2300 Chestnut St

Where 2300 Chestnut 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

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

The typical floor has 709 ft of exterior wall, and across 3 residential floors the building carries 2,127 ft of it in total, divided among the 54 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.51: 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 18.0 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 2300 Chestnut St scores 72 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 89, Interior depth 81, Scale 36, Finance 39 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Most of what it earns comes from daylight efficiency, and what holds it back most is scale, at 36 out of 100: 54 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150.

Built in 1920

Philadelphia records this building as going up in 1920, which puts it in the interwar stock.

As a rule, steel or concrete frames with punched windows and plates still narrow enough for daylight to reach the middle, often with high ceilings. Among the most convertible stock there is, and the reason so many early conversions were of buildings this age. 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 85% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$360 per square foot all-in across 60,687 sq ft of converted floor, or $21.8M in total — about $405K for each of the 54 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 9,304 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 54 homes is $10.6M.

What would have to be true

A $11.2M gap before any grant, $8.0M after the modeled one. The smallest single change that would close it: average unit size 36% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $11.2M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 54 homes finishing at $405K rather than the $197K the model assumes — 106% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $360 to $175 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $3.2M moves that threshold to $345K a home. That is still above the $197K assumed, leaving $8.0M uncovered, which is why the grant does not unlock this one.

Nor do all four levers have to move. For 2300 Chestnut St, one alone would close the gap at:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 2300 Chestnut St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Center City Philadelphia

2300 Chestnut St ranks 45th of the 103 buildings screened here, against a median score of 67.

Its floor plate is better lit than 56% of them, and shallower than 63% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 80th 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 CMX4 zone

4th of 15 zoned CMX4 — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

15 of the screened buildings are zoned CMX4. 2300 Chestnut St ranks 4th of them against a median score of 58. 5 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 64 ft from a facade against this building’s 48 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 4,016 homes. The group’s top scorer is 901 Arch St, at 84.

Its nearest match in size: 441 N 5th St

The screened building closest to 2300 Chestnut St in converted floor area is 441 N 5th St: 61,411 sq ft over 4 stories, against 60,687 sq ft over 4 here.

2300 Chestnut St scores 72 to its 46, and with the size held roughly equal most of that lead comes from interior depth: 81 out of 100 here, 28 there (deepest interior point 69 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft). On the money they sit in the same place: each falls short even with the modeled grant. The two stand about 9,300 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 2300 Chestnut St $3.2M, 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 2300 Chestnut St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 170 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 2301 Chestnut St
  4 stories · 78% daylit · 62 estimated homes · scores 63/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 170 ft away
• 2213 Chestnut St
  5 stories · 87% daylit · 45 estimated homes · scores 71/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 300 ft away
• 2400 Market St
  11 stories · 51% daylit · 460 estimated homes · scores 25/100 (Unlikely)
  about 430 ft away
• 2401 Walnut St
  8 stories · 80% daylit · 117 estimated homes · scores 70/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 480 ft away