As MoreThanTheCurve.com reported on March 18th, SEPTA’s board was scheduled to vote on March 27th to award and enter into a long-term ground lease and development contract with Alterra Property Group for the joint development of the property located at 101 Washington Street in Conshohocken. The vote occurred as scheduled and Alterra was awarded the lease and contract. Alterra was selected from a pool of five developers that responded to a request for proposal issued by SEPTA in July 2024.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the development, which would include 300 apartments, and had some new information regarding the type of apartments, parking allocation, and other potential uses within the development.
From the article:
A SEPTA spokesperson confirmed that the planned apartment building along the Schuylkill would be market rate, with “appropriate parking for residents” and potential space for a small commercial use such as a cafe. The proposal would still allow the transit agency to add to its parking capacity near Conshohocken station, with 119 dedicated parking spaces for riders included in the project. The general public could use them during off-peak hours.
The above quote confirms that SEPTA and Alterra’s development won’t include any affordable or workforce housing. It also reveals that building the apartments will actually decrease the number of available parking spaces to serve the Conshohocken SEPTA station. Currently, due to an agreement with the borough, SEPTA has to construct a surface lot on the property with 125 spaces while the approval process is undertaken. If the garage and apartments are constructed, there will be six fewer parking spaces dedicated to SEPTA.
With the selection by SEPTA of Alterra, the two will need to seek approval from the Borough of Conshohocken. The property was originally slated solely for a parking garage, a partnership between SEPTA and PennDOT. The garage would have served the adjacent train station and a PennDOT plan to encourage drivers on the Schuylkill Expressway to exit in Conshohocken and continue their journey on the train. The request for proposal stated that $27 million in the form of a grant [from PennDOT] is available towards the construction of the garage.
The change from just a parking garage to a parking garage/apartments combo resulted from transit activists and The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board advocating for the plan to be rethought due to the cost and the belief that the area surrounding train stations should be dense with housing.
After initial hesitation, Conshohocken’s borough council voted 6-1 to approve a memorandum of understanding (view document) between SEPTA and the Borough of Conshohocken that outlined how SEPTA could proceed with a process to explore adding apartments into the plan with no commitment to amend the zoning code to allow apartments. The council had removed residential uses within the zoning districts along the Schuylkill River (where 101 Washington Street is located) in 2022, citing public safety concerns and the impact on emergency services.
The rendering at the top of the article is of the garage and apartments as planned by SEPTA/Alterra.
More to come.
Rendering: SEPTA