Philadelphia local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes

Tag: South Philadelphia

  • New York developer plans 620 apartments on Columbus Boulevard and an extension of Delaware River Trail

    New York developer plans 620 apartments on Columbus Boulevard and an extension of Delaware River Trail

    A New York developer is planning a 620-apartment development at 1341 S. Christopher Columbus Blvd. in South Philadelphia.

    The 36-story project from Manhattan-based Brevet Capital Management makes use of multiple zoning bonuses to allow a taller, denser project than would otherwise be legal.

    In exchange for those development benefits, the developer will pay into Philadelphia’s Housing Trust Fund and upgrade and maintain the Delaware River Trail below Washington Avenue, where its conditions currently get much rougher.

    The zoning was changed before the pandemic to allow developers to build taller in exchange for extending the trail, but Brevet would be the first to do so.

    “To me the most exciting aspect of this project is that they will be paying for and constructing the waterfront trail along their property,” said Matt Ruben, chair of the Central Delaware Advocacy Group, which has long pushed for responsible development on the riverfront.

    “That’s one of the most important and consequential public benefits a developer can provide” in this area, said Ruben, who has not seen renderings of the buildings.

    Jack O’Brien, who posts in JackPhillyRE’s Substack, first reported the latest project for this parcel in advance of a Wednesday night meeting with the developers before the Pennsport Civic Association. The permit with Brevet executives listed as owners was pulled on July 3 of this year.

    “We are pleased to see the first major investment in Pennsport’s historically underutilized waterfront,” said Patrick Fitzmaurice, president of the Pennsport Civic Association. “We look forward to neighbors safely enjoying the waterfront with the proposed retail and recreational plans.

    The project is designed by the international architecture firm Perkins Eastman, with its Philadelphia office listed, and is called Wharton Piers in plans filed with the city. The developer is represented by Matt McClure and Meredith Trego of the law firm Ballard Spahr.

    Although no parking is required, the developer is providing 187 parking spaces on floors two to four of the housing tower. Over 10,000 square feet of commercial and office space will be on the ground floor, with amenity space on level five.

    A small, neighboring one-story building will include 20,650 square feet of retail space.

    A screenshot from plans filed with the city shows how the housing tower proposed on the right dwarfs the small retail building proposed on the left.

    Previous proposals for the property

    The property at 1341 S. Christopher Columbus Blvd. has had multiple development proposals over the years. Most recently, in 2023, New York-based Silverstein Properties proposed 612 apartments and 500 parking spaces across two towers.

    Before the pandemic, it was the site of a 2,000-unit project that would have spanned 10 buildings. That plan, from Maryland-based developer Jeffery Kozero called Liberty on the River, drew widespread skepticism and went nowhere.

    Kozero’s company at that time, K4 Associates LLC, is still listed as the permit holder. His proposal was met by backlash from the Central Delaware Advocacy Group and other neighborhood organizations.

    They felt that the developer was taking advantage of zoning incentives put in place during former Mayor Michael Nutter’s administration. The overlay along the Delaware was meant to encourage smaller developments on the waterfront — not the mega projects frequently proposed by big developers, including one involving President Donald Trump, who often failed to follow through.

    K4 “tried to warp the entire overlay to allow the construction of 10 huge towers that many of us knew would never get built,” Ruben said.

    Following the backlash, City Council changed the zoning overlay covering the waterfront in part by allowing developers to build taller in exchange for growing and maintaining the bike path, part of a larger plan.

    “It’s ironic that this [new proposal] is the first project that will make use of the new density bonus system,” said Ruben, given that the old K4 project on the same site is the reason the zoning incentive exists at all.

    Until recently, the vast vacant lot at 1341 S. Christopher Columbus had been used as an encampment by people who are homeless. Last December, The Inquirer reported that the property was being swept, with the tents and residents removed, at the behest of the property owners.

    Today, an established encampment instead lines much of the bike and pedestrian trail below Washington Avenue.

    This story has been corrected to make clear that the river bike trail does extend below Washington Avenue and that the developer promises to upgrade and maintain that part of the path.

  • Man in addiction who died in jail was labeled an ‘emergency’ case and should have been given one-on-one support, records show

    Man in addiction who died in jail was labeled an ‘emergency’ case and should have been given one-on-one support, records show

    The 42-year-old man in addiction who died inside a Philadelphia jail days after his arrest in Kensington had been flagged as an “emergency” case by an intake worker at the jail, and should have received one-on-one supervision in the hours before he collapsed, according to records from the Department of Prisons.

