Wanamaker Building Office-to-Residential Conversion — 1300 Market Street

Macy’s closed the last of the great Philadelphia department stores in March 2025. Sixteen months later the building has a permit and a residential future.

TF Cornerstone and Alterra Property Group are converting the 1911 John Wanamaker Store — a National Historic Landmark — into 621 apartments. JKRP Architects drew the permit set approved by Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses and Inspections. Dune Real Estate Partners is the equity partner. Construction was set to start in the first quarter of this year on roughly a two-year schedule. No general contractor has been named.

Project Scope

The stacking plan splits the building three ways. The upper six floors become residential, including 13 bi-level lofts with mezzanines. The lowest three floors stay retail. Office space remains on the intermediate floors, which is unusual — most conversions of this size go all-in on residential and take the vacancy hit.

Amenities include two rooftop decks and a pool on the northern roof overlooking Market Street. The Grand Court and the Wanamaker Organ, the largest playing pipe organ in the world, are being preserved and reopened to the public.

Why It Matters

Department store buildings are the best conversion stock in American downtowns and almost nobody has figured out how to underwrite them. The floor plates are enormous and deep, which is exactly wrong for apartments needing window line. Wanamaker’s answer is to only convert the upper six floors, where the light court and the building’s setbacks make the geometry work, and to leave the deep lower plates as retail and office.

That’s a more honest solution than the all-residential conversions that have stalled elsewhere, and it’s the reason this one got a permit while others are still in feasibility. Preserving the Grand Court also keeps the historic tax credit case intact and gives the ground floor a public draw that no amount of retail leasing would produce on its own. Philadelphia has been watching Market East die by increments for 30 years. This is the first credible plan to put residents in it.

Project Team & Details