PROJECT: 1148 FRANKFORD AVENUE MIXED-USE / THE AVANT
LOCATION: FISHTOWN, PHILADELPHIA
YEAR BUILT: 2023
TYPE: MIXED-USE RESIDENTIAL, ADAPTIVE REUSE, COMMERCIAL
NUMBERS: 60 UNITS NEW / 5 ADAPTIVE REUSE UNITS / 20KSF RETAIL / 20 BIKE SPACES / 20 PARKING SPACES
AWARDS:
2024 AIA PENNSYLVANIA SILVER MEDAL, ARCHITECTURE
2024 AIA PHILADELPHIA MERIT AWARD, BUILT CATEGORY
2022 AIA PHILADELPHIA HONOR AWARD, UNBUILT CATEGORY

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
The Avant at 1148 Frankford Avenue is a mixed-use residential, commercial, and adaptive reuse project located at the prominent corner of Frankford and Girard Avenues in Fishtown, Philadelphia. The project pairs a new 60-unit residential building with the careful reuse of the historic Kensington National Bank, one of the few remaining Frank Furness-designed bank buildings in the city.

Opened on February 23, 1878, the Kensington National Bank was celebrated from the beginning for its architectural presence. At the time of its opening, The Philadelphia Inquirer described the building as “an ornament” that commanded “great admiration.” Its richly detailed stone exterior, expressive massing, and civic character established a powerful presence at one of the neighborhood’s most visible intersections.

The new building was conceived as a contemporary backdrop to the historic bank rather than a competing object. Drawing from the scale, materiality, and ornamental logic of the Furness building, the addition uses a light gray brick wrapper with selective decorative detailing and contemporary brick articulation — a strategy OOMBRA refers to as modern ornament. Black stucco at the interior wing walls recalls the contrast of the bank’s original black marble interiors and helps frame the historic structure when viewed from Frankford and Girard.

The project also repositions the existing bank building for renewed use. Wells Fargo, the former tenant of the historic corner building, relocated into new commercial space along Girard and Dunton, allowing the Kensington National Bank to be opened for a new commercial tenant, with five adaptive reuse apartments occupying the upper levels.

The new building includes 60 apartments, ground-floor commercial space, 20 bike parking spaces, 20 parking spaces, and a roof deck with views toward Center City Philadelphia. The project also incorporates OOMBRA’s LT Studio Unit © concept, which rethinks the proportions of a typical residential plan. By rotating the unit lengthwise along the exterior wall, the plan increases access to windows and daylight while creating approximately 15 percent more usable floor area. This strategy was also adapted for one- and two-bedroom units, allowing the project to achieve greater density on a dimensionally constrained site where a conventional double-loaded corridor was not viable and a single-loaded bar would have been cost-prohibitive.

Together, the new construction and adaptive reuse components create a dense, active, and historically responsive mixed-use project that preserves a significant Philadelphia landmark while supporting continued growth along the Frankford Avenue corridor.