DEVELOPER Bart Blatstein is the driving force behind much of Northern Liberties' latest population growth.
His Piazza at Schmidts apartments, which surround the open-air Roman-style plaza on the former Schmidt's Brewery site, near 2nd Street and Germantown Avenue, opened in May 2009 and have added about 800 residents to the neighborhood.
His Liberties Walk apartments, near 2nd Street west of the piazza, which opened in stages over the past five years, plus apartments in his other buildings, have added an additional 400 people in the past seven or eight years, Blatstein said.
The main reasons why Blatstein's Tower Investments company invested so heavily in the neighborhood was its large available land mass and its closeness to public transportation and Interstate 95.
