As you’re probably well aware, many Queen Village residents have the pleasure of basically living next door to I-95. As such, Queen Village Neighbors Association (QVNA) was granted the right to create a community parking lot several years ago under the highway at Front and Christian Streets, according to Jeff Hornstein, QVNA president. QVNA leases the land at low cost from the Interstate Land Management Corporation (ILMC), the quasi-government agency that oversees the 100-foot right-of-way on either side and underneath I-95. QVNA charges 95 people $95 a month to park there. In turn, they use the revenue generated to run their organization and to provide grants for the community through a competitive grant process. Last year, the Nebinger and Meredith Schools both received grants.

Queen Village parking lot

Now, new plans are in the works for QVNA to rent a second lot,…

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

Back in April, we told you about the plans to build a CVS in the large parking lot on the corner of 22nd & South. The construction has been racing along for the past few months now, and the time has finally come! According to their media department, the new store will open on November 18th.

In the past

Current view

The corporate CVS location looms over the many independently owned shops in the area, which includes Ants Pants Cafe, Bicycle Therapy, Cat Vet, L2, and others. It’s also only a stones throw away from other CVS locations at 15th and Spruce and 11th and South. And perhaps you’ve noticed that there are three more pