img

img

welcome to Fairmount

Until the listing was removed a couple of months ago, the huge red building at 1406 Fairmount Ave. was on the market, listed for $1.4M. Most recently an Apostolic church, the building is 56′ wide by 115′ deep, and the interior square footage is about 20K.

Big and red

While it seems that no one was willing to take on this property at the somewhat high asking price, we’re wondering what its future holds. With other market rate development on the horizon on the 1400 block of Fairmount, and all sorts of construction, renovation, and adaptive reuse happening on surrounding blocks, this building should become more desirable as time passes. On the other hand, with 55 low income apartments potentially being built across the street by Project H.O.M.E., that might not necessarily be the case. In a perfect world, we’d love to see condos or rental apartments in this building, a la the Loonstyn conversion currently under construction at 16th and Fairmount. Anyone have a better idea?

Ultimately, our sense is that the fate of this immediate area is closely tied to the Divine Lorraine Hotel, just on the other side of Broad St. While that building continues to waste away, its blight sucks the energy out of the blocks that surround it and makes the immediate area less attractive to developers. Hopefully, we’ll see progress at both 1406 Fairmount St. and the Divine Lorraine sometime soon- for now, we’ll bet the on the former before the latter.

The Divine Lorraine looks on

3
COMMENTS
img
Posted in Fairmount | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments
  • Eldondre

    any idea what the building was prior to its current use?

  • EricCLayWarner

    Rental apartments would make great use of the space, especially with its proximity to the subway. This type of development makes the redevelopment of the Divine Lorraine more attractive especially when a developer sees all the investment along Broad St with the new Starr and Vetri restaurant coming soon, Osteria, 600 Lofts, 640 Lofts, the state condo project underway, the potential high density residential development of the Inquirer Building and Temple University’s new 20 +/- story residential tower. Fairmount and a Divine Lorraine project really would serve as one of the key developmental links between Center City and the 1.1 Billion dollar investment Temple is making in North Philadelphia (alot of it focuses on Broad St). University City has science and medicine. I would love to see Temple and other investors turn the old industrial section of N. Philadelphia into the new 21st century tech hub Philadelphia is screaming for and has the potential to develop with its truly stellar higher education systems. This wont happen without the development of an attractive corridor. Glad this project is a small step forward. 

  • http://nakedphilly.com/fairmount/huge-development-coming-to-1400-block-of-fairmount/ Huge Development Coming to 1400 Block of Fairmount | NakedPhilly

    [...] is pushing all the way to the 1400 block of Fairmount Ave. As we discussed earlier this month, a church on this block is crying out for redevelopment, and perhaps this project will spark some interest in that property. In addition, the enormous [...]

Have a Story for us?
Email Tips@Nakedphilly.com
With Photos & gossip