Inquirer.com – Zurich DR

Tag: topic-link-auto

  • CHOP to create institute for studying parent-child relationships with $50 million gift

    CHOP to create institute for studying parent-child relationships with $50 million gift

    Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia will use a $50 million donation to advance research exploring how infants’ earliest relationships with caregivers and others affect their development and health.

    The $50 million gift from the Einhorn Collaborative, a New York-based philanthropic organization, will be used to establish the David M. Einhorn Institute for Early Relational Health to study parent-child relationships.

    Decades of research have found that early relationships and social interactions have lasting effects on brain health, social development, and overall well-being. But the science of so-called early relational health is not typically a primary focus in pediatric care, said Dani Dumitriu, a pediatrician who specializes in parent-child health and is the institute’s newly appointed director.

    “Our goal is to close this critical gap,” Dumitriu said in a statement. The $50 million gift “propels us toward developing real-world, scalable interventions that meaningfully support early relationships for every family.”

    Science of relationships

    The Einhorn Institute will be housed in CHOP’s Research Institute, where researchers will collaborate with experts from the health system’s PolicyLab, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and other specialties.

    The institute will study the critical first relationships infants form, and how these attachments create feelings of safety and trust that affect their development.

    Researchers want to take those findings to develop interventions that doctors could use with patients to strengthen caregiver-child relationships.

    “Human connection is one of the most powerful and underappreciated forces shaping the health and well-being of individuals, communities, and our society at large,” David Einhorn, founder and trustee of the Einhorn Collaborative, said in a statement. Einhorn’s philanthropic organization supports efforts to improve human relationships.

    Pediatricians are trusted resources for new parents, making pediatric clinics an ideal place to support early relational health and encourage positive parent-child connections, Einhorn wrote in an announcement about the CHOP gift posted on the Einhorn Collaborative’s website.

    Einhorn is also president of Greenlight Capital, a hedge fund, and the primary funder of the Einhorn Collaborative.

    “If the Einhorn Institute is successful, a new parent walking into a well-child visit will leave with more than a growth chart,” he wrote. “They’ll receive specific practices and knowledge to strengthen emotional connection with their child, delivered with the same rigor and credibility we currently apply to physical health.”

  • Excavation begins at Olney house at center of missing women case

    Excavation begins at Olney house at center of missing women case

    Breaking concrete, beeping trucks, and the hum of heavy machinery signaled movement Wednesday in the monthlong investigation into two missing persons last seen at a house on the 400 block of West Chew Avenue in Olney.

    With that cacophony of construction sounds, the Philadelphia Police Department and the FBI began a planned excavation at the home of Eugene Albert Horsch, 44, who faces charges of carrying illegal firearms and fake federal law enforcement credentials following a June arrest. Horsch’s dilapidated twin home on West Chew Avenue has since been connected to the disappearances of at least two women in the last 10 years.

    Authorities said they would excavate a portion of Horsch’s property with assistance from the Philadelphia Water Department. Investigators, officials said, were intent on unearthing and examining a pipe under the house as part of a widening probe.

    Workers and police investigators dig and inspect a hole while removing pipes and debris at the entrance to the home of Eugene Albert Horsch on West Chew Avenue.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

    “The general scope of the dig is to excavate and remove a pipe that will be subsequently examined by FBI and PPD forensics for any evidence that may be present,” Sgt. Eric Gripp, a police department spokesperson, said Monday.

    That effort began in earnest before 9 a.m. Wednesday morning, with crews digging up what was once a small, overgrown garden in front of Horsch’s home, as well as the sidewalk and street in front of the property. Trucks and tents cropped up throughout the morning as investigators walked the block. Periodically, investigators inserted a white pole into the earth, measuring the depth of a hole.

    Later in the morning, workers pulled a piece of pipe from the ground and took it inside the home.

    Wednesday’s excavation was the latest development the case that began June 19, when Horsch was arrested near Independence Mall with drugs, guns, and other weapons, as well as a counterfeit U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration badge. A woman was with him at the time, and she was carrying a fake ID in the name of Blair Tonzelli, who was last seen at Horsch’s home in 2022.

