Hardly a week goes by without a Philadelphia developer announcing a new apartment building with a modern look and some cool urban amenities. So who would have thought that the city's most innovative housing project to date would be built on the Philadelphia Housing Authority site, where a trio of graffiti-covered towers now stands?
The dilapidated development at 44th and Market, known as Westpark, is typical of the high-rise projects that PHA (and many other American housing authorities) built in the mid-20th century. The towers are clustered on the superblock like a medieval fortress and are cut off from the surrounding terraced house district by extensive lawns. Yet despite the immense size of the site – 12 acres – and the height of the towers – 19 stories – Westpark housed only 327 families before its residents were scattered elsewhere.
PHA has spent the last 30 years tearing down places like Westpark – but not to create more housing. Encouraged by Clinton-era policies that blamed architectural form for the ills of poverty and crime, PHA replaced nearly two dozen high-rises with clusters of townhouses. While these houses often made better neighbors, the low-rise developments had fewer housing units than the high-rises and also wasted large amounts of land with parking lots and poorly designed green spaces.
As a result, Philadelphia lost 8,000 community housing units between 1990 and 2022 – a period when Philadelphia's poverty rate skyrocketed and demand for affordable housing soared.
What makes the new West Park so interesting is that PHA has once again embraced density as a solution to the city's affordable housing needs. After initially releasing a plan in 2019 that sounded a lot like the old playbook, the authority changed course and leased the entire site to two New York City developers — LMXD and MSquared — focused on mixed-income, urban-sense housing have specialized.
Instead of building another suburban-style townhouse complex, they want to triple the number of residential units in Westpark to a total of 1,000. To achieve this goal, they will reuse the much-maligned towers and make them the centerpiece of a new community with diverse housing options. And instead of wasting the space between buildings on parking and lawns, new streets will be laid out that will connect the isolated site to the city grid and improve access to the Market-Frankford El stop on 46th Street.
Most notably, once Westpark is completed, Philadelphia will have more, not less, affordable housing. The developers say they are providing 500 units for Philadelphia's poorest of the poor: people who earn less than 50% of the area's median income. That means a family of four with an income of $47,250 or less can benefit from West Park's heavily subsidized rents.
The development team, calling itself Westpark Community Partners, has been praised for similar changes, particularly at the Baychester Houses in the Bronx. Developers were also proponents of West Park-style infill at several public housing sites in New York, where, unlike Philadelphia, the high-rises were never demolished.
Given the complexity of Westpark, developers knew from the start that they couldn't build all 1,000 units at once. They plan to build the project in three phases, starting in the spring with the southernmost portion of the site, a $200 million investment. Phase 1 is scheduled to be completed by 2027.
It is no coincidence that the first phase requires 327 units, the exact number that was lost when PHA completed the three towers. More than half of the units in the initial phase – 190 – will be rented to low-income families. For Councilman Jamie Gauthier, who served on the PHA committee that selected Westpark's developer, it was this commitment to affordability that sealed the deal.
New thinking on public housing
It probably wouldn't be accurate to call the developers' approach a complete rejection of Clinton-era policies, but Westpark represents a new way of thinking about public housing. Not only are developers renovating the existing towers that were once considered irredeemable, but all three are becoming mixed-income buildings where low-income and middle-class residents live side by side. The plan calls for a total of 400 market-rate apartments, including 137 in the first phase.
The development will also be equipped with amenities that would be expected in any pure market-rate complex, including family-sized units, a nature-inspired playground, a fitness center and ample bicycle storage.
These aren't the only features that make Westpark such an ambitious undertaking. From the outset, developers knew they couldn't simply increase density in West Park without improving road access, said Alicia Glen, MSquared's executive director and former New York City deputy mayor for housing.
With the help of two respected Philadelphia designers, Erdy McHenry Architecture and Olin Studio, a landscaping firm, they divided West Park into blocks, creating the framework for organizing the site. Each building, including the towers, faces a tree-lined city street with sidewalks and bike paths. The empty spaces surrounding the old high-rise buildings, designed by Philadelphia architect John Harbeson in 1962, will be filled with medium-sized apartments and several blocks of townhouses.
The developers initially explored the possibility of tearing down the towers, but then realized that demolition would be expensive and that there was still a lot of life left in Harbeson's brick and concrete buildings. Erdy McHenry, the firm that designed the Northern Liberties piazza, plans to replace the existing facades with a mix of energy-efficient materials in a modern color palette of gray and white. By giving the buildings a new skin, the architects were able to enlarge the windows and install air conditioning, a feature missing from the '60s design. Erdy McHenry also put special effort into the design of the mid-rise and terraced houses, all of which have intricately patterned brick facades.
Reconnecting the neighborhood
Perhaps the most noticeable improvement will be the new court, located on the southwest corner of the hilly site. One reason Westpark has always felt isolated from the neighborhood is that its southern edge is blocked from Market Street by the Market-Frankford El, which exits its tunnel at 44th Street and has a wall along it road forms. To get to the train station or the Aldi supermarket on 46th Street, residents had to climb a steep staircase covered in trees. For people with limited mobility, getting to El meant a long detour.
The redesign promises to transform this treacherous path into a welcoming gateway. The architects have designed a large square at Market Street level. From there, residents can access the center of Westpark via a landscaped ramp designed by Olin. The square is also intended as a community meeting point. Since the medium-sized apartment building fronts the space, the developers have reserved part of the ground floor for a small shop.
While the plaza gives West Park the Market Street facade it never had, it will still be a challenge to integrate the project into the neighborhood. Because of the project's crime history, residents of the adjacent neighborhood blocked plans to convert the new Westpark East-West Street into a thoroughfare. That means school children have to take a long detour to get to the local elementary school on Haverford Avenue. Gauthier hopes residents will change their minds once they see the improvements in West Park.
Developers are also treading cautiously because it's unclear what will happen to federal funding for public housing, road infrastructure and sustainability measures once President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The original blueprint calls for rooftop solar panels and geothermal heating in the second phase, but those energy-saving features won't be possible if Republicans repeal President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act.
Given Westpark's proximity to the Market-Frankford El, it's hard to believe the site remained undeveloped for so long. There are several schools, clinics, and a supermarket at the 46th Street intersection, making the area a classic 15-minute neighborhood. West Park could be an urban design trifecta – affordable, walkable and sustainable – if national politics don’t get in the way.