    But that didn’t happen, and instead, Andrew Drury died alone inside the holding cell, without having received a formal behavioral health evaluation by the prison staff, according to the records obtained by The Inquirer. His cause of death remains under investigation, though when he was jailed in the fall, he had been hospitalized multiple times from withdrawal-related health complications.

    A spokesperson for the Philadelphia Department of Prisons declined to comment Friday.

    Drury had been picked up by Philadelphia police on the night of March 6, after officers encountered him at Kensington Avenue and Somerset Street, and learned he had outstanding bench warrants related to a drug case in Maryland and a 2022 violation of a protection-from-abuse order filed in Philadelphia.

    Police said Drury received off-site medical treatment over the next day before he was transferred to Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility around 2:15 a.m. on March 8. Police declined to say what kind of treatment he received, where he was treated, or how he was cleared for transfer to the jail.

    Drury remained in an intake room at the jail until the next afternoon, waiting to be medically evaluated and assigned to a cell block. On March 9, around 9:30 a.m., an intake worker for the prisons assessed Drury and wrote that he was experiencing a range of physical and behavioral health issues and described him as extremely agitated and confused, according to the records.

    Andrew Drury, left, and Jennifer Barnes had been homeless and struggling with addiction in Kensington for about two years. Drury died on March 9 inside a Philadelphia jail.

    The employee labeled Drury as an emergency case, which, according to the records, should have required that he receive one-on-one supervision until he could be evaluated by a behavioral health worker.

    Instead, Drury remained in his intake cell for another six hours. A jail guard walking through the area found him unresponsive at 1:45 p.m., and despite administering two doses of Narcan and other lifesaving measures, he was pronounced dead at 2 p.m., according to a spokesperson for the prison.

    The Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office said Wednesday that doctors are awaiting toxicology results to determine his cause of death.

    Drury had long struggled with an opioid addiction, and had been experiencing homelessness in Kensington for about two years, said his longtime girlfriend, Jennifer Barnes.

    In an interview this week, Barnes, 44, said she believes he died from health complications related to withdrawal — something that he has been hospitalized for in the past.

    When Drury was arrested in October on bench warrants related to the same cases, he was hospitalized multiple times, including for more than a week, after suffering a mild heart attack and other issues while going through withdrawal in jail, according to Barnes and a source familiar with Drury’s care at the time.

    After Drury was released in November, Barnes said he was in and out of the hospital because of ongoing chest pains and shortness of breath.

    Barnes said she worried about his health as she watched police arrest him that night.

    “The withdrawal, it’s not good for him,” she said she told the officers. “He needs medical attention.”

    Jennifer Barnes, whose fiancee Andrew Drury died while in jail, shown here in Philadelphia on Tuesday.

    Drury’s death comes as the city ramps up enforcement efforts in Kensington, a section of the city that has long experienced concentrated violence, homelessness, and drug use in and around its massive open-air drug market. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has said her administration would shut down the drug activity in the area and return a quality of life to the neighborhood’s residents.

    But some advocates have warned city and law enforcement officials that the withdrawal effects for people who use opioids can be life-threatening, and that the understaffed jails might struggle to respond to people’s health needs in those circumstances.

    Barnes said she and Drury were both from South Philadelphia, and had been dating since 2012 after meeting in a luncheonette in the neighborhood. They were not married, she said, but wore rings as if they were.

    Andrew Drury and Jennifer Barnes in a photo before they became homeless in Kensington.

    Barnes said she has struggled with addiction since about 2008. Drury also used drugs by the time they had met, she said, his troubles beginning after he underwent a weight loss surgery and got hooked on pain killers. For many years, they were both able to hold jobs and hide their addiction.

    They bounced between friends’ and families’ homes, she said, until they were kicked out of Drury’s mother’s house in 2021 and she got a Protection From Abuse order against him. They’ve been on the streets of Kensington since about the summer of 2023, she said.

    Drury was funny and loving, she said, and helped protect her from the dangers of living on the streets. They had both recently talked about wanting to go to rehab and getting their lives back on track.

    Jennifer Barnes holds the sweatshirt of her longtime boyfriend, Andrew Drury, who died in jail on March 9.

    Since his death, she said, she feels in a fog. She has connected with a friend who found a bed for her at a recovery house in South Jersey, and she hopes to go next week.

    “For myself, and for him, it’s the best thing to do,” she said. “This way he won’t have to worry anymore.”