1500 Market St

Where 1500 Market St is

Its block in Center City Philadelphia, drawn from Philadelphia's own building outlines and street centerlines.

The plan: window line, shape and floor rhythm

31 ft of exterior wall for each home the screen estimates — enough for two- and three-bedroom homes across the plan.

The typical floor has 1,363 ft of exterior wall, and across 42 residential floors the building carries 57,234 ft of it in total, divided among the 1,854 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.61: a squarish plan, with enough perimeter for a conventional double-loaded corridor. How window line and plate shape are measured.

At the model’s 750 sq ft average, the plan works out at about 44.1 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 1500 Market St scores 21 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 13, Interior depth 0, Scale 100, Finance 0 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Most of what it earns comes from scale, and what holds it back most is interior depth, at 0 out of 100: deepest interior point 119 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft.

Built in 1974

Philadelphia records this building as going up in 1974, which puts it in the late-modern stock.

As a rule, typically the hardest to convert: the deepest plates of any era, large central cores, and floor-to-floor heights tight enough that running residential drainage under a ceiling can be the thing that ends a project. That is the era’s general tendency rather than a finding about this building — the model reads an outline and a height, and can see nothing inside — but it is the first thing an architect would want to know, and it colours how much confidence the 46% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$360 per square foot all-in across 3,757,372 sq ft of converted floor, or $1.35B in total — about $730K for each of the 1,854 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 2,019,007 sq ft of windowless core, which has to be gutted, re-plumbed and sprinklered like the rest of the building and then earns nothing. Against it the model sets a completed value of $197K a home, which for 1,854 homes is $364.7M.

What would have to be true

A $988.0M gap before any grant, $978.0M after the modeled one. The smallest single change that would close it: average unit size 73% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $988.0M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 1,854 homes finishing at $730K rather than the $197K the model assumes — 271% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $360 to $97 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $10.0M moves that threshold to $724K a home. That is still above the $197K assumed, leaving $978.0M uncovered, which is why the grant does not unlock this one.

Nor do all four levers have to move. For 1500 Market St, one alone would close the gap at:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 1500 Market St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Center City Philadelphia

1500 Market St ranks 100th of the 103 buildings screened here, against a median score of 67.

Its floor plate is better lit than 4% of them, and shallower than 4% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 2nd largest by estimated homes. The full survey of all 103 buildings ranks and maps every one of them, and the list by address links each to its own page.

Within the CMX5 zone

63rd of 65 zoned CMX5 — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

65 of the screened buildings are zoned CMX5. 1500 Market St ranks 63rd of them against a median score of 67. 28 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 58 ft from a facade against this building’s 119 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 30,650 homes. The group’s top scorer is 112 N Broad St, at 93.

Its nearest match in size: 2301 Market St

The screened building closest to 1500 Market St in converted floor area is 2301 Market St: 2,928,467 sq ft over 35 stories, against 3,757,372 sq ft over 43 here.

1500 Market St scores 21 to its 26, and with the size held roughly equal most of that shortfall comes from daylight efficiency: 13 out of 100 here, 24 there (52% of the floor area within 35 ft of a facade, scored from 40% up to 90%). On the money they sit in the same place: each falls short even with the modeled grant. The two stand about 3,600 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 1500 Market St $10.0M, on the assumption it qualifies. Whether it does, no published dataset can say.

That figure assumes the building meets the Act’s vacant-and-abandoned test, which turns on code-enforcement and receivership records no city publishes.

It does not sit in a 2018 designated Opportunity Zone, so it would not draw that Section 201 priority.

Other buildings screened near 1500 Market St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 240 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 30 S 15th St
  25 stories · 91% daylit · 278 estimated homes · scores 88/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 240 ft away
• 1600 Market St
  39 stories · 75% daylit · 702 estimated homes · scores 55/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 340 ft away
• 1601 Market St
  36 stories · 74% daylit · 702 estimated homes · scores 61/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 470 ft away
• 1500 John F Kennedy Blvd
  20 stories · 79% daylit · 431 estimated homes · scores 69/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 470 ft away