January 23, 2024
Source/DAS Architects
Pearl Properties is seeking to build a 35-story residential tower on Jewelers' Row at 708 Sansom Street.
Pearl Properties has shared new renderings of the 35-story apartment tower the developer has proposed for a vacant stretch of Jewelers' Row on Sansom Street, where multiple historic rowhomes were demolished for another project that never materialized.
The Philadelphia-based developer acquired the property at 708 Sansom St. from Toll Brothers, a Montgomery County-based building company, in 2022. Toll Brothers knocked down five rowhomes in 2019 to make way for a luxury condo complex. That plan was abandoned during the pandemic, leaving an unsightly chasm in the middle of the city's diamond district.
Last year, after purchasing the land, Pearl Properties gave a preliminary idea of what it envisioned for the site, which overlooks Washington Square. The developer said the proposal would be subject to change.
Ahead of a meeting next month with Philadelphia's Civic Design Review panel, Pearl Properties offered a new look of the building.
A project description for the tower says it will have terracotta-colored metal panels with dark bronze trim intended to complement the surrounding red brick and beige buildings. As in the original renderings, the building's first five floors will be a base for the tower above, with a terrace on the fifth-floor roof open to residents. The lobby will have an entrance on 7th Street, where cars will enter a parking lot with 50 spaces spanning the second through fourth floors.
The base of Pearl Properties' proposed tower would be incorporated into surrounding properties on Sansom Street.
The proposed tower would offer views over Washington Square, which is just south of the site on Jewelers Row.
The lobby for the proposed tower would be on 7th Street.
The building's ground floor is expected to have commercial space. The top two floors of the tower will have a pair of penthouses with landscaped roof terraces.
Before going through the CDR process, Pearl Properties will present Tuesday night at a meeting of the Washington Square West Civic Association to discuss the building's design.
The project has garnered increased interest not only because of its location, but because preservationists had fought to have the five demolished rowhomes either protected or incorporated into Toll Brothers' plans, which date back to 2016. At the time the buildings were razed, former Mayor Jim Kenney said the city had exhausted its options to protect the rowhomes and that Toll Brothers' plans had proceeded according to the law.
In addition to the Feb. 6 CDR meeting, Pearl Properties also will need to go before the Zoning Board of Adjustment later this year for approval.
