2301 Market St

Where 2301 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 1,472 ft of exterior wall, and across 34 residential floors the building carries 50,061 ft of it in total, divided among the 1,623 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.50: 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 47.7 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 2301 Market St scores 26 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 24, 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 100 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft.

Built in 1916

Philadelphia records this building as going up in 1916, which puts it in the pre-1920 stock.

As a rule, the era that converts most readily: load-bearing masonry, small floor plates laid out before deep-plan offices were possible, operable windows and generous floor-to-floor heights. The usual obstacles are not daylight but hazardous materials, lifts and bringing structure up to current code. 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 52% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$360 per square foot all-in across 2,928,467 sq ft of converted floor, or $1.05B in total — about $650K for each of the 1,623 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 1,406,397 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 1,623 homes is $319.2M.

What would have to be true

A $735.0M gap before any grant, $725.0M after the modeled one. The smallest single change that would close it: average unit size 69% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $735.0M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 1,623 homes finishing at $650K rather than the $197K the model assumes — 230% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $360 to $109 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $10.0M moves that threshold to $643K a home. That is still above the $197K assumed, leaving $725.0M uncovered, which is why the grant does not unlock this one.

Nor do all four levers have to move. For 2301 Market St, one alone would close the gap at:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 2301 Market St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Center City Philadelphia

2301 Market St ranks 95th of the 103 buildings screened here, against a median score of 67.

Its floor plate is better lit than 9% of them, and shallower than 7% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 3rd 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

61st of 65 zoned CMX5 — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

65 of the screened buildings are zoned CMX5. 2301 Market St ranks 61st 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 100 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: 1500 Market St

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

2301 Market St scores 26 to its 21, and with the size held roughly equal most of that lead comes from daylight efficiency: 24 out of 100 here, 13 there (46% 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 2301 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 2301 Market St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 530 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 2400 Market St
  11 stories · 51% daylit · 460 estimated homes · scores 25/100 (Unlikely)
  about 530 ft away
• 2301 Chestnut St
  4 stories · 78% daylit · 62 estimated homes · scores 63/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 680 ft away
• 2213 Chestnut St
  5 stories · 87% daylit · 45 estimated homes · scores 71/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 740 ft away
• 2300 Chestnut St
  4 stories · 85% daylit · 54 estimated homes · scores 72/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 850 ft away