» A likely buyer for vacant, blighted YWCA - philly.com

Aquinas president Leonard S. Poncia proposes knocking down the four-story building and replacing it with a 12-story structure with bay windows, 110 apartment units, 4,834 square feet of ground-floor retail space, an interior courtyard, bicycle storage, and 9,600 square feet of expansion space for the Freire Charter School, a high school that occupies the building next door.

"It's a fantastic location in a neighborhood where demand is very strong for residential rental, retail, and restaurants," Poncia said. "It's in an area that continues to blossom."

 

2021 Chestnut Street featured in Multifamily Executive August 2011
(click here for full article)

For a YWCA Annex redevelopment in Philadelphia, BLT Architects went with microsized apartments that allow for efficiency in living, renter affordability, and unit density. The eight-story, 160-foot-deep building, which will be converted into 70 units, only allows for windows at the two ends, so the solution for Philadelphia developer Aquinas Realty Partners was to implement an internal courtyard but then feature as many one-bedroom "plus den" apartments as possible. "The units have all of the functionality and appeal of a typically planned apartment with private bedrooms but can be shared by two young people as if they were two-bedroom apartments," says BLT principal Michael Ytterberg. "So you have a two-bedroom apartment that is as small as 661 square feet without any real compromises."