Mount Sinai Plan Reveals Mix of Town Homes and Apartments

The future site plans for the former Mount Sinai Hospital were revealed Thursday night in a public meeting in front of Dickinson Square West Civic Association. The meeting was held at Mount Moriah Temple Baptist Church, where the standing-room-only crowd was serenaded by the sweet blend of a practicing Baptist choir and good old-fashioned civil discourse.

As for the meeting, the overall vision calls for 38 new town homes around all four boundary streets with 198 rentals being placed in the existing structure. The plan also calls for 137 parking spaces with all but five of those being located within the interior of the complex.

Plan from Above -- 5th Street (L), 4th Street (R), Reed Street (Top), Dickinson Street (Bottom)

Jeff DiRomaldo, Project Manager and Architect for Barton Partners out of Norristown, provided some background on the "urban repair project" and went over the early plans and designs. The key theme he wanted to stress -- filling the "voids" in the street scape that plague the area. The hope is to construct the town homes as a border around the property that "re-integrate those edges" of the site back in to the neighborhood.

The town homes, priced between $400-450k, will be 16 feet wide and 43ft 11/2  high (four stories), featuring a roof deck and a large, 14ft wide rear loading garage. All in all, the overall square footage comes to about 2,200 sq. ft per unit and that's not counting the basement or garage. 
 

Rendering of Mount Sinai site from corner of 4th and Reed Sts.

While many of the specifics are still unknown, the apartment component will feature an adaptive re-use project of the "newer" area of Mount Sinai built in 1987 and in be in 500 - 1000 sq. ft. range. For many in attendance, parking was the main concern due to the size of this project. 

The plan calls for the site to contain 137 spaces, all but five will be within the interior of the development and that number includes the garages in the town homes. However, as  Developer Gagan Lakhmna explained, the existing curb cuts will be reduced from ten to nine in the process as a different curb cut at 5th and Dickinson will be necessary to accommodate a front-loading garage for those units due to space. Basically, the fewer curb cuts means more street parking. He also mentioned that they drew up plans for an interior parking deck but it would have only given them about 10 more spaces. They will look to have "80 bike spaces and two car share spots" as well. 

People in attendance also lamented the "cookie cutter" design likening it to those seen in Northern Liberties, something that will surely come up in the proposal to the Civic Design Review on January 7th.

Lakhmna also revealed that there will be a retail component mid-block on 4th Street side of the area. Currently, they are in talks with a "restauranteur" who may or may not be Jose Garces -- he's a "friend of the (Lakhmna's) family." That space is around 2,500 sq. ft. and will have a small amount of parking in a visitor's lot off of Reed Street. If true, that could be very cool for the neighborhood. 

The timeline is a little tricky in that they will need multiple zoning variances (Use, Height, and Open Area) due to the entire block being zoned Single Family Residential, which is odd because it's a hospital building. Attorney Richard DeMarco hopes that they can get in front of the Zoning Board of Adjustment around February of 2014 and Lakhmna put the overall time frame at around "36 months" after all of the proper permits are obtained to complete the project if all goes according to plan. 

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While I'm sure you thoroughly enjoyed this recap, I would encourage all that missed this presentation (and those who want to see it again) to come to out to the Pennsport meeting at the EOM (138 Moore St.) on Monday, Dec. 16th at 7pm for another presentation on the future development of Mount Sinai. 

Rendering of the front of the town homes

Take a look inside the town homes

Back of the town home featuring garages and decks