    Workers and police investigators dig and inspect a hole while removing pipes and debris at the entrance to the home of Eugene Albert Horsch.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

    Since then, investigators have discovered a swath of evidence, authorities have said. Among the items found at the West Chew Avenue home were vats of chemicals, a 55-gallon drum with connections to water lines in the house’s basement, and what police sources called “a significant amount” of blood.

    Forensic testing is continuing, and it has not yet been announced whether the blood is human. Horsch does not currently face charges involving violent crimes.

    Additionally, authorities have found other fake IDs in Tonzelli’s name, as well as the missing woman’s bank card. Investigators have also said that Amy McHale, the ex-wife of Horsch’s late father, Raymond Horsch, was last seen at the Olney home in 2016, according to the woman’s family.

    It was unclear Wednesday if investigators had linked any evidence to the disappearances of Tonzelli or McHale.

    Workers and police investigators dig and inspect a hole while removing pipes and debris at the entrance to the home of Eugene Albert Horsch on Wednesday.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

    The midweek excavation surprised some neighborhood residents. Cheri Smith lives two blocks from the site of the investigation, but still felt its effects. Smith, who has lived nearby for two decades, said she has felt unsettled since news of the investigation broke last month, and has seen little communication among police, the city, and neighbors.

    “It’s a shame what happened,” Smith said. “It would be nice if they notified us that this work is going to be happening, but the city is going to do what they are going to do.”

    Laurenza Moise said that when she arrived Wednesday to open her braiding business, the corner of Fifth Street and Chew Avenue had already been blocked off. Since the investigation began, she said, she has seen a reduction in business.

    “When they close the street, my business goes down, and there’s no parking for customers,” Moise said. “What can I do other than mind my business?”

  • Utz, the Pa. snack maker, is going private again as part of $2.9 billion deal

    Utz, the Pa. snack maker, is going private again as part of $2.9 billion deal

    Six years after going public, Utz Brands, the Pennsylvania producer of potato chips, pretzels, and other snacks, is set to become a private company again in a $2.9 billion deal with a German acquirer.

    When the latest deal is done, Utz’s founding families, the Rices and Lissettes, will own 50% of the company, and Intersnack Group, a snack maker in Europe and the Pacific, will own the other half, according to a Tuesday news release.

    “Intersnack shares our vision for Utz, and their marketing, manufacturing, and technology capabilities will be invaluable as we continue to invest in our brands,” Utz CEO Howard Friedman said in a statement.

    Since 1921, Utz has produced its trademark chips and other snacks from Hanover, York County, about 120 miles west of Philadelphia. Today, Utz also makes Zapp’s kettle chips, Jax cheese curls, On The Border tortilla chips and dips, and TGI Fridays bagged snacks.

    Utz still makes chips at its original Hanover plant, as well as at a network of facilities nationwide. Its snacks are distributed to grocery stories, convenience stores, and restaurants across the country.

    A display of Utz chip packets at Earl’s in Kaimuki, Hawaii.Kiki Aranita

    The company generated about $1.4 billion in net sales in 2025, a slight increase from the prior year, according to earnings reports.

    Intersnack plans to pay $14.25 per share in cash for all publicly traded Utz stock, according to the release, and to finance the deal with a combination of cash, financing, and rollover and reinvestment from the Rice and Lissette families. Utz stock surged after the deal was announced Tuesday.

    “We have long admired Utz’s brands, its heritage and the strength of its team,” Johan van Winkel, executive chairman of Intersnack Group, said in a statement. “We see a tremendous opportunity to partner and build on Utz’s strong foundation and help shape the future of snacking in North America.”

    High-protein soft pretzels and soups are on the menu as Philly’s iconic food brands compete for GLP-1 consumers

    The transaction is expected to close later this year, according to Tuesday’s news release. When it does, Dylan Lissette, who married into the Utz family, would become Utz executive chair.

    The deal would take Utz off the New York Stock Exchange and make it no longer required to publicly disclose its earnings.

    Utz became a publicly traded company in 2020 in a merger that valued the company at more than $1 billion.

    By going private again, Utz would join its longtime competitor, Herr’s, a fellow family-owned snack-maker based in Nottingham, Chester County.

