Rendering of a four-story brick corner building with dormers, its ground floor opened into tall lit storefronts

Market Street Storefronts

West Chester, PA · In design

Commercial spaces

Tall new storefronts designed to open the ground floor of a brick corner building in West Chester’s historic district.

Location: West Chester, PA
Status: In design
Project: Renovation
Our role: Architect — existing conditions, storefront options, renderings and the drawings for the Borough’s historic review
Building: Four stories of brick on a downtown corner, with a dormered roof
Review: West Chester Historical and Architectural Review Board, 2026

Elevation of the Market Street front: four bays of storefront and a central door under the existing brick facade, dormered roof and shuttered windows — The storefronts drawn on the Market Street front: four bays and a central door, set into the existing brick.

The building

The building holds a corner in the middle of West Chester’s historic district: four stories of brick, a dormered roof and rows of shuttered windows. Its ground floor was a bank, with the same small punched windows as the offices above and little connection to the sidewalk.

The design

The design opens the ground floor into a run of tall storefronts for shops or a restaurant and leaves the floors above as they are. Each opening lines up with the windows overhead, and brick piers between them carry the facade down to the street, so the new ground floor belongs to the building above it. We drew two arrangements as elevations and rendered both on the corner, so the Borough’s Historical and Architectural Review Board could judge them in place. As of November 2026, the design is with that board for review.

Services behind this project