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Zoning variance approved for Broad St. apartments

The Zoning Board approved a developer’s request to add a green roof to the apartment building that will replace the Third Regiment Armory.

The old Third Regiment Armory on South Broad Street, with its Frank Sinatra mural, will be torn down to make room for a six-story apartment building with environmentally friendly features. (Tom Gralish/Staff)
The old Third Regiment Armory on South Broad Street, with its Frank Sinatra mural, will be torn down to make room for a six-story apartment building with environmentally friendly features. (Tom Gralish/Staff)Read more
    by BY DAVID GAMBACORTA, Daily News Staff Writer <a href="mailto:gambacd@phillynews.com">gambacd@phillynews.com</a>, 215-854-5994
    Published 

THE SLEEK, six-story apartment building that soon will replace the old Third Regiment Armory in South Philly will have some environmentally friendly additions.

The Zoning Board of Adjustment last week granted a variance that will allow for a 10,000-square-foot green roof atop the building, on Broad Street near Wharton, said Vincent Mancini of Landmark Architectural Design, which crafted the eye-catching vision of the new apartments.

The board also approved permeable paving for the parking area, which will have 52 spaces.

"It's part of our water-management system," Mancini said. "The paving will be porous, which will allow stormwater to go through it."

There was some talk that developer Michael Carosella, who bought the armory earlier this year from the Tolentine Community Center and Development Corp., would seek the zoning board's approval to add commercial space on the ground floor of the property.

But Mancini said the developer will instead file a separate application down the road - if a potential tenant can be found.

"We like the idea of ground-floor-commercial [space], but no tenants have come to the surface so far," he said.

Demolition of the 127-year-old armory, which once housed a volunteer militia founded by Benjamin Franklin, likely will be finished by the end of October.

Work was delayed over the summer as the developer dealt with more-stringent demolition policies and procedures that city officials implemented after a partially torn-down building collapsed in June at 22nd and Market streets in Center City, killing six people.

"We had significant hurdles to jump through," Mancini said, "but we always intended to do this diligently."

Work on the new building should be finished by Christmas 2014, he added.

The hulking armory building, known by passers-by for a Frank Sinatra mural that stretched across its south end, fell into deeper levels of dilapidation in recent years.

Tolentine spent about $500,000 of its own money on repairs after purchasing the property from the state in 2003. But keeping up with the ever-worsening level of decay proved to be an impossible task.