  • Modeling agent who introduced women to Jeffrey Epstein found dead in France

    Modeling agent who introduced women to Jeffrey Epstein found dead in France

    A modeling agent who introduced young women and teenage girls to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was found dead at his home near Paris this week, French officials said.

    The body of Daniel Siad, 69, was discovered Monday at his home in Colombes, a suburb of Paris, Marie-Céline Lawrysz, deputy public prosecutor at the Nanterre Judicial Court, said in a statement Wednesday. She said an investigation was opened that evening into the cause of death.

    For roughly a decade, Siad corresponded with Epstein about young women and teenage girls, sometimes describing them by their ages and nationalities and then offering to send Epstein photos, according to emails that were included in the expansive Epstein files released by the Justice Department.

    In a 2009 email, Siad described a woman from Latvia who was 5 feet 8 inches tall: “she is 20 years old but she looks younger,” Siad wrote to Epstein.

    In a 2014 email, Siad discussed a 15-year-old French girl whose parents were excited for her to start modeling. He also mentioned 16- and 17-year-olds.

    “This busyness I feel like fisherman some time I cache quick , some time no fish,” Siad wrote to Epstein.

    In an interview last month with CNN, Siad pushed back on the suggestion that he should not have introduced aspiring models to Epstein because it was public knowledge that the financier was a convicted sex offender. Siad maintained that Epstein, who was released from jail in 2009 after serving 13 months of an 18-month sentence, was a “free man” and had always been “very professional” with him.

    “I never doubt that because I never heard anything from anyone who I introduced [to Epstein], who came back to me that they had a bad – a bad situation with him,” Siad told CNN.

    In the same interview, Siad said he regretted meeting Epstein.

    “Yes. I feel – it’s like a nightmare,” Siad told the network. “… He was such a powerful person. And how can I not trust him?”

    The expansive Epstein files released by the Justice Department exposed the financier’s cozy relationships with high-profile and powerful associates, leading to cascading resignations and public shaming.

    But a review of the files by The Washington Post also revealed how Epstein cultivated a network of lesser-known associates – including those from the modeling industry – who offered to bring women into his orbit in the years after he was released from jail.

    The emails were often crude and sexualized, even if the purpose of the introduction was not explicitly stated. A Swedish modeling scout, for example, messaged about his efforts to find teenage girls for Epstein. A Russian model told Epstein by email that another woman would “be very easy” if he told her that she too had potential to become a model. Others sent messages to Epstein describing models he could meet, promising to send photos.

  • Pearl Properties is moving forward on Jewelers Row tower

    Pearl Properties is moving forward on Jewelers Row tower

    For the first time in almost two years, Pearl Properties is making visible movement on its long-awaited Jewelers Row housing tower by requesting permission from the Historical Commission to alter two small protected buildings on the Seventh Street side of the project.

    In 2022, the Philadelphia-based developer obtained the vacant land at 708 Sansom St. from Horsham-based Toll Brothers, which had sparked controversy — and seen their development delayed — by their eventually successful effort to demolish five buildings in the midst of the city’s historic diamond district.

    After buying the property from Toll, Pearl Properties received a zoning permit on Sept. 24, 2024, for a 35-story tower, with 99 units, 50 parking spaces, and almost 1,500 square feet of commercial space.

    Since then there has been no movement on the project, amid a difficult construction environment and a competitive multifamily market.

    But earlier this month, Pearl Properties asked the Historical Commission for permission to demolish the rear sides of two one-story buildings facing Seventh Street, while preserving their facades as a pedestrian entrance to the tower’s parking garage.

    “Due to many years of neglect, the buildings are in substantial disrepair,” Morris Clarke, director of operations of DAS Architects Inc., wrote in a letter to the commission on behalf of Pearl Properties.

    “It is the applicant’s intention to restore both storefronts to their original form, so as to enable them to contribute to the streetscape experience and vibrancy of the immediate neighborhood rather than continuing to be a symbol of blight,” Clarke said.

    The new rear entrance next to the garage on Seventh is not the only alteration to Pearl’s project since it was last seen by the public in early 2024.

    The developer needed permission from the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment to proceed and also negotiated over the project’s design with the Society Hill Civic Association in exchange for its support.

    Pearl has made changes to accommodate the neighborhood group’s demands that the floors closest to the street reflect the surrounding buildings.

