17-story tower out, 130 modular apartments in for Spruce Hill car wash

A car wash in Spruce Hill will no longer be replaced by a 17-story residential tower. Instead, a six-story modular apartment building will be dropped onto the site.

West Philly Local reports that new plans for 4125-23 Chestnut Street were presented to the Spruce Hill Neighborhood Association last week, calling for 130 prefab apartments at what’s currently a Wash ‘N Lube. The meeting was mostly informational, since the site is zoned CMX-4 and the project can be built by-right.

It’s a big change from the previous owner’s original plans, which called for a 17-story tower with 240 units; a series of bonuses would have made way for the building to be more than three times its allowed height. But after community pushback, the developer ditched the tower plans. Vaughan Buckley will now build the six-story structure.

Vaughan Buckley, which has built dozens of other modular developments in Spruce Hill and throughout Philly, now plans to build a much-shorter, by-right project instead. Although it will not require any zoning variances, it will have to go through the Civic Design Review process.

• A pre-fab, 6-story apartment building to replace car wash on 4100 block of Chestnut [West Philly Local]
• Bonuses could make way for a 17-story tower in Spruce Hill [Curbed Philly]

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Vaughan Buckley purchased this property for $5.4 million. Buckley is the general contractor. We regret the error.