2400 Market St

Where 2400 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 1,410 ft of exterior wall, and across 10 residential floors the building carries 14,103 ft of it in total, divided among the 460 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.53: 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 46.0 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 2400 Market St scores 25 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 22, 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 89 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft.

Built in 1929

Philadelphia records this building as going up in 1929, 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 51% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$360 per square foot all-in across 844,797 sq ft of converted floor, or $304.1M in total — about $661K for each of the 460 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 413,307 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 460 homes is $90.5M.

What would have to be true

A $213.6M gap before any grant, $203.6M after the modeled one. The smallest single change that would close it: average unit size 69% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $213.6M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 460 homes finishing at $661K rather than the $197K the model assumes — 236% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $360 to $107 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $10.0M moves that threshold to $639K a home. That is still above the $197K assumed, leaving $203.6M uncovered, which is why the grant does not unlock this one.

Nor do all four levers have to move. For 2400 Market St, one alone would close the gap at:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 2400 Market St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Center City Philadelphia

2400 Market St ranks 97th of the 103 buildings screened here, against a median score of 67.

Its floor plate is better lit than 7% of them, and shallower than 10% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 29th 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

13th of 15 zoned CMX4 — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

15 of the screened buildings are zoned CMX4. 2400 Market St ranks 13th 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 89 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: 150 N Independence Mall W

The screened building closest to 2400 Market St in converted floor area is 150 N Independence Mall W: 740,967 sq ft over 8 stories, against 844,797 sq ft over 11 here.

The two land within a few points of each other — 25 here, 25 there — so at this size the screen reads them as much the same prospect. On the money they sit in the same place: each falls short even with the modeled grant. The two stand about 8,000 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 2400 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 2400 Market St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 300 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 300 ft away
• 2300 Chestnut St
  4 stories · 85% daylit · 54 estimated homes · scores 72/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 430 ft away
• 2213 Chestnut St
  5 stories · 87% daylit · 45 estimated homes · scores 71/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 520 ft away
• 2301 Market St
  35 stories · 52% daylit · 1,623 estimated homes · scores 26/100 (Unlikely)
  about 530 ft away