Grape Flats

Location: Francisville, Philadelphia, PA

Client: Onion Flats

Completion Date: 2009

Project Type: Multi-Family

LEED Platinum Certified

Grape Flats is a 70 unit residential project located in Philadelphia’s historic neighborhood of Francisville. Our proposal will be the first LEED Platinum market rate/affordable housing project in Pennsylvania and it will incorporate new and creative approaches to open/community space, storm water management, geothermal heating and cooling, green roof technology and on-site renewable energy generation. Grape Flats will be a model of sustainable, transit-oriented-development and affordable housing for the City of Philadelphia and the State of Pennsylvania. As such, it is perfectly aligned with the principles set forth in Philadelphia’s newly published sustainability plan Greenworks Philadelphia and its goal to make Philadelphia the “greenest city in the country”. This site represents the largest vacant group of parcels in the Francisville neighborhood, requiring a unique development that has the potential to be a catalyst for a larger neighborhood transformation, and we believe Grape Flats is that development.

Our proposal created a variety of unit sizes and configurations, with the goal of providing housing options for a variety of incomes and age groups. It proposes a single five story building fronting 19th street, with parking tucked underneath, leaving over half of the site open for the creation of community garden plots as well as a 13,000 sf. urban vineyard.