Plans for market-rate townhouses on Camden’s Delaware River waterfront with sweeping views of Philadelphia’s skyline were approved this month by the city Planning Board.
The project, which includes 60 townhouses near and on the waterfront by Camden Transformation Partners LLC, is being led by Camden-based residential developer The Michaels Organization.
Besides Michaels executives, investors include the family of Democratic power broker George E. Norcross III, chair of Cooper University Health’s board of trustees, and family members who own Camden-based NFI, a supply chain company.
Twenty-three of the townhouses will sit in the shadow of the Ben Franklin Bridge on Water Street and face the river, with fourth-floor terraces offering views of Center City Philadelphia. Twenty-one townhouses will be behind the Water Street ones at Pearl Street.
The board also approved preliminary and final site plans for a separate project by the same group for 16 townhouses a block away on Penn Street.
Residential development in Camden has largely focused on subsidized and affordable housing at different sites throughout the city. A huge project has been replacing the World War II-era Ablett Village with new rental townhouses, senior-citizen housing and other construction.
Now market-rate housing for sale is cropping up around the city, with the group led by The Michaels Organization backing developments at the waterfront and near Rutgers University.
Plans for 18 market-rate townhouses near the Rutgers University-Camden campus were approved by the board in June.
The townhouses near the waterfront will be four stories with 10-by-15-foot terraces in the front and 5-by-12-foot decks in the back, according to plans.
