Center City District releases its housing report, breaking down the new housing units that came on board in 2016, and are in the works for 2017, in the Greater Center City area.
2017 HOUSING REPORT: BUILDING ON OPTIMISM
February 2017, Center City District & Central Philadelphia Development Corporation
A record 2,506 new residential units were completed in Greater Center City in 2016, eclipsing the previous high of 2,168 units delivered to market in 2013 (Figures 1 & 2). As in each of the last three years, large, new apartment projects and mixed-use developments were concentrated in the core of downtown, while single-family homes and smaller multi-family developments spread across the neighborhoods that extend beyond the downtown core, north to Girard Avenue and south to Tasker Street. Since 2000, a total of 20,705 units of housing have been added to Greater Center City, the fastest growing residential area in Philadelphia, and the population has increased by 19% to almost 190,000.
Unlike the years prior to the Great Recession when condominiums dominated, production since 2013 has been heavily skewed towards apartments, with 73% (1,833 units) of new supply delivered in 2016 as rental, the most recorded since CCD started tracking in 2000.¹ Six large projects of 100 units or more account for 73% of all new apartments (1,331 out of 1,833 units) completed in 2016. Five of these major developments are located in Core Center City, activating the sidewalks by adding more residents and retail customers to an area that was primarily a daytime business district two decades ago (Figures 3 & 4).
At the same time, there was a 49% increase over 2015 in the construction of single-family dwellings, with 528 new homes completed in 2016 in Greater Center City; 92% are located in the extended neighborhoods north of Vine Street and south of Pine Street. Addingnew condominiums, for-sa