Friends Select School has received approval for an $8 million plaza project at the corner of 16th and Race Streets, clearing the way for the Center City Quaker school to replace a parking lot and playground with a sprawling outdoor campus. The project, known as the Back Lot Transformation, is expected to finish in time for students to return for the 2027–28 school year.
As reported by PHILADELPHIA.Today, the plans call for a new reception area and outdoor play and learning spaces designed to serve students from kindergarten through high school. Friends Select itself calls the finished space the Friends Select Green, describing it on its website as a multi-use, multilevel outdoor learning environment that will fundamentally re-envision the Parkway Building's back lot and playground.
What's Planned for the Space
According to the school's own project page at friends-select.org, the redesigned grounds will include a new gatehouse and pedestrian entrance along Race Street near 16th Street, along with a second level featuring ramps, climbing areas and hammock-style netting. The site notes the design also addresses long-needed drainage and stormwater management, while preserving existing trees and adding new plantings. The conceptual design came from a team of architects at Metcalfe Architecture & Design, Studio Ludo and OLIN, with Anchor Management Group overseeing the project through completion.
Friends Select's campus growth includes the plaza project. The school enrolls 645 students.
Nearly a Decade of Campus Changes
The plaza is part of a series of campus changes at Friends Select. The school renovated its rooftop athletic field and expanded into the neighboring Three Parkway building. The Three Parkway expansion alone added roughly 32,000 square feet of space, according to the school's website, which says the project wrapped up in January 2026 under PMC Property Group and was likewise overseen by Anchor Management Group.
That expansion brought 10 new classrooms for upper school students, faculty and staff, plus a STEAM lab and a multipurpose room, friends-select.org states. Unlike the back-lot plaza, the Parkway expansion was funded entirely through the school's operating budget. The school also identifies environmental sustainability as a priority.
Financial Backdrop for the Transformation
The Back Lot Transformation sits within Friends Select's broader Advance Friends Select strategic plan, which the school says has guided its direction since 2018 across five pillars, including financial sustainability and endowment growth. The school's board approved the Back Lot Transformation in the spring, according to friends-select.org, after the school set a goal of raising $5 million in gifts and pledges by February 2025 in order to move forward with the project. The school describes it as an ambitious undertaking that will require major philanthropic commitments from its community.
The school's endowment has grown from $10 million to $14.5 million and supports financial aid. Friends Select, which traces a Quaker history dating to 1689, frames the forthcoming Friends Select Green as the next major milestone of its transformation campaign, a project the school's site says will finally give students across all grade levels the open-air learning environment the Back Lot Transformation was designed to create.
