Switch House Hotel

Switch House Hotel opened in November 2023 inside The Battery, the converted Delaware River power plant in Fishtown, with 45 residential-style suites run by event company Cescaphe alongside its own wedding and events venue in the same building. Full kitchens and in-unit laundry set it apart from a conventional hotel stay.

The place

Switch House Hotel sits at 1325 N. Beach Street in Fishtown, inside The Battery: the same converted Delaware River power station complex as Riversuites, on the Delaware riverfront a short drive from Fishtown's main commercial strip.

The concept

The hotel occupies what developers call the complex's former Switchgear Building, the section of the 1920s Delaware River Generating Station (designed by John T. Windrim, also the architect of the Franklin Institute) that once routed transformer power into the city grid: a history nodded to in the hotel's name. The conversion, led by architecture firm Strada and backed by roughly $21 million in federal historic tax credits, kept the building's exposed board-formed concrete walls and restored facade window profiles, and relocated a historic steel cistern into the lobby.

All 45 rooms are residential in format, with full kitchens (stove, oven, microwave, fridge and cookware), in-unit washer/dryers and espresso machines: closer to a short-term apartment than a standard hotel room. The hotel is operated by Cescaphe Event Group, the Philadelphia wedding and events company that also runs the roughly 25,000-square-foot event venue built into the same building, which hosts weddings and corporate events for 150 to 325 guests around exposed-concrete walls, a floating cement staircase and two fireplaces.

Dining & wellness

There is no restaurant on-site. Food and drink center on Cescaphe's adjoining event venue, with two full bars used for weddings and private events rather than a public-facing hotel bar or restaurant.