Spring Arts Point Changing Skyline | He puts the 'urban' back in New Urbanism
By Inga Saffron
Inquirer Architecture Critic
For all their idealistic talk, it often seems that New Urbanist developers are looking to save the world in all the wrong places. They insist they want to create sustainable neighborhoods where you don't need a car to get to work or run out for a quart of milk. But then they locate their utopias in a landscape governed by the logic of sprawl, far from convenient shops, jobs or transit stops.
It's long been known that New Urbanist developments look and perform best when they can latch onto existing infrastructure, like street grids and transit networks. Yet New Urbanists have been oddly reluctant to venture into places where those amenities exist in abundance: the decaying quarters of American cities.
The housing boom of the last decade encouraged practitioners like Sam Sherman to rethink their resistance to urban sites. Sherman, a suburban developer, first experienced his New Urbanist epiphany in 2000 while stuck in traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway. During the time he was trapped in his car, he heard Andres Duany, founder of the movement, expound on his New Urbanist principles in a radio interview. Sherman vowed then and there never to assemble another suburban subdivision.
But it wasn't until 2004 that Sherman found the perfect urban location to try Duany's ideas. His dream site sits in tattered North Philadelphia, at 10th and Mount Vernon Streets, just south of the notorious Richard Allen housing project.
Sherman and his business partner, Lawrence Rust, identified four separate parcels that had been cleared by the city in the name of urban renewal back in the 1960s - and then left to gather trash. A few disembodied rowhouses and the St. Paul's Baptist Church on Wallace Street were the nearest neighbors. But there were also restaurants on nearby Spring Garden Street. The site is four blocks from the Broad Street Subway and a 20-minute walk to Market Street's office towers. Sherman and Rust were inspired.
As is often the case in Philadelphia, it took two years for their New Urban Ventures partnership to win zoning approval to build in a traditional rowhouse format, and to acquire the land from the city's Redevelopment Authority. Sherman had to live off his savings while the project, called Spring Arts Point, stalled. But this summer, when all but one of the first 16 townhouses sold, they felt they had mastered the goals of New Urbanism.
Plenty of new rowhouse clusters have sprouted recently, but few are knitted so seamlessly into the existing city as Spring Arts Point. Though it may sound counterintuitive, the development didn't accomplish this feat by imitating historic houses in the area. Its success comes instead from marrying rowhouse values and contemporary design.
The houses, by architect David Slovic, look modern but act old. You won't find any garage doors marring the street facades here. There's a screened interior parking court, as well as optional rear garages. At the same time, there is a convenient alternative that benefits the larger neighborhood: two spaces in the parking court are devoted to PhillyCarShare. Maybe that's why few buyers have opted for the garages.
While it's important to design responsibly, the developers also spent time thinking about aesthetics. In hiring Slovic, a well-known Philadelphia modernist, they embraced a spare, contemporary look that is only just catching on with New Urbanists. Slovic isn't the sort of architect who uses historical doodads to con people into thinking a rowhouse is a small mansion.
The exterior materials at Spring Arts Point, where a 2,000-square-foot house goes for about $439,000, are as basic as they come: brick, vinyl, and composite panels. But Slovic makes the most of these modest finishes.
He started by ensuring the 20-foot-wide houses were carefully proportioned. Unlike many new rowhouses, which copy traditional window formats, Slovic designed horizontal bands - a modernist standard that helps offset the rowhouse's natural verticality. Although the interior layouts are fairly typical, the rooms blaze with light from the large windows.
The developers found that, as construction costs spiraled upward, they had to abandon plans to clad the exteriors with trendy zinc panels and seamed metal, and instead use vinyl and composite panels. The galvanized-steel balconies and door canopies are the only evidence of Slovic's industrial sensibility. But Slovic and the developers proved their real mettle by choosing the right shades and textures of these lesser materials. The somber gray vinyl, for instance, has a matte finish and was applied vertically. Nothing screams "cheap."
That's true even behind the walls. The greatness of the rowhouse form is its expandability, but unfortunately modern construction techniques often limit the possibilities. The Spring Arts Point houses are designed so they can be enlarged on every floor.
The developer also revived another rowhouse tradition by including four-story houses on the corners. The ground floor is fitted with a separate entrance so it can serve as a shop or office. The development has been so successful that Sherman and Rust will start building the next 25 houses in the spring. And Sherman was just elected to the board of the Congress for New Urbanism.
Altogether, the plan calls for 59 new homes, but there will probably be quite a few more. Hoping to capitalize on Spring Arts Point, other developers are rushing to slip new houses onto nearby infill lots, while buyers are scooping up older homes for renovation. Mount Vernon Street is almost unrecognizable from a year ago.
Call it New Urbanism, but it's still the oldest way there is to make a city neighborhood.
Inga Saffron blogs about Philadelphia architecture at http://go.philly.com/skyline
Contact architecture critic Inga Saffron at 215-854-2213 or isaffron@phillynews.com
Lots of condos to suit your needs
--Earni Young covers residential real estate in the city.
NEW CONDOS IN Center City and Manayunk are nothing new. It is new, however, to find this trendy product in West Mount Airy. It's even more of an oddity on Germantown Avenue.
