Toll Brothers’ Naval Square project
Toll Brothers’ Naval Square project
On February 9, first-year students in the Program in Real Estate traveled to Philadelphia to examine an infill development opportunity at Toll Brothers’ Naval Square project. The trip marked the first step in a semester-long project for Professor Brad Olson’s Residential Development course.
After touring the Toll Brothers headquarters in Horsham and visiting the Naval Square site, students spent the remainder of the day touring condominiums throughout the city that were identified as comparable projects. Prior to the trip, each student was issued a packet of Claritas© demographic data on the Philadelphia market to use for an initial market study.
At Toll Brothers behest, each team of four to six students will examine an undeveloped 8.1 acre parcel on the Naval Square site and provide a product recommendation to a panel of executives in May. Over the course of the semester, each team will submit deliverables ranging from market research to construction scheduling to entitlement issues to financial feasibility analysis.
The objective of the trip was to provide students an opportunity to meet with sales and development representatives from Toll Brothers, to discuss planning and entitlement issues for the existing Phase One portion of the site, and to examine the surrounding neighborhood and its amenities. In addition, the trip was designed for students to assess limitations on the site, to evaluate access to public transportation, and to determine residential absorption patterns on both Phase One of Naval Square and on comparable properties.
The Naval Square project is very popular with the students, especially with those who want to pursue a career in development. John Sanderson (PRE ’09, CRP ’09), said “I, like many others in the Program in Real Estate, want to be a developer. The Naval Square project provides us the opportunity to take what we have learned in the classroom and apply it in the field- literally a field, allowing us to work with our teams to create a vision for the raw land and work through the entire land development process from acquisition to unit sales. We are all especially excited for the opportunity to be doing the project under Brad Olson’s tutelage, and are honored to be a part of his last class before retiring.”
The Naval Square property was once occupied by the Naval Asylum and the Philadelphia Naval Academy. In 1826, architect William Strickland designed a series of buildings on the 20.7 acre property, including Biddle Hall, which functioned as a hospital, a training facility, and retirement housing for members of the naval community. Biddle Hall was the central building on the campus, and it was flanked by the Surgeon General’s residence to the left and the Governor’s residence to the right.
Naval Square is located just a few blocks off of South Street, near Philadelphia’s Business Center City. Just across the South Street Bridge, atop the Schuylkill River, to the west is the University of Pennsylvania’s main campus.
Naval Square was acquired by Toll Brothers in 1988, but the company did not begin construction until 2003. Toll Brothers created a mixed-use development in Phase One with condominium conversions in Biddle Hall and the Surgeons residence, as well as luxury townhomes. Several of the townhomes are four-story units, but most are stacked, two-floor homes with separate garage entrances.
“What makes this such a neat opportunity for Program in Real Estate students is the chance to apply the development knowledge gleaned from past coursework. I am really excited about creating a design and product mix in a historic city like Philadelphia,” said Tim Yaeger (’09). Mr. Yeager added that “what makes Naval Square so interesting is that, like many parts of the city, there is a lot of urban revitalization taking place. Now you’re seeing high-end condominium and retail development all around the city, and I think that a lot of people would have thought that was impossible a decade ago.”
The infill development project has been a staple of Professor Olson’s spring course. In past years students have worked with a variety of builders including Lennar, Pulte, and The Irvine Company as well as the local City of Ithaca jurisdiction.