    Plans for the new Sansom Street facade of Pearl Properties Jewelers row tower.DAS Architects

    “The original design has no compatibility with Jewelers Row,” a 2024 document about the negotiations from the Society Hill Civic Association said. “It is monolithic. The materials were invasive.”

    Renderings of the ground floor levels, marked “final negotiated design” and dated to September 2024, show that Pearl responded to that feedback by creating a podium for the building that better matches the surrounding historic buildings.

    This was partly achieved by using brick and other materials more akin to Pearl’s neighbors and partly by splitting the facade into units that appear more like the commercial townhouses of Jewelers Row.

    “There were arguments, but we accepted it because we thought it was a good product, a good design, good quality,” said Paul Boni, chair of the zoning and historic preservation committee of the Society Hill Civic Association.

    “They have other holdings in the city that we checked out,” Boni said. “And something needs to be built there. This is a nice big building with a lot of density. It’ll be a good addition.”

    A rendering for Pearl Properties’ original design for the Jewelers Row tower, decorated by the metal fins that the Society Hill civic disliked.DAS Architects

    Neither Pearl Properties’ Reed Slogoff nor project architect DAS responded to a request for comment. Boni declined to comment on when the project was likely to break ground.

    The Historical Commission staff approved Pearl’s plans to demolish the rear of the two one-story buildings on Seventh Street, noting that they are both only 13 feet wide and 18 feet deep.

    “The small buildings would be used as entrances to the interior motor court of the high-rise building,” the staff notes read.

    The Seventh Street addition to the design will be considered by the commission’s Architectural Committee on July 28 and can then be considered by the full committee as soon as August.

    Pearl Properties is also moving forward on its Harper Square development at 113-121 S. 19th St. near Rittenhouse Square, another long-awaited luxury apartment tower. The company installed a tower crane in May to begin construction.

  • ChatGPT owner says AI acted on its own to hack another tech firm

    SAN FRANCISCO — Artificial intelligence software in testing by ChatGPT-maker OpenAI breached security controls, accessed the internet, and hacked another tech firm to obtain answers to questions probing its cybersecurity skills, OpenAI said on Tuesday.

    The security breach follows a scramble over recent months in the tech industry and governments around the world to respond to the arrival of AI models capable of identifying security flaws in software. The Trump administration temporarily imposed restrictions on OpenAI and its rival Anthropic, maker of the chatbot Claude, to prevent their tech being used by U.S. adversaries.

    “We consider this incident to be an unprecedented cyber incident, involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities,” OpenAI said in a blog post Tuesday. The company is working with Hugging Face, the AI company that OpenAI’s system attacked, to determine the full impact of the hack.

    OpenAI briefed the Trump administration on the situation before announcing it publicly, according to a person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share nonpublic information.

    Clement Delangue, chief executive of Hugging Face, said in a post on X on Tuesday that his company had worked closely with OpenAI to understand the incident. “We strongly believe there was no malicious intent on their part. It’s quite mind-blowing that all of this happened autonomously!” he wrote.

    Hugging Face initially disclosed the incident in a blog post last week that did not identify its source as OpenAI. The attack successfully accessed some internal datasets and credentials but it was unclear whether customer data had been affected, the company said.

    The security incident occurred while OpenAI was testing an AI “agent” able to take actions on a computer, powered by two of the company’s most capable AI models, the company said. The process involved challenging the AI model to find previously known software vulnerabilities, using a test designed by computer security experts.

    Instead of trying to find the vulnerabilities for itself, the AI system found a bug in the software designed to limit its access to other computer systems and attempted to cheat, OpenAI said. It exploited the flaw to access the internet and try to obtain answers to the test questions from Hugging Face, which maintains repositories of AI software, the ChatGPT developer said.

    OpenAI and its rival Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, have previously said that their AI systems have attempted to cheat on tests or evade controls on their actions during testing. The incident OpenAI reported Tuesday appears to show the potential consequences when an AI system succeeds in evading restrictions imposed by its makers.

    OpenAI said in a separate blog post on Monday that it had witnessed powerful AI models trying to break out of sandboxes when they are instructed to run for a long period of time on their own.

