5222 Chester AveDelivered

A four-story, 15-unit apartment building is under construction at 5222 Chester Avenue in Kingsessing, part of a modest wave of infill development along this stretch of the corridor. The project, cleared to build in March 2023, will include a rooftop deck and ground-floor professional office space alongside the residential units. At just over 6,000 square feet of lot, the building represents a fairly dense use of a single parcel in an RSA5 zone, which allows multi-family development by right.

5220-24 Chester Ave LLC owns the site, having acquired it in 2023. The developer opted for full NFPA 13 sprinklers and standpipe systems in the exit stairs, a nod to the building's scale and occupancy load. The presence of ground-floor office space suggests the developer is hedging on tenant mix, though the Chester Avenue corridor has historically leaned residential with scattered commercial.

This project joins a 12-unit building at 4820 Chester Avenue as the only significant new construction within a half-mile radius, underscoring how thinly spread new development remains in Kingsessing despite the neighborhood's transit access and large inventory of underused lots. The corridor has seen sporadic redevelopment over the past decade, but nothing resembling the sustained developer interest seen in adjacent Southwest Center City neighborhoods.

The 5222 Chester project may test whether RSA5-zoned parcels along the avenue can attract follow-on investment. Plenty of similar-sized lots sit vacant or underbuilt nearby, and a successful lease-up here could make the case for more four-story walk-ups in an area that has mostly seen single-family rehabs and the occasional triplex conversion.