915 Spring Garden

915 Spring Garden is located just north of center city Philadelphia. The building is a five story brick building with about 100 individual studios. A listing on the 915 web site claims that the studio building is the oldest artist community in the city having been in operation for twenty-eight years. Rents in the building are based on the size of the studio with the average being $350 per month. The building does not offer shared storage but the common areas of the building do offer exhibition space.
The buildings artists also organize yearly open studio events which are very successful.
I have mixed feelings about this building. I have rented a studio space here for ten months and at the end of my lease I will be moving because of the problems.
Advantages of the building:
1. Location of the building is good in that it is located near center city. You will also notice that I have listed location also as a problem below.
2. Cost of the studios is lower than average.
3. There is a building manager for rental issues who is cooperative and helpful. I have listed his contact information below.
4. The other artists in the building are friendly and easy to get along with.
Problems with the building: (There are many problems! The rents may appear to be a good deal. You should consider these problems seriously)
1. Both the passinger elevator and the freight elevator are often not working. They are very old and in the case of the passinger elevator operate with manual doors that are left open. In my case that makes a five story walk-up.
2. The building has very minimum janitorial support. Bathrooms go uncleaned and in the ten months I have been in the building the hallway on my floor has never been swept. Because the janitor doesn't remove trash in a timely fashion, the building has a rodent problem. After talking to the janitor about the problem I was told the problem was the artists with food in their studios. He was unwilling to do anything about the trash problem.
3. Location is the largest single problem with the building. This is the major reason I will be finding another studio. I work in the evenings and walk from on-street parking to this building. Because of the large number of homeless people in the area I have had problems. At night I feel this is a very dangerous area.
4. The building is owned by Penn-Dion of Jenkintown PA. They appear to be overwhelmed with the number of units they manage. On a monthly basis we receive a statement of account. In the ten months I have rented the studio they have never managed to have an accurate accounting of my payments to them. They assigned my payments to other units. When called about this problem they were rude on the phone.



915 Info:
For information on studio space contact Steve Donegan, 215.880-6009, donegan@aol.com.