1700 Market St

Where 1700 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

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

The typical floor has 984 ft of exterior wall, and across 31 residential floors the building carries 30,496 ft of it in total, divided among the 924 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.63: 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 29.8 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 1700 Market St scores 31 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 35, Interior depth 0, Scale 100, Finance 0 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Most of what it earns comes from daylight efficiency, and what holds it back most is interior depth, at 0 out of 100: deepest interior point 86 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft.

Built in 1969

Philadelphia records this building as going up in 1969, which puts it in the post-war stock.

As a rule, the period when plates got deep and facades became curtain wall: sealed glazing, lower floor-to-floor heights, and mechanical systems designed around a sealed box. Conversions here usually turn on whether the windows can be made to open and whether ceilings survive new plumbing. 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 58% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$360 per square foot all-in across 1,501,047 sq ft of converted floor, or $540.4M in total — about $585K for each of the 924 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 634,535 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 924 homes is $181.8M.

What would have to be true

A $358.6M gap before any grant, $348.6M after the modeled one. The smallest single change that would close it: average unit size 66% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $358.6M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 924 homes finishing at $585K rather than the $197K the model assumes — 197% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $360 to $121 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $10.0M moves that threshold to $574K a home. That is still above the $197K assumed, leaving $348.6M uncovered, which is why the grant does not unlock this one.

Nor do all four levers have to move. For 1700 Market St, one alone would close the gap at:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 1700 Market St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Center City Philadelphia

1700 Market St ranks 93rd of the 103 buildings screened here, against a median score of 67.

Its floor plate is better lit than 11% of them, and shallower than 16% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 9th 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

59th of 65 zoned CMX5 — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

65 of the screened buildings are zoned CMX5. 1700 Market St ranks 59th 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 86 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: 1101 Market St

The screened building closest to 1700 Market St in converted floor area is 1101 Market St: 1,192,353 sq ft over 32 stories, against 1,501,047 sq ft over 32 here.

1101 Market St scores 50 and 1700 Market St only 31, and the difference is a hard fail rather than a matter of degree: the lower one is capped at 35 because its deepest interior point is 86 ft from a facade, past the 80 ft threshold beyond which conversion requires carving a light well. On the money they sit in the same place: each falls short even with the modeled grant. The two stand about 3,000 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 1700 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 1700 Market St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 180 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 1742 Market St
  14 stories · 100% daylit · 131 estimated homes · scores 92/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 180 ft away
• 22 S 17th St
  20 stories · 65% daylit · 437 estimated homes · scores 45/100 (Marginal)
  about 200 ft away
• 1650 Market St
  61 stories · 63% daylit · 1,439 estimated homes · scores 35/100 (Marginal)
  about 320 ft away
• 1701 Market St
  18 stories · 68% daylit · 422 estimated homes · scores 51/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 340 ft away