Pier 3 Apartments

Great place to live — stop by and enjoy

This place is disgusting. I rented here for a year and couldn’t wait to get out of my lease. The building is old and rotting. There is no security, my friends husband was pounded over the head with a hammer in the enclosed atrium sometime around new years and they didn’t even have security or camera footage. The pool area smells horrible, the gym is worse. Parking is a joke, they say each unit comes with a spot but the Campo family seems to have about 20 spots. Probably because they’re on the condo board. People who own reserved spots park their cars wherever they want leaving their reserved spots open for their guests and leaving those of us who actually lived there to park under a leaking spot that left stains on the paint of our cars so badly that professionals couldn’t remove it. Trying to get a chair on the back deck is ridiculous. It’s like there’s a mafia of chair hoarders that come out in the morning and put all their stuff out hogging all the chairs. Then they sit out there and gossip about EVERYONE. Yes, the views are great, if you have a unit with a view. Half of them do not have a view because the windows only come up waist high which was the case in my unit. The neighbors are old and miserable. There are so many better places to live in the area with young, friendly people who make you happy to come home. Not miserable old heads with nasty attitudes. I, thankfully, moved a couple of blocks away to Waterfront Square and it’s like day and night by comparison. Do yourself a favor and stay far away from this hell on water.

Pier 3 is really not apartments, as the building was converted to condominiums some time ago. I lived there until last year, and I really miss the waking up to the cling-​clang of sailing ship’s masts, the awesome view of the Ben Franklin Bridge, the large container ships passing by the Promenade, and the newly rebuilt gym and the indoor pool. As well, I miss the outstanding concierge personnel that made my living so much better.
Pier 3 would be an address of millionaires if the ugly and disgusting shadow of I-​95 had not separated Philadelphia’s waterfront from the rest of the city. As it happened, the condos are sort of removed from the hustle and bustle of Old City and connected to it by the Market Street overpass. On one hand, it has removed it from the hustle and bustle. On the other hand, it has enhanced its quality of life. Once I entered the condo and walked down the pier to my unit, I was totally removed from the city and was literally in the middle of the Delaware River.
There are two historical piers, 3 and 5, that were transformed into living quarters, with a marina between the two. Pier 5 is closest to the Ben Franklin Bridge and is made up of two-​story stacked townhouses. Pier 3 was originally flat apartments and later underwent a condo conversion. There are a few two-​story condos, but most are flats.
The large parking area covers almost the entire first floor. Outside of the parking area, the pier’s end hosts a gym and an outstanding pool from which one can enter a large promenade at the end of the pier. The promenade wraps around the southern side of the pier all the way to its beginning. The northern end of the pier is too narrow and as a result, is subdivided into limited common elements for each unit on the ground level. Level 3 is made up mostly of two-​bedroom flats, and level 4 is oine and two bedrooms with fireplaces.
Although the Pier 5 units are supposed to be more classy, the enhancement to the quality of life posed by the gym, pool and promenade in Pier 3 more than makes up for it.
To get to the center of activity of Old City, the Market Street extension over I-​95 allows a two-​minute walking connection to Market and 2 Street, as well as easy access to the Frankford Subway Line. As well as all the restaurants and night scene.
To the South, the Penns Landing Plaza allows unrestricted view of the waterfront area.
Frankly, about the best quality of life in Philadelphia.