    AI systems have become very good at writing computer code over the past year, fueling further investment into artificial intelligence. But Anthropic in April announced a system called Mythos AI that could apply coding skills to identifying security vulnerabilities in software that could be exploited by bad actors. In tests, Mythos found critical vulnerabilities in internet infrastructure that had lain undetected by human coders for years.

    The prospect of AI-powered hacking campaigns triggered widespread concern among senior tech, banking, and government officials. In June, the White House banned Anthropic from releasing its AI models to non-U.S. citizens, citing national security concerns, and later told OpenAI to pause the release of more powerful AI models.

    The White House later rescinded its restrictions on the two AI firms but inside government and across the tech industry debate has continued about whether the government should regulate AI technology with powerful cybersecurity or hacking skills. Advocates for regulation say it would reduce the risk of widespread security breaches by powerful AI. Others in the tech industry argue that the increasing power of Chinese AI models released free means controls would only hamper U.S. firms.

    Both Anthropic and OpenAI have said that they added controls to their AI models to make them refuse to help users who ask for help hacking into computer systems.

    Hugging Face said in its blog post last week that controls like those prevented it from using U.S. AI models to investigate the AI-powered breach of its systems. Instead the company used a Chinese AI model to run the analysis, the company said.

  • Mamdani says New York doesn’t have authority to arrest Netanyahu, urges feds to act

    Mamdani says New York doesn’t have authority to arrest Netanyahu, urges feds to act

    New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who pledged repeatedly during his mayoral campaign to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Tuesday that he does not have the power to do so.

    In a video posted on X, Mamdani said his administration had reviewed “every avenue available” under the law to determine whether New York authorities have the power to execute an arrest warrant if Netanyahu travels there. But, they concluded, “it is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this.”

    He described Netanyahu as the “architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people” for his role in the war in the Gaza Strip and has said he should be tried for war crimes under a 2024 warrant by the International Criminal Court.

    Mamdani called on the federal government — which does have the legal authority to enforce the ICC’s warrant — to arrest Netanyahu, who is expected to travel to New York in September for the United Nations General Assembly.

    President Donald Trump shut down the idea of Netanyahu’s arrest in a Monday post on Truth Social, saying the Israeli prime minister “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.”

    The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in 2024, accusing him and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant of war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from Israel’s military operations in Gaza. The court’s decision obliges 124 countries to arrest the Netanyahu if he enters their territory, but neither Israel nor the United States is a signatory to the court’s key statute that requires this.

    Netanyahu has rejected the allegations, calling them absurd, and accused the court of being a biased and discriminatory political body. On Tuesday his office described the ICC as a “kangaroo court that has no jurisdiction over Americans or Israelis” and the arrest warrant as “bogus.”

    “Under Prime Minister Netanyahu’s leadership, Israel has taken unprecedented wartime measures to minimize harm to civilians while confronting Hamas,” it said.

    Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, also hit back at Mamdani’s comments. “Zohran Mamdani, ENOUGH,” he wrote on X. “Enough with the attacks on Jewish organizations. Enough with the outreach to the Iranian regime. You were elected to serve New Yorkers, not Hamas’ propaganda. Do your job!” he wrote.

    Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden have criticized the ICC for the warrant. Both administrations have supported Netanyahu during the war in Gaza, which Israel launched after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel by Hamas militants, who killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostage.

    Israel’s retaliatory strikes have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says the majority of casualties are women and children.

    Mamdani’s continued opposition to Netanyahu comes despite criticism from some Democrats after he said last week that he was in “active conversation” with his legal department to determine whether the Israeli leader could be arrested.

    The mayor’s stance also underscores a shift in the Democratic Party that has seen some members show a greater willingness to criticize Israel or turn U.S. support into a campaign issue. A Washington Post-Ipsos poll conducted earlier this month found while most Americans say the U.S. should reduce or end military support for Israel, the figure rises to 74% among Democrats.

  • The Heat mistakenly posted a link to a ‘LeBron James Introductory Press Conference,’ and the internet is going wild

    The Heat mistakenly posted a link to a ‘LeBron James Introductory Press Conference,’ and the internet is going wild

    Things are heating up as the NBA awaits LeBron James’ free agency decision.

