Philadelphia Metropolitan Area Real Estate Law Blog

One of 23 schools set to close at the end of this school year as part of the Philadelphia School District’s plan to consolidate its facilities, community leaders, lawmakers, real estate experts and citizens are all putting in their two cents on the issue of how to put the property to use. Built in 1914, Germantown High covers almost an entire block.

The restaurant industry, as our readers may know, can be fickle. To stay in the business in the long run takes smart investing, hard work, and good business sense. That said, those who follow restaurant openings know that the Philadelphia region has been very active recently with restaurant openings. According to Nation’s Restaurant News, a trade publication, Philadelphia is among the 10 hottest restaurant markets in the United States.

The former GlaxoSmithKline North American headquarters in Philadelphia will soon become the site of a new performing arts charter high school. DeMedici Corporation II, a non-profit organization connected with the Philadelphia Performing Arts Charter School has agreed to purchase the eight-story building for $29 million to establish the String Theory High School for the Arts and Sciences, the first charter high school in the city to focus on the performing arts. Liberty Property Trust is the current owner and operator of the building.

Two historic townhouses on the corner of 38th and Chestnut streets are soon to be replaced by a new high-rise development that will turn the brownstones in modern commercial space. The 25-story tower will reportedly include apartments, church offices and retail space.

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput recently announced plans to consolidate operations at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, close the building currently used for its College Division and lease or sell a large section of the 75-acre campus for development.

Philadelphia’s historic Navy Yard recently marked its 10,000-employee milestone by unveiling an updated master development plan. That plan predicts 1,000 new apartments, additional parks and open space, and more construction and adaptive reuse of industrial building from the Navy-era.

As our readers know, the city has updated its zoning code and is now working to develop 18 district-level plans. So far, three of the 18 district plans are now complete. The whole plan is expected to come to completion in 2035

Officials from Temple University are reportedly working on plans to build a 23,000 square-foot boathouse on a parcel of parkland on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill. The project is unique for several reasons, but especially because it will reportedly make use of a new legal process for reviewing the use of park and recreational land in Philadelphia. Because of the change in city law, members of the public will play a more prominent role in the review process.

At the end of November, the Forum Theater-an old porn theater made obsolete by virtue of videos and the Internet-became one of the last of its kind to die. In the wake of its closing, though, are plans to renew the property that serves as a key link between Philadelphia’s east and West sides.

In our last post, we began to speak about the variety of planning and development activity that has taken place in Philadelphia in the last year. As we noted last time, it was a busy year, particularly with respect to the Delaware Riverfront and district level planning.