Dear God: we’re unsure if you’ve heard our prayers lately. We need some money. So we’re selling some of (Y)our things.

Like the Holy Family Center and the northern portion of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center’s parking lot, located at 17th and Vine Streets. Hope you don’t mind, Big Fella. (Signed, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.) The 20K sqft former convent now functions as office space for various Catholic Social Services, which will be relocated.

The building

We didn’t know God had money troubles. What gives? The archdioceses faced a $6M operating deficit for the 2012 fiscal year, according to Catholic News Agency (CNA).

With these properties for sale, an interesting development opportunity presents itself in Logan Square. There, preconstruction recently started at the other corner of 17th and Vine on another one of God’s assets, the Temple for the Church of…

Just a few blocks from a new coffee shop and around the corner from one of our preferred produce places sits a construction site that a couple of readers have recently asked us about. This has been a vacant lot for several years now, but looking back at a listing from 1999 shows the building that once stood there:

Low res image from Trend

Back in 2010, 1910 Spring Garden LLC purchased the then vacant lot for $325K. Soon after, they received approvals to build a six story building with four apartments, an office space on the first floor, and four parking spaces in the basement with access from the rear. Cope Linder were the architects at the time, and they produced this rendering:

Rendering shows planned building, and the newer building that's

…

We were heading north on 18th Street the other day and noticed that the street now reduces to a single lane as you go north of Vine. The reason, site preparation has begun for the coming Mormon Temple, which will eventually replace two huge parking lots that overlook 676.

The site

View from 18th Street

Note the pile of girders in the middle of the parking lot, and that the perimeter of the site also appears to have been dug up. We’d imagine it’s still a couple of years away at least, but it won’t be long now before the site looks like this:

Rendering of the new temple, view from the southeast

Recently, we broke the good news that the western end of Market Street in Center City was finally experiencing a much-needed cleanup, with two undesirable businesses finally shutting their doors. Today, we have more good news from the “long time coming on Market Street” department. You may recall, we’ve been following the progress at 1919 Market Street for quite some time, from its purchase by Brandywine at Bankruptcy Auction, to its temporary transformation to a pop-up garden, to some details about future development at the site.

The lot in the rain

Today, we can provide some more specific information about Brandywine’s proposed development for this location, due to the fact that they’ve applied for zoning and have been issued refusals. According to L&I, the plan is for a twenty-five story building,…

We’ve wondered about this one for awhile, and confess that we still don’t have too many answers. But maybe you can help?

If you’ve been to the area in the past several years, perhaps to pick up groceries at Whole Foods, to attend classes at CCP, or to enjoy an over-the-top brunch at Sabrina’s Cafe and Spencer’s Too, you’ve probably noticed this giant empty lot at 1801 Callowhill St.

Big lot

The parcel, which takes up about an acre and a quarter, was purchased by University City Housing in 1997 for $700K. This company owns numerous rental properties in West Philly, including Hamilton Court, the Branden, and Castle Hill. From what we can gather, they don’t have any properties on the eastern side of the river, and virtually all of…

Less than a week ago, we told you about the sudden end for the Forum Theater and Les Gals, two vestiges of a bygone era of when people actually used to leave their homes for their smut. At the time, we wondered whether these shutdowns near 22nd & Market were merely temporary or a more permanent end to their seedy presence.

The Forum

Les Gals

According to a post last night on Philly.com, the porn appears to be gone forever at these locations. Anthony Trombetta, who operated both of the businesses, was evicted over $29K in unpaid rent by landlords STB Investments. It’s amazing to consider the dramatic shift that’s occurred in a very short time, as it was less than three years ago that it seemed likely that the Forum would