Build Philly Now was founded in 2024 with a mission to improve the climate for building housing, infrastructure, and energy in Philadelphia and the region. In the two years since, it’s become clear to us that fulfilling this mission requires improving the local knowledge ecosystem about building things in the city, which has broken down in some fundamental ways in recent years.
That’s why today we’re excited to roll out two new information products — BPN News and BPN Property Intelligence — that will help Philadelphia’s built-environment watchers stay informed and prepared to act fast on opportunities.
The Problem
Philadelphia’s property data is scattered across OPA, L&I, ZBA, the Land Bank, and the Recorder of Deeds. There’s no single place to see it all. Atlas is limited. CoStar charges thousands per year. eCLIPSE search is notoriously bad. On the media side, much of the coverage of city board and commission hearings has fallen away. Hearings where billions of dollars in development decisions get made — Land Bank dispositions, ZBA appeals, Planning Commission reviews — get inconsistent or no press coverage, and even City Hall insiders barely know what’s going on across the full landscape.
We built the tools that are missing. Today we’re launching a new subscription platform with two new information-based products.
Reported coverage you won’t find anywhere else
If you’re already subscribed to our free Substack, you probably noticed we’ve been publishing more original reporting on city meetings about housing and transportation, and that there are some new writer voices in the mix, with Ashlei Tracy and Brendan Illis joining as contributors. A few recent pieces we ran:
SEPTA Board Approves First Transit-Oriented Communities Project in Ambler
CM Young’s Permit Bill, Penrose Ferry’s Brownfield Future, and a District 7 Overlay Overhaul
After Almost 2 Years, Land Bank Board Approves 30 Workforce Homes in Norris Square
A Scaled-Back Germantown Project, Adaptive Reuse, and Philly’s Sixth Protected Interior at the PHC
Our team of writers has been covering the Planning Commission, the Historical Commission, the Land Bank, and the SEPTA Board after readers indicated in our survey that those were the top ones they wanted to read about. We’re bundling this reported meeting coverage into a new vertical called BPN News, which will continue for paid subscribers. We’ll publish the occasional free reported piece for bigger stories, but this content will mostly live behind the paywall going forward.
Your subscription will go toward paying freelance writers. Once we reach 55 subscribers, our scrappy news desk will break even on the current program.
If you care about local journalism, subscribe today and help us resource independent reporting.
Subscribers also receive:
Weekly Development Digest — the latest development permits and zoning appeals filed across the city
Weekly Public Meeting Agenda Tracker — what’s coming up at Planning Commission, ZBA, Historical Commission, and other boards, so you never miss a decision that affects your work or neighborhood
Philadelphia’s AI-Powered Property Intelligence Platform
Our dashboard at map.buildphillynow.org covers 580,000+ parcels with over a dozen filterable data layers. The free tier gives you access to an interactive map, individual parcel pages, basic layers, and neighborhood stats. Paid tiers unlock more powerful tools that engaged citizens and professionals need to track properties and projects.
Free Tier
Explore over 580K parcels with basic filters
Stats dashboard — demographics, housing tenure, construction activity, permit volume, zoning pathways, transfer trends, and violation patterns for any neighborhood, City Council district, or Registered Community Organization (RCO)
AI-powered parcel overviews — short summaries of each parcel’s key details
Limited timelines for parcel event activity and nearby activity
Project pipeline - 5-card preview
Professional Citizen Tier — $15/month
All BPN News reporting and digests, plus:
Advanced map filters — zoning overlays, historic districts, public ownership, and more
Full project pipeline — 1,800+ active development projects tracked across the permit lifecycle, from zoning review through construction to completion
Parcel watchlist — track specific properties and get notified of changes
Full parcel activity timeline — permits and appeals with application details, violations, and transfers
AI-powered natural language search — find parcels by describing what you’re looking for in plain English (e.g. ‘find CMX-3 properties in Fishtown’, ‘find vacant lots over 5,000 square feet.’)
CSV downloads — 500 property records
BPN Slack access for our subscriber community
Suggest new features - These aren’t off-the-shelf products. We’re creating community news and software together, so we’ll be relying on the people who use our tools and reporting to guide our coverage and future feature development.
