A year ago, we first told you about the likelihood that the Fortieth Street ME Church, located at 125 S. 40th St. would be demolished sometime soon. The church, which was built in 1872 and designed by Sloan & Hutton, housed three different congregations over 135 years. The currently empty building was purchased in 2007 by P&A Associates, the folks who built the Murano, the St. James, and have been doing other development in Philadelphia for many years.

The church

According to a story in today’s Daily Pennsylvanian, it seems this beautiful church will, in fact, be torn down by the end of this year. Replacing it will be a one-story, ultra contemporary structure designed by CANNO Architecture + Design, a firm that designed the Artisan Townhouses on…

We were catching an American Football match at the Field House yesterday and noticed something shiny and new next door. As you may or may not be aware, the Market Street entrance to the Convention Center not only contains an entrance to the Field House, a Dunkin Donuts, and a PNC Bank, but it also contains a brand new addition to the Hard Rock Cafe.

Big Gibson

It seems that after fourteen years, this cheesy chain location was in need of an upgrade. With that in mind, the restaurant has built “The Philadelphia Room,” an extension of the restaurant and an event space, in an area that used to be superfluous Convention Center lobby space (at least as far as we can recall). With the recent completion of the new space,…

A reader sent us this listing from Loopnet, which indicates that the 2,000 sqft space that’s been home to Krispy Kreme for a little more than a year is available for sublease. When a small, local business like Ramen Boy folds after a short time, it’s not really such a surprise. But when a store that’s part of a giant corporation can’t make a go of it in just a year, it’s fairly unexpected, ya know?

The space

The corner

Krispy Kreme is located at 41 S. 16th St., just a tad north of the corner of 16th & Chestnut. While Liberty Place is across the street, and the corner gets all kinds of pedestrian traffic, the Krispy Kreme is very easy to miss for people walking past on Chestnut…

A couple of months ago, when we told you about the opening of the still delicious HipCityVeg, we lamented that the plans for a Crumbs Bake Shop on 18th Street had apparently fallen through. You may recall, we initially told you last summer that Crumbs intended to take over 133 S. 18th St., most recently the home of Leehe Fai, after near neighbors gave the thumbs down to a proposed Dunkin Donuts. After months with no progress and rumors of corporate reorganization putting the kibosh on Crumbs expansion into Philly, who could blame us for thinking that this space would stay vacant forever?

The space

It would usually pain us to admit it, but in this case we’re thrilled to be wrong. Earlier this week, representatives from Crumbs presented to CCRA, giving…

Today, we checked out HipCityVeg, the vegan sandwich shop that replaced Pad Thai Shack at 127 S. 18th St., just north of Rittenhouse Square. This brand new spot had a line out the door for the second day in a row today, as suits and hipsters alike piled in to sample the wares of Nicole Marquis, previously of Horizons.

End of the line

We bring this to your attention not to brag about the delicious curry tofu wrap we devoured for lunch, but to bring into focus the significant changes to the commercial landscape on this little stretch over the past couple of years. Retail spaces turn over all the time in this town, but the new places on this extremely trafficked stretch have really changed the vibe here recently. Let’s take a look:

A.

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As you may recall, a couple of months ago we sarcastically ranted about the impending addition of another Dunkin Donuts to the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood. Whelp, D&D was rejected last month by the ZBA due to what we understand to be neighborhood opposition, so the future was seemingly up in the air for this high-potential corner space at 18th and Moravian Sts.

Vacant forever?

But wait! According to sources, a new retail establishment has signed a lease for the space. Drum roll please… okay, the suspense was spoiled by the title of the post… Crumbs Bake Shop! Crumbs, the eight-year-old company out of New York City, was recently listed on the NASDAQ (CRMB) and has plans to expand to 200 locations by 2014. There are currently thirty-seven locations, mostly on the east coast. Aggressive…