    The Miami Heat posted a link on YouTube to a livestream scheduled for July 27, titled “LeBron James Introductory Press Conference,” on Tuesday. It has since been taken down.

    A spokesperson for the Heat told ESPN that the link was accidentally posted as the team prepared for the possibility of signing James.

    Also on Tuesday, Miami reposted a job listing on LinkedIn for a director of YouTube strategy. The original job posting was made July 1 and doesn’t seem to be a direct result of the mishap, but social media has been reacting all the same.

    The Heat are one of the top teams in conversation for James’ possible next destination, along with the 76ers and the Cleveland Cavaliers. James previously played four seasons with Miami from 2010 to 2014 and won back-to-back NBA championships with the team in 2012 and 2013.

    Bron-O-Meter: Will LeBron James take his talents to South Broad and join the Sixers?

    Earlier Tuesday, Rich Paul, founder of Klutch Sports Group and James’ agent, appeared on The Pat McAfee Show and revealed that he doesn’t know when James will decide and said those awaiting the decision “just need to have a little patience with him.”

    Paul reiterated that it’s James’ choice, while his role is setting the table for the 22-time All-Star who’s entering his 24th season.

    “I think he’s earned the right not to be rushed,” Paul said. “It’s not a thing where you’re toying with people’s emotions or trying to make it about anything more than the fact that, ‘Hey, this man has a very important, layered, decision to make, across business, across family, across basketball.’”

    Earlier in the month, Sixers president of basketball operations Mike Gansey voiced similar sentiments when he spoke with The Inquirer’s Gina Mizell on July 14.

    He said that he was waiting on James’ decision “like the rest of the NBA.” And that with a player like James, teams are always going to be OK with moving at his pace with the hopes of landing him.

    “We’d love to have him in Philly,” Gansey told The Inquirer from the Sixers’ team hotel. “I think he’d really, really help us and add to our group. But he’s making a big decision here. It’s wild [that] at his age [41], he’s playing at such a high level. But it’s not surprising.

    “I have all the respect in the world for him, and he’s smart as heck. He’s going to figure it out and talk to his family, and we’ll be waiting. Whatever he decides, I know he’s going to make the right decision.”

  • Plans for apartments near Penn Treaty Park will be scrapped to build more townhouses

    Plans for apartments near Penn Treaty Park will be scrapped to build more townhouses

    A further 219 single-family townhouses are slated for the North Bank development at 2001 Richmond St. in Philadelphia, between the Battery and Graffiti Pier on the Delaware River.

    The proposal, from Concordia Group and D3 Real Estate Development, is the second phase of their project. The first is composed of 475 single-family townhouses at 2001 Beach St., which have sold out.

    In 2024, the developers planned to include a 307-unit apartment building on the western side of the second phase of North Bank — closer to Richmond Street — along with 8,425 square feet of commercial space and 135 townhouses closer to the river.

    But the apartment boom along the Delaware River and in Northern Liberties and Fishtown has made that proposal unworkable, the developers say.

    “There’s just such an abundance of apartments” in this area, said Greg Hill, cofounder and managing partner of D3 development.

    “We were surprised. Although the market has certainly slowed down for multifamily, there are still lots of new starts happening in this neighborhood,” Hill said. “The investment team just felt the timing was not optimal to come on with another 300 units at this location.”

    The 2001 Richmond St. portion of the project is on the southern end of the property, near Penn Treaty Park.

    “Our development team felt it was in the best interest of the community we’ve developed to date to complete the project and build it out with houses, as opposed to leaving the land to sit vacant any longer,” Hill said.

    The designer for the project is the Philadelphia-based Interface Studio Architects. The team anticipates a construction timeline of 24 months.

    The 219 townhouses will have 284 parking spaces for residents, along with another 85 public parking spaces.

    The developers plan to extend the Delaware River Trail to Graffiti Pier from where the trail currently ends at Penn Treaty Park. They also plan additional green space throughout the development.

    A rendering of the new phase of the North Bank project, with the Delaware River Trail in the foreground.ISA

    Matt Ruben, chair of Central Delaware Advocacy Group, had praised the earlier plan to bring apartments to the riverfront.