Mt. Airy USA held an open house at Winston Commons (http://www.winstoncommons.com), on Germantown Avenue at Phil Elena Street, recently to show off the buildings - five two-bedroom, two-bath and a single one-bedroom, one-bath unit - for the first time.
The condo project has been at least four years in the making. It's no easy feat for a non-profit community development corporation to round up $4 million in financing for a purely market-rate project.
Mt. Airy USA executive director Farah Jimenez gathered a veritable village of financial sources to back her plan to convert the historic Victorian building into a mix of residential and retail. Jimenez believes the condo development will be a better catalyst for revitalization of Germantown Avenue.
The challenge now is to find buyers in a real estate market that has slowed significantly from the frenetic pace of four years ago. Jimenez came up with the idea of getting local artisans and merchants to contribute furnishings and art work to decorated two of the units.
Two of the condos are furnished with colorful whimsical chairs and tables handcrafted by Charles Todd, an antique Chinese chest from Material culture, and eclectic lighting by designer Tyson Boles, a Brooklyn, N.Y., transplant who has a studio on Germantown Avenue. Diane Bryman Accents of Chestnut Hill and other vendors also contributed accessories.
Winston Commons is one of a handful of new or substantially new developments that provide homeownership opportunities for households whose income is just a little too much to qualify for government subsidized programs, but not enough to afford the bulk of the privately built condos and townhouses going up around the city. These are the city's teachers, nurses, firemen, police officers, middle managers and technicians whose annual salaries fall between $60,000 and $90,000.
It is a difficult market for which to build given the high labor costs and recent run-ups in material costs, but here are three other projects where the price may be just right for you.
If Mount Airy is too far removed from the bright lights of Center City, check out Spring Arts Point, a complex of townhouse and condominium flats between Green and Wallace streets at 10th. (http://springartspoint.com). New Urban Ventures hopes to complete its first models in time for the spring home-buying frenzy. The three-bedroom, 2 ?- bath townhouses ($339,000 to $449,000) have rear yards and parking spaces. Parking also is provided for the one- and two-bedroom condo flats ($229,000 to $455,000), which are in three-story buildings.
Sherman is hoping most of his buyers will be able to ditch their cars altogether.
Spring Arts Point is located on a major bus route and for the hardier, a 15-minute walk to Broad and Market streets. The builder is partnering with Philly Car Share which will provide fuel efficient rental cars on the premises for residents to use when they absolutely have to have a personal ride.
"It goes to your approach to development as a whole and mitigating sprawl," Sherman said. "Also, eliminating the need to own a car frees up that money to buy more house or go on vacation or to eat out more."
Just west of Broad Street at 17th and Poplar streets, fledgling developer Maleda Berhane is offering plenty of bang for the buck for the six loft-style condos in The Exchange (http://www.olivexchange.com), a former Bell Atlantic switching station.
The one- and two-bedroom condos at the Exchange feature 17-foot ceilings with prices ranging from $219,900 to $380,000. The penthouse units on the fourth floor are bi-level with huge skylights.
All feature bamboo floors, stone counters, the ubiquitous stainless appliances and gated off-street parking.
Francisville is a tough, hardscrabble neighborhood on the rebound.
"There is a ton of development going on in the neighborhood, everything from your single-family renovations to new construction to large-scale multi-family," said Berhane, who also works as a sales agent for Coldwell Banker broker Julie Welker. "It's priced really low right now because it is the pioneer investor stage, but we're starting to see a lot of people who are priced out of the Center City market come north."
A mile farther west, at 31st Street and Girard Avenue, Westrum Development has nearly finished the first 90 townhouses in Brewerytown Square. The development eventually will consist of more than 700 units between Girard Avenue and Oxford Street. The starting price for a two-bedroom, two-bath townhouse at Brewerytown Square (http://www.westrum.com) is $269,900 for a perimeter unit and $415,000 for a courtyard unit.
"I have coined the phrase that 'We don't build affordable housing, we build housing people can afford,'" company CEO John Westrum quipped.
"We have programs now that can put you into a home for $1,500 to $1,800 a month."
E-mail her at younge@phillynews.com; for past columns, http://go.philly.com/young
Buying a home often involves compromises
--It might mean eliminating some 'must haves' and even going above budget
SOMEWHERE IN the midst of their wedding in Milan, Italy, moving from New Hampshire to Philadelphia, and launching a new restaurant on North Broad, chef Jeff Michaud and his new bride, Claudia, found time to buy their first house.
It has been a busy winter for Michaud, the chef in residence at Osteria, Mark Vetri's new trattoria- style restaurant at 640 N. Broad St. Michaud clearly knows his way around a kitchen, but admits to being a novice when it comes to buying a home.
The young couple have a lot going for them. Michaud's credit score was well above 750 - thanks in part to living abroad for most of the last five years. The young chef had only been back in the states for about a year when Vetri called to offer him the job as executive chef at a new restaurant.
The newlyweds were among nearly 20,000 consumers who bought homes in Philadelphia last year, although in their case the transaction won't be completed until May. New homebuyers like the Michauds account for about 10 percent of residential sales in the city.