Professional Tier — Coming Soon
Everything in the Professional Citizen tier, plus additional data and powerful analysis tools:
Build-ability calculator — we calculate what can legally be built on any parcel under current zoning, citing Philadelphia Zoning Code §14-701. Dimensional standards, overlay restrictions, bonus eligibility, and utilization scoring. Explore variance scenarios.
Development pro forma models for market-rate and LIHTC projects — 10-year development cash flow analysis auto-populated from live market data and BPN’s build-ability rules engine. Construction costs, permanent and construction financing, operating expenses, LIHTC screener, and return metrics. Every assumption is editable, with downloadable workbooks
Policy scenario engine — remove parking, upzone, add MIH bonuses, change the abatement — see the impact on yield-on-cost, equity multiple, and DSCR instantly. Discover bonuses you might otherwise miss.
Multi-parcel selection and analysis for land assemblage
7 live data feeds — FRED PPI construction cost indices, SOFR, Freddie Mac mortgage rates, Zillow rent index, HUD AMI, OPA assessments, and our zoning rules engine. Capabilities typically reserved for premium software products — auto-updated and regionalized for the Philadelphia market.
CSV downloads - 5,000 records (Professional tier)
Data You Can’t Get Anywhere Else
We’ve built original datasets that don’t exist in any other Philadelphia property tool:
Public agency ownership — filter all 580K+ parcels by public agency owner: PHA, Land Bank, RDA, City, Commonwealth, School District. Essential for Turn the Key, Act 135, and disposition research.
Historic contributing status — every property in a local historic district classified as contributing, non-contributing, or significant. Digitized from Historical Commission records, matched to 91% of OPA parcel numbers. Nobody else has this at the parcel level.
Center City/University City FAR boundary map — determines whether a CMX-5 parcel gets 1,200% or 1,600% FAR, a massive buildable capacity difference. We created the digital boundary; it didn’t exist as a GIS layer before we made one.
Sheriff sale history — 12 years of data parsed from 105 PDFs. 17,000+ unique properties with sale dates and improvements, linked to OPA at a 99% match rate.
2027 Opportunity Zone eligibility — a multi-tier OZ layer distinguishing currently designated tracts, eligible-but-not-designated tracts (2027 candidates), and tracts losing status in 2028. The only Philadelphia tool that maps future OZ eligibility.
Parcel-level bonus eligibility — every parcel shows exactly which zoning bonuses are available at that address: MIH density bonus, green roof, historic parking waiver, TOD increases, filtered by district and overlay.
Who It’s For
Public agency staff — neighborhood stats, public ownership inventory, development pipeline tracking, overlay impact analysis, soft site identification for planning and disposition.
Developers — find sites, model by-right capacity, check ZBA history, track stalled projects, run pro formas, compare policy scenarios.
Architects and zoning lawyers — parcel-level zoning envelope, overlay effects, by-right status, adjacency flags, variance history, shareable parcel URLs with code citations.
Realtors — Neighborhood stats, property transfers, price trends, and nearby activity
Registered Community Organizations (RCOs) and civic groups — track ZBA appeals, violation trends, and development activity in your area. Know what’s happening before the next RCO meeting.
Affordable housing organizations — LIHTC feasibility estimator, AMI rent caps, inclusionary overlay flags, subsidy gap analysis, income averaging scenarios.
What’s Coming
We ship features continuously. Professional tier users will have early access to new beta features. Here’s what’s on our near-term roadmap:
LLC owner search with PA Department of State business registry lookup
Parcel event notifications for permits, appeals, transfers, and code violations
3D massing visualization
ZBA hearing AI summaries
Land Bank project tracker
Portfolio analysis
API access and institutional subscriptions
Institutional and API-based subscriptions will soon be available for the public sector, universities, and larger organizations. Reach out to jon@buildphillynow.org to schedule a demo.
We’re building something special with the people who will use it most. This project will work best if we all work together to improve everyone’s knowledge of Philadelphia housing and commercial development, and hold city government accountable for better outcomes. Subscribe today and join our growing community.
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