Developer eyes huge mixed-use project for South Philly

A developer that already owns a large swath of land in Southwest Philly has plans to transform it into a 1,000,000-square-foot mixed-use development that’s being marketed as a new neighborhood called South Quarter Crossing.

Cedar Realty Trust, which owns the Quartermaster Plaza and South Philadelphia Shopping Center on the edge of the Girard Estates neighborhood, said it has started pre-leasing efforts for its planned project, reports the Inquirer.

Indeed, the developer’s website has a pretty lengthy marketing brochure available that’s chockfull of renderings and information on the proposed project. Some key stats:

• 1 million square feet total
• About 800,000-square-feet of retail, 155,600 of which is currently available for lease
• 210 residential units; 75 units in one five-story building and another 135 units in a separate five-story building
• 3,402 parking spaces, a mix of surface and below-grade
• 26,600 square feet of office lofts in one building next to residential

Here’s how the current site would change, if this plan moves forward.

Above is an aerial view from Passyunk Avenue, looking south toward the proposed development. The five-story buildings would be a mix of residential and office space.

This rendering reveals a two-way alley between the two five-story residential buildings, with ground-floor retail.

Girard Estates is a mostly residential neighborhood that’s been described as an affordable “pocket of suburbia.” But the large site at 2301-11 Oregon Avenue is currently zoned CA-2, or auto-oriented commercial district, so this scope and size of a project would have to go through zoning, the Civic Design Review, and community meetings to move forward.

• Home is increasingly where the shopping cart is, as big retail property owners retool [Inquirer]
• 2301-11 Oregon Avenue [Cedar Realty Trust]