Hidden Assets
A converted Philadelphia warehouse tackles the problem of urban parking.
When Philadelphia developer Switzenbaum & Associates bought a former munitions depot on the Schuylkill River last April with the intention of transforming it into a luxury condo development called South Bridge, it was going where no other developer had wanted to go.
The 750,000-square-foot building, which was 400 feet long by 275 feet wide, was just too big: Using the interior for living space would make the apartments feel like caves. “Everyone who had looked at the building came up with designs that took out the middle to create a courtyard,” recalls company president Sam Switzenbaum.
But such a strategy would have driven up project costs and reduced usable space, and besides, Switzenbaum had a better idea. The World War II-era structure’s thick concrete floors were strong enough to support tanks, so why not take advantage of them? Working with architects Venturi Scott Brown and Associates, Switzenbaum hatched an $80 million plan to ring the building’s perimeter with apartments, then turn the cavernous interior into a multi-level parking garage.
The building’s 225 residential units will include five floors of apartments ranging from 800 to 3,000 square feet. The developer will also build a row of new, rooftop townhouses surrounding a landscaped common area–in effect, a rooftop park on top of the garage. Apartment residents will drive into the building and up a ramp to a parking space on their floor, while the townhouse residents will have first-floor parking spaces and take an express elevator to the roof. David Waxman, executive vice president and partner with Switzenbaum, says there will be about 365 for-sale spaces. At a going rate of $30,000 to $40,000 per parking space in downtown Philadelphia, that’s a respectable $14 million or so in revenue.
The building will also include ground-floor retail and office space, as well as common areas for residents that will include a gym with an indoor pool, a business center with a conference room, and a walk-in refrigerator box to receive home grocery deliveries.
According to Waxman, the condo units will be priced from the high $200,000s and will offer what he calls “the most amenities at this price point in Philadelphia,” including high-end European cabinets, stonework in kitchens and baths, and teak flooring. Besides the option of parking a few steps from their door, residents will enjoy fiber optic broadband, a den/ media room, and a 100- to 300-square-foot utility room that will provide storage and house each apartment’s heating and cooling system.
Those amenities are thanks in part to the bargain the developer got on the purchase: The $12.6 million it paid represented a cost of less than $10 per square foot. A 10-year property tax abatement on conversions passed by the Philadelphia City Council didn’t hurt, either. But Switzenbaum also credits thorough planning and management. “There are no allowances in this project,” he says. “Everything will be part of the budget.”
–Charles Wardell