    “Still seems to have the original issue — shared by many waterfront townhome developments of the past decade or so — of facing neither the river nor the street and instead turning a ‘shoulder’ (side) to the water and the street,” Ruben said in a text message.

    But Ruben praised the developer’s plan to extend the river trail, the commitment to adding green space, and a change from an earlier plan that would have blocked public access to Graffiti Pier.

    “We were disappointed that the multifamily will not go forward, but we feel we have a nice site plan with lots of green space and lots of extra parking, which we think the community needs,” Hill said.

  • The Post Brothers are planning another large apartment building for Northern Liberties

    The Post Brothers are planning another large apartment building for Northern Liberties

    The Post Brothers are planning another residential building in Northern Liberties, offering 241 one-bedroom and studio apartments at 1021 Hancock St.

    The six-story building, dubbed the Mercato, is substantially smaller than the earlier plans for the site, which featured a 13-story building with 280 units that would have offered furnished apartments and commercial space.

    The property is a part of a large array of sites the company purchased in the neighborhood in 2018 and 2019, along with the Piazza across the street at 1001 N. Second St. and the site that would become the luxury Piazza Alta development at 1099 Germantown Ave.

    “We’ve reconceptualized it [the Mercato] for today’s market and just made it regular apartments, the idea being that it becomes the more affordable entry point at the Piazza,” said Michael Pestronk, CEO of the Post Brothers, which he runs with his brother, Matthew.

    The Post Brothers have built and acquired a sprawling portfolio in Northern Liberties over the last eight years, which includes townhouses and larger two-to-three bedroom apartments.

    In 2023, they completed the 695-unit first phase of the Piazza Alta, a fancier complement to the original apartment project built by Bart Blatstein in 2009, which defined an earlier era of Northern Liberties.

    Pestronk said the first phase of Piazza Alta is now 98% leased. Last year, the company announced it had taken a $170 million construction loan for the 431-unit second phase.

    A rendering of the Post Brothers proposed new building, as seen from the corner of North Hancock Street and Germantown Avenue.Harman Deutsch Ohler Architecture

    The Post Brothers decided to build this new, smaller version of the Mercato partly to ensure it better matches its surroundings and partly to keep costs down, which will then allow them to keep prices lower.

    “The smaller scale is in response to fitting in with what’s around it and wanting to achieve a more accessible price point,” Pestronk said. “By building six stories instead of 13, we’re able to offer more accessible rents.”

    Mid-rise buildings are cheaper to construct than high-rises both because they require less raw steel and concrete and because building systems like the HVAC are more complicated and expensive in larger buildings.

    The project does not require zoning changes to move forward, but it will be considered by the advisory-only Civic Design Review board on Aug. 4.

    As a result, Post Brothers met with the Northern Liberties Neighborhood Association about the Mercato plans. Although members of the group praised its brick building materials, they lamented the lack of commercial space on the ground floor.

    “The main loss from the neighbors’ perspective is the activated street edge that was present previously,” reads the community group’s zoning committee minutes from its May meeting. “The new project lacks engagement.”

    Pestronk said the project is surrounded by small, narrow older streets that create problems for retailers and make loading zones a challenge.

    “We spent a lot of time talking to retailers, and it was infeasible to get anything that really makes sense there,” Pestronk said.

    An overhead rendering of the Post Brothers proposed new building, on Hancock Street.Harman Deutsch Ohler Architecture

    Parking for the new apartments will be available in an existing detached parking garage across Wildey Street. The Post Brothers said they have found that the parking offered at their previous Northern Liberties multifamily properties has been underused, with only about five spaces required for every 10 apartments.

    In recent years, neighborhoods like Northern Liberties and Fishtown have been experiencing a glut of apartments as thousands of new units opened and had to compete with each other for tenants, which drove down prices.

    While that condition persists in some parts of the city, including just to the east along the Delaware River, Pestronk said it had eased in Northern Liberties along with other high-demand areas like Center City.

    “The [multifamily] market has really recovered very strongly since the second half last year,” Pestronk said. “What we’re seeing in core Northern Liberties is what you’re seeing across the better properties in the market, like the Rittenhouse area, that are basically fully recovered.”

    The company expects to begin construction in the fourth quarter of 2026 and that the building will be finished two years later.