Last week, Philadelphia Business Journal broke the news that local developer Canus Corporation has big plans for a giant vacant lot at 2nd & Thompson, just a couple of blocks north of the Piazza. A former steel site, this lot measures about 2.5 acres and was originally tabbed by the same developer for a project with 160 condos and 16 artist studios. But the recession hit, and since the project fell by the wayside, it’s continued to sit vacant.

The lot

Crane building in the distance

From the north, it looks just as big

Now, Canus is proposing Soko Lofts, a 311-unit residential development that will also include 4-6 retail spaces. Last Wednesday, the developers presented their plans to a large crowd at the monthly

Almost a year ago, we told you about an ambitious project to transform an old Kensington warehouse that had most recently been home to a lamp design company. Consisting of two buildings at Front & Oxford, plans for the project involved a mix of residential, office, and retail uses with a parking component as well.

In the past

An old eastern view

When we initially posted about this project, several commenters expressed concern that the project would never get off the ground, perhaps due to financial constraints or political concerns. We can’t say we blame them- large adaptive reuse projects like this are notoriously hard to pull off, especially in an area that most lenders would probably contend has not yet really arrived.

But today we bring good news. As some other commenters assured the…

Over a year ago, we told you that the folks from Indy Hall were teaming with the folks from Postgreen to establish a co-housing project at 1711 N. Howard St., just a few doors up the street from the First Steel homes. We were in that neck of the woods the other day, and discovered that a structure has been framed out here, but it doesn’t look anything like the K’House renderings.

In the past

Current view

Trying to understand the change, we reached out to Postgreen to get the scoop. Turns out, the proposal got rejected by the ZBA despite unanimous support from South Kensington Community Partners. But this doesn’t mean that the K’House project is dead, it’s just postponed. At this moment, Postgreen is building one of their Signature homes…

We’ve probably passed by the intersection of N Howard St. and Cecil B. Moore Ave. dozens of times in the past, but we somehow never noticed that there’s a building at this intersection that looks a lot like a castle without a moat. Have you seen this building before?

View from the east

And from the west

1625 N. Howard St. is built on a self-contained triangular block, and is bordered by Cecil B., Howard, and Turner Streets. And while it may resemble an urban take on a medieval dwelling, it was actually built as a fire house in 1927 for Engine 15. It replaced a much more elaborate fire house, pictured below in 1896.

Engine 15's original home

The garage door was previously the entry point for the fire truck, and…

In recent years, the number of local coffee roasteries in Philadelphia has exploded. Chestnut Hill, One Village, Green Street, and L’Aube are just a few of the local roasters that have contributed to the evolving coffee scene in our fine town. Another local roaster, ReAnimator Coffee, recently moved to a new and larger location in Kensington, into a warehouse that also contains an arts space.

Entrance to the building

Reanimator used Lucky Ant, a crown-funding company out of New York, to fund part of the construction of their new Production Facility and Coffee Lab. Using this method, they were able to raise over $8,500 which went toward buildout and equipment. In exchange for “investments,” they offered swag, membership to their coffee of the month club, or Reanimator coffee…

Last week, we told you about a vacant lot on Thompson Street that was potentially getting twelve new residential units. Today, we have some info on a development a block away, just on the other side of the El, that’s much further along.

In the distance on the left

Duplexellence is a new project at 110 W. Thompson St. from Postgreen, developers who have been extremely active in Fishtown and its surrounding neighborhoods over the last few years. We swung by yesterday and happened to run into company President Chad Luderman, who gave us a tour of the new building, which was designed by Manifest A-D.

Current view

Rendering shows it's getting close

As you can probably figure from the…