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Rowhouse complex planned for waterfront land beside SugarHouse Casino

Shovel Ready has planned and sold off similar projects on nearby land along the Delaware River.

Artist's rendering of aerial view of rowhouse development planned at 1121 N. Delaware Ave., looking south.
Artist's rendering of aerial view of rowhouse development planned at 1121 N. Delaware Ave., looking south.Read moreCecil Baker & Partners

A real estate investment group based in Northern Liberties is seeking permits to build 60 four-story rowhouses on the Delaware River waterfront parcel to the immediate north of the SugarHouse Casino.

Shovel Ready Projects LLC is scheduled to present its plans for the 1.5 acre property at 1121 N. Delaware Ave., currently home to the Henry Stewart Co. wire rope warehouse, to the Philadelphia Civic Design Review board on March 5, according to the panel’s website.

Shovel Ready typically places land to be developed under contract, commissions engineering and design plans for the sites, and shepherds the projects through the city’s permitting process before selling the property and approvals as a package to a final developer.

An appearance before the CDR board, which offers suggestions on the city’s biggest development proposals, is part of the permitting process.

Shovel Ready, whose principals include former Electric Factory Concerts co-owner Adam Spivak, has the Henry Stewart property under contract, a spokesman said.

It planned and sold a similar waterfront rowhouse project — with the same architecture firm, Philadelphia’s Cecil Baker & Partners — to the immediate north of the Henry Stewart site, along the southern edge of Penn Treaty Park. Another such project is under development on Pier 35½ at Delaware and Fairmount Avenues, where a Trump Tower Philadelphia had once been planned.

The city seized an easement to a waterfront section of the Henry Stewart property through a condemnation process in 2017 so it could become part of the bicycling and walking trail under construction along the Delaware River from Fishtown to South Philadelphia.