Garvin Design Group Rendering
Design for 232 State St.
The back of the former Chapel Square Mall will grow by two stories, and a parking lot across from Cafe Nine will sprout a nine-story apartment building under plans revealed by a Philadelphia-based developer, the latest signs of a still-torrid downtown building boom.
The developer, PMC Property Management, presented the plans to the Downtown-Wooster Square Management Team on Tuesday evening at the group’s monthly meeting, which took place at the downtown library.
The apartments envisioned for both projects would be primarily one-bedrooms, smaller than those built during previous decades, according to PMC’s lawyer, Chris McKeon of Bershtein, Volpe & McKeon.
“Smaller units is what everybody wants. It’s less to take care of,” McKeon said.
More PMC on Crown
Emily Hays Photo
Chris McKeon pitches the plan.
PMC plans to build the new, nine-story building at 232 State St. next to buildings the company developed at 38 and 44 Crown St., which houses the Cedarhurst Cafe and housing above. The architects would be the same on both projects, Columbia, S.C.-based Garvin Design Group.
PMC also owns the Strouse Adler “Smoothie” building at 78 Olive St., which was converted from a factory into apartments.
“Their goal is to integrate the existing red brick [next door] to make a nice entry to a more modern building with smaller units,” McKeon said of the State Street project..
The building would host a total of 105 apartments and 28 parking spaces. Because bicycle parking would be provided, the building would need a total of 48 spaces. McKeon said that the developer owns several properties and parking lots in the area.
Downtown renter Miriam Grossman: More supply, but not lower rents.
The application complies with all zoning regulations and does not need variances, said McKeon. However, the application is scheduled to go to a City Plan Commission meeting next month, for site plan approval.
Downtown resident Miriam Grossman asked how much the developers plan to charge in rent. Representatives of PMC said they don’t have a precise figure but plan to charge market rates.
Grossman said after the meeting that she would expect rents to go down when new apartments open, but her experience renting downtown has been the opposite.
“It seems like it’s a race to the top, with fancy new amenities. Older apartment buildings renovate to keep up,” she said. “Maybe rents go down in Westville.”
Hidden Apartments
PMC’s plan to add two stories behind the tower at 900 Chapel Street.
PMC has hired Garvin Design Group to design its plans at 900 Chapel St., in the footprint of the old Downtown Chapel Square Mall. Part of the goal is to provide an interior entryway to existing apartments.
The new apartments won’t go on top of the existing 12 stories that front Chapel Street. They will go on top of the roof of the lower section in the rear half of the block.
The section has one story of 10 apartments now. Residents there must get to the third floor and walk across a roof to enter their homes. PMC hopes to add two floors and a total of 30 apartments over this section, enabling all tenants to avoid going outside on the roof to get to their homes.
“It’s a structure that is not normally known. It is going to be a bit more prominent now because we are raising it two levels,” McKeon said.
McKeon said the addition will not be particularly noticeable from the street.
Anstress Farwell of the Urban Design League asked why the developers did not consider building more floors at 900 Chapel, which already has a 12-story tower.
“It’s an area of town where height really works,” she said.
Anstress Farwell: 900 Chapel’s ugly.
Farwell was critical of the look of 900 Chapel now.
“It’s too bad that that smokey 1970s building faces our Green. It would be wonderful if that got a new skin on it,” she said. “Some more liveliness and feeling of activity could actually help the whole street out a lot.”
McKeon said that the lights in the apartments in the evening might contribute to the liveliness Farwell is looking for.
McKeon’s own office is on the eleventh floor of 900 Chapel and he has worked on its gradual transformation since 2002. Six floors of the tower have been converted into apartments, with views that McKeon knows well.
“900 Chapel S. is near and dear to my heart. It’s such an interesting block,” he said.