It was nearly 10 years ago that Nat Bosa of Bosa Development Corp. first visited Downtown and saw the area was lacking in condominium towers. He figured there was little to lose to build in an area where he faced no competition and indicators showed an increase in housing needs. In 1998, Bosa was one of the first to respond to a request by the Centre City Development Corp. for proposals to build on Downtown land. To date, his company has about 2,000 units either completed or ready for construction. He’s also no longer alone.

“Bosa certainly played a big role in this current phase of housing that started back in 1999, to come down and start the condo boom, which has continued on without slowing since that time,” says Derek Danziger, CCDC communications director. “We’ve seen the majority of the condo activity started in about 1999 and then those projects came on the market in 2001.”

In the past five years, developers have built and sold 4,621 Downtown condominium units with nearly 9,000 more on the way. In that same period 2,249 apartment units were constructed with another 1,300 coming. Today, 3,423 condos and 543 apartments are under construction Downtown. Another 3,033 condos and 730 apartment units are in projects already approved and pending construction. Submitted for approval are an additional 2,506 condos. In 2005, 751 condo and 235 apartment units have been completed. This is down from the 1,932 condos and 492 apartments completed in 2004.

“The most notable difference that we’ve seen Downtown is that a true Downtown community is evolving here,” Danziger says. “A few years ago, when projects would come in, you’d have one or two scattered around and there wasn’t a lot of community input or concern from the community as to how this project may or may not affect them.”

Over the last five years, the Downtown population nearly has doubled to 27,500 people. The community plan calls for 89,000 residents by 2030. “Essentially, from a growth standpoint, Downtown is only one-third of the way to its residential build-out,” Danziger says. “The things for us to do is to make sure we are balancing putting density down here but doing it in a way that preserves quality of life.”