The Philadelphia Housing Authority has paid $51 million for the Dane apartment tower in West Philadelphia with plans to allocate nearly half of the units for affordable housing, writes Paul Schwedelson for the Philadelphia Business Journal.
The price for the 17-story, 233-unit building comes out to $219,000 per unit — roughly half the cost of constructing similar apartments from scratch.
The building, originally constructed in 1960, was put on the market last spring by Wynnewood-based Cross Properties.
This acquisition is another step in PHA’s plan to acquire around 2,000 units throughout the city by the end of March 2026.
“PHA has been looking to find creative ways to preserve and expand affordable housing opportunities, like purchasing existing buildings,” said PHA CEO Kelvin Jeremiah. “Another reason that we are doing this, frankly, is it is a lot cheaper for PHA to buy units, buy existing properties than it is for us to build new.”
PHA will set aside 40 percent of units for residents with housing choice vouchers, while the remainder will remain as market-rate housing.
Read more about the Philadelphia Housing Authority and plans for its nearly acquired tower in the Philadelphia Business Journal.
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Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on PHILADELPHIA Today in January 2025.
