Haverford, between 42nd and 49th is part of the property in question.
From a country elite retreat, to Hospital for the Insane to public housing towers to market driven development.
This red-brick country mansion was built ca. 1806 by the Italian-immigrant land broker Paul Busti. Busti’s 112-acre rural estate, formerly Mill Creek Farm, was known as “Blockley Retreat.” Busti’s mansion was one of many country homes that gave Philadelphia elites of the 18th and early 19th century a retreat from the congestion of the bustling city east of the Schuylkill River.
September 3rd, 2022 at 11:43 am
I wish black people would wake up and realize what’s going on. This isn’t beneficial to people of color. They are moving us out our community