The development of new units slowed in the past year, with some projects pulled off the market and shelved until the real estate slump is over. When that happy event will occur is anybody's guess.
The one thing economists agree on is that the Philadelphia real estate market isn't suffering as badly as markets in Washington, D.C.; Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Price escalation did slow here in 2006, with a modest average increase of 4.2 percent to $138,000 from $132,500 the previous year. Not great, but it is nearly three times the national average of 1.5 percent.
Those with short memories almost had a cow over the market's modest performance, which is a dramatic pullback from the double-digit growth the market has recorded for the past six years. But those with longer memories - like myself - know what a bad market looks like. And this is not it.
Buying a home remains one of the nation's best investments - assuming you choose wisely and are financially ready to assume the costs associated to homeownership.
"We started out looking at one-bedroom condos in the $200,000 range, but everything we liked cost more," said Michaud, whose primary goal was to live within walking distance of the new restaurant.
That attracted the couple to Spring Arts Point, a new condo and townhouse development going up at 10th and Wallace streets. The three-story, three-bedroom, 2 ?-bath townhouse is vastly bigger than the one-bedroom the couple initially wanted. The price tag also is nearly double their initial parameter - although less than other new homes being marketed in more established neighborhoods.
The market slowdown also worked to their advantage, Michaud said. "We got a lot of options with our house because we were among the first buyers. They offered to make the second upgrade for the kitchen and hardwood floors if you bought by a certain deadline," he said.
Jeff Block, the Prudential Fox & Roach agent who worked with the Michauds, said their decision to up their price limit is typical.
"Buyers often come to me and say, 'The maximum we can spend is $350,000 and we want this, this and this.' But if they can't get that for $350,000 they began to compromise," Block said.
Some buyers compromise by taking some of the "must haves" off their wish list. The Michauds and others are fortunate if they can stretch their pocketbooks a bit wider to get what they want.
Buying a home is an investment - usually the largest purchase you will make in your lifetime. But unlike stocks and bonds where the return on investment is the only concern, there often is more at stake in a home purchase.
Since buyers are going to live in the house, they want it to suit their lifestyles and reflect their economic status. Or they just want a shelter to call their own. Anticipated increase in value often is an afterthought, and even then consumers base their assumptions on short-term market conditions.
Home-price changes are far less volatile than stock values, but individual returns depend on market conditions in local areas. A 2003 study by the National Association of Realtors found that between 1983 and 2003, the average deviation in annual value from national price trends in the top 100 metropolitan areas was only 4.7 percent. By contrast, stock values can rise and fall rapidly - even over the course of a single day.
While it is difficult to predict future home appreciation, you know it's the wrong choice when:
- Every house on a block sits askew - a clear sign that something is wrong down under.
- You buy the only two-bedroom house in a three-bedroom family-oriented neighborhood.
- You ignore common legal precautions such as a title search and insurance before closing.
- The house has been on the market for 12 months and yours is the first offer.
- You buy a fixer-upper but don't have any bucks for the repairs.
- The mortgage is so complicated that you don't understand the terms or the risks involved.
- The home inspector refuses to enter the premises.
E-mail her at younge@phillynews.com; for past columns, http://go.philly.com/young.
FIRST PROJECT RECOGNIZED
BY NEW DELAWARE VALLEY SMART GROWTH ALLIANCE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE &mdash January 14, 2005
Spring Arts Point, an urban mixed-use project planned for a vacant site at 10th and Mount Vernon Streets in Philadelphia, is the first proposed development project to be recognized by the Delaware Valley Smart Growth Alliance (DVSGA), a non-profit collaboration of more than 100 government, private sector and non- profit organizations in the tri-state region.
"By highlighting the potential of smart growth projects to add value to the region, we hope to encourage developers, business organizations, citizen groups and elected officials to strive for smart growth solutions," said Marc D. Brookman, President of the DVSGA and chair of the real estate practice group at Duane Morris LLP. "Projects that will receive DVSGA recognition are those that will help the region to accommodate growth and redevelopment in a manner that achieves important economic, environmental and quality of life objectives."
Jury-reviewed applications represent the broad geographic region, as well as the various skills and disciplines within the land use field, including experience in planning, architecture and design, landscape architecture, engineering, environmental and stormwater management, economic feasibility, development and construction of market-rate and affordable housing, commercial and mixed-use projects.
Spring Arts Point will encompass one full block and portions of three adjacent blocks, all within a five-minute walk of the Broad Street Subway station at Spring Garden Street. The net density is 22 units per acre, slightly less than its surrounding community.
Financial support for the DVSGA comes from the Philadelphia District Council of ULI — the Urban Land Institute, PennDOT, The State of New Jersey's Office of Smart Growth, the State of Delaware's Office of State Planning Coordination, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, Temple University's Center for Sustainable Communities and the Building Industry Association of Philadelphia.
The criteria and application form can be downloaded from www.delawarevalleysmartgrowth.org.
Media Contact:
Susan Baltake
856-616-8311
info@delawarevalleysmartgrowth.org
