PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A historic house on the property of an Old City church was moved almost 50-feet earlier this week to make way for a new supportive housing development.
The house, built in the 1760s, sat on the property of Old First Reformed United Church of Christ until Monday, when it was moved very slowly, about one foot per minute, on a hydrologic system along a steel track.
It was slid about 48 feet to accommodate Old First House, a building that will have 34 affordable housing units for individuals who experienced homeless.
Troy Hannigan, with Community Ventures, the nonprofit developer and property management for Old First House, said when they started working on this project in 2018, they were trying to figure out how to work around the historic building to build the housing unit and ultimately decided it “would be faster and easier to sort of move it, to slide it out of the way and fully incorporate it into the new building instead of building new construction on both sides.”
In addition to the housing units, the five story building will include ground floor commercial space and new church office space.
Hannigan says construction for the $20 million project will likely start in the next couple of months and it should be open by next year.