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welcome to Brewerytown

Last May, we told you about the first supermarket coming to Brewerytown in almost two decades. But that project was delayed due to a lack of funding.

Now, it’s back on track. Today, at noon, at 31st & Girard, state and local officials, members of local civic groups, and developers will break out the shovels, and a cast of suit-wearing folks will don construction hats for a photo-op, at the official groundbreaking for the construction of a Bottom Dollar supermarket.

Nice rendering at the bottom

“It’s gonna be a changer,” said Charles Holliday of the Greater Brewerytown CDC, a 40-year resident of the neighborhood.

The Brewerytown area needs a supermarket like the School District needs cash.

When we wrote about the project last year, the site was owned by Westrum Development, and in addition to the 18K-square-foot supermarket, plans included 5K sqft of additional retail space, a 94-car parking lot along Girard Ave., and sixteen Westrum homes along Thompson St. behind the market. Since Soloff Realty, of Conshohocken, has now purchased the property, we’re not clear whether those additional aspects of the plan will be realized.

Somewhat recent shot of the lot

A Soloff representative said designs are still forthcoming, and that the plans we brought you initially were the result of a 2009 collaboration between developers, civic groups Interface Studio Architects, and the Community Design Collaborative.

When we have more concrete info, we’ll bring it your way. For now, it’s positive news to see this next step in the revitalization of Brewerytown. One can expect to see Councilman Darrell Clarke, State Rep. Michelle Brownlee, and various members of the Brewerytown CDC, West Girard Business Association and the West Girard Community Council. Here’s to another strong example of state, city and local officials and volunteers working with members of a local community on rebuilding their neighborhood.

–Lou Mancinelli

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Posted in Brewerytown | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments
  • Anonymous

     ”a 94-car parking lot along Girard Ave” 
    Are we still living in the 1970′s?  …and Westrum wonders why their developments have done nothing to spur others to continue improving the area.   Do they know of a neighborhood east of them called Northern Liberties?

  • http://twitter.com/F1rstCitizen First Citizen

    Yes the parking on the Girard side is ridiculous and inappropriate for a development steps away from Fairmount Park and the trolley line, but underground parking is not really financially feasible here.  I believe they already have a good deal of environmental cleanup to do; the site was formerly occupied by PEMCO, a lighting manufacturer, and the building had a number of subterranean levels.  When the building was demolished, they filled the underground levels with the rubble of the structure.  To do underground parking would require excavating the entire site.  Currently they probably only have to construct a retaining wall to replace the wall abutting the CSX tracks and build the new building on a mat slab foundation to deal with the garbage fill underneath.  This is all just supposition on my part based on knowledge of the site – I’m not an engineer and don’t know what their actual structural design is.

    Supermarkets have fairly inflexible design considerations, one of which is parking.  Combined with the challenges of the site itself, some level of compromise is necessary to get anything at all done now.  The other option is to leave it as it is until the rest of Brewerytown develops and someone is willing to dump more money into the site.  I’d be ok with that as a spectator, but that’s easy to say since I’m not the owner.

  • Relax

    that store sucks!

  • Test1234

    horrible idea…this is going to destory any future development…in brewery town…

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    [...] speaking of big deals for the neighborhood, just down the street, the supermarket is moving along nicely. Looks like groceries will be back in style ’round these parts in no [...]

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    [...] than five months after breaking ground, the new Brewerytown Supermarket at 31st & Girard opened its doors last week. Years in the [...]

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