Bikers in Spring Garden, Francisville, and Fairmount will have a safer ride this spring as bike lanes are likely coming to Fairmount Avenue between Broad Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.

Community opinion was collected during the last three months, according to Nicholas Mirra, communications coordinator for the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia. That includes members of the Fairmount Civic Association, Spring Garden Community Development Corporation and Francisville Neighborhood Development Corporation. The next step is a City Council review.

Fairmount from 25th St

The City’s current Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan represents an effort to connect the city through a series of trails and bike lanes as part of the Phila2035 initiative. It measures street traffic and highlights popular pedestrian and bicycling areas, making suggestions for appropriate bike path locations. But “the reality [of those suggestions] is more difficult,” said Mirra. That reality includes issues like neighborhood input and…

A decade ago, if you skateboarded in downtown Philly you might have well sewed a scarlet letter (or skateboard?) across your chest. The Street administration implanted metal cleats on railings and benches at Dilworth Plaza to deter skateboarders in March 2004. A couple of months later, the Street administration declined a $1M offer from a California company that offered the money in exchange for a ban on skating in Love Park to be lifted.

Despite all this, plans for a Franklin Paine’s Park skate park along the Schuylkill River were announced a year later. And a mere eight years after that announcement, Paine’s Park is more than halfway constructed, according to Claire Laver, executive director of Franklin’s Paine Skatepark Fund.

Construction shot

According to Laver, the park should be completed by late spring or early summer. Workers…

Last summer, we wondered about 2417 Brown St., a blighted property in the Fairmount neighborhood. A former VFW Post, the building was an important fixture for army vets over several decades. From what we understand, however, it’s been vacant for about twenty years.

But today we bring good news about this property- it appears to be undergoing renovation! Or at least interior demolition, thus far.

Dumpster out front

Looking at public record, the property is still owned by John Deluca, as it has been since 1948. It’s possible that the property has been sold to a new owner, but it hasn’t been recorded yet by OPA. It’s also possible that someone has invoked Act 135, becoming a conservator of the property and possessing rights to renovated and sell it. You may recall, we told you all about this a few months back in…

For years, an embarrassing jungle has been the status quo at 23rd & Brandywine, a corner that’s steps away from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Over a year ago, we first told you about plans from Loonstyn Properties to build four homes at this site and rehab a dilapidated shell that was being devoured by some aggressive ivy. Over the summer, we updated you that Loonstyn was negotiating with the neighborhood association, and had cleared the land but still had not broken ground.

Over a year ago

Last summer

Last week, however, a reader checked in and gave us the heads up that construction was well underway at this intersection. We took a jaunt over there to take a look and

There’s a certain charm in being afforded the opportunity of walking a block or two to the local coffee shop for your morning coffee, bagel, or tasty pastry. In our urban environment, cafes represent a detached sphere. They remain the same and are moved neither by the rites of spring nor the hounds of winter.

In Fairmount, neighbors will be privy to this opportunity in the spring when the Fairmount Coffee Company opens at 26th and Poplar. We wrote about the potential of a shop opening at this corner location last summer. Members of the Fairmount Civic Association are interested in adding another quality neighborhood corner café to their streets, and supported the desired variance to make it happen. When the shop opens, hopefully on May 1st, Fairmount Coffee Company will stand as liaison between the community and the arts, all while serving La Colombe coffee,…

The 2800 block of Parrish Street is a lovely Fairmount block that happens to include a ten-unit complex of homes that all face into a private courtyard. Residents are able to pull their cars into a cul de sac, with some using the space in front of their homes for parking, while others use the easement to access their private garages. But the future for this collection of homeowners is murky indeed, after last month’s sheriff’s sale.

The courtyard

Last month, the 5,000+ sqft easement/parking lot was sold to an unknown investor due to what appears to be twenty years of unpaid property taxes totaling over $86K. Now, this insane opportunistic individual has the opportunity to hold the residents hostage, but is instead punting and offering the lot for sale on the open market for $200K. The listing reads:

ATTENTION INVESTORS – This lot/land is a…