330 Market St

Where 330 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

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

The typical floor has 549 ft of exterior wall, and across 3 residential floors the building carries 1,647 ft of it in total, divided among the 45 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is compact at 0.78: close to a square or a circle, the most efficient envelope an office can have and the least generous one for apartments: little perimeter to divide among homes. How window line and plate shape are measured.

At the model’s 750 sq ft average, the plan works out at about 15.0 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 330 Market St scores 53 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 73, Interior depth 44, Scale 30, Finance 29 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Most of what it earns comes from daylight efficiency, and what holds it back most is finance, at 29 out of 100: remaining gap is 43% of conversion cost, scored from 60% down to 0%.

Built in 1972

Philadelphia records this building as going up in 1972, 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 77% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$360 per square foot all-in across 56,084 sq ft of converted floor, or $20.2M in total — about $449K for each of the 45 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 13,127 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 45 homes is $8.9M.

What would have to be true

A $11.3M gap before any grant, $8.6M after the modeled one. The smallest single change that would close it: average unit size 42% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $11.3M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 45 homes finishing at $449K rather than the $197K the model assumes — 128% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $360 to $158 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $2.7M moves that threshold to $389K a home. That is still above the $197K assumed, leaving $8.6M uncovered, which is why the grant does not unlock this one.

Nor do all four levers have to move. For 330 Market St, one alone would close the gap at:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 330 Market St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Center City Philadelphia

330 Market St ranks 64th of the 103 buildings screened here, against a median score of 67.

Its floor plate is better lit than 47% of them, and shallower than 43% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 86th 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 CMX3 zone

11th of 14 zoned CMX3 — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

14 of the screened buildings are zoned CMX3. 330 Market St ranks 11th of them against a median score of 73. 8 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 53 ft from a facade against this building’s 62 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 1,122 homes. The group’s top scorer is 461 N 3rd St, at 84.

Its nearest match in size: 1025 Callowhill St

The screened building closest to 330 Market St in converted floor area is 1025 Callowhill St: 53,216 sq ft over 5 stories, against 56,084 sq ft over 4 here.

330 Market St scores 53 to its 73, and with the size held roughly equal most of that shortfall comes from daylight efficiency: 73 out of 100 here, 96 there (88% 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 4,200 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 330 Market St $2.7M, 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 330 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.

• 399 Market St
  5 stories · 67% daylit · 80 estimated homes · scores 40/100 (Marginal)
  about 240 ft away
• 325 Chestnut St
  13 stories · 87% daylit · 211 estimated homes · scores 80/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 340 ft away
• 101 N Independence Mall E
  11 stories · 63% daylit · 327 estimated homes · scores 46/100 (Marginal)
  about 390 ft away
• 232 Market St
  5 stories · 100% daylit · 39 estimated homes · scores 83/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 540 ft away