A 137-year-old church complex at 1900 S. 16th St. in South Philadelphia is set to become a 30-room boutique hotel, following an $8 million renovation. Huttenlock purchased the former True Gospel Tabernacle Family Church building for $2 million, and the project has already secured zoning permits for the hotel conversion.
Huttenlock is currently converting the former Holy Name of Jesus Church convent in Fishtown into an eight-unit apartment building and is nearly finished turning a former convent at 3230 Belgrade St. in Port Richmond into 12 apartments.
The property is at 1900 S. 16th St. in South Philadelphia.
From Sanctuary to Suites
The church complex spans three buildings across half a city block, according to the Inquirer's reporting. The sanctuary itself stands 42 feet high, and the renovation will require underpinning along with the removal of 1,000 cubic yards of soil. Zoning permits secured on October 29 cover the 30-room hotel.
A Building With Layered History
The chapel on 16th Street dates to 1889, according to a report from OCF Realty, which says it was joined eight years later by a church on Bancroft Street and a parish hall on Mifflin Street. OCF Realty's account adds that the complex's campanile went up in 1902 and was apparently the first of its kind built in America, though that claim isn't stated with certainty.
A 2019 City Council law allows churches listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places to be repurposed without zoning board approval. The city said at the time that the package of ordinances — Bills 190611, 190612, and 190613 — was meant to make reuse of historic buildings easier and demolition less likely, according to the City of Philadelphia.
That same 2019 law is being used elsewhere in the neighborhood. In Point Breeze, developer Dane Jensen bought the former Second Nazareth Missionary Church at 1800 Tasker St. in mid-2024 for $1.75 million and hopes to turn it into a family-friendly restaurant, brewery, and event space with an indoor playground, as reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer in a separate story on that project.
Earlier Apartment Plans Gave Way to a Hotel
The 16th Street church wasn't always headed toward hotel rooms. An earlier concept, detailed by OCF Realty, called for 41 apartment units on the site plus a small quadplex fronting Bancroft Street. Huttenlock's team has retained designer Janice Woodcock, a principal with Michael Graves Architecture, for the hotel conversion.
The hotel and event space are projected to take until 2029 to complete.
A Market Hungry for Rooms
The timeline puts the hotel's opening years beyond 2026, when Philadelphia is expected to host major events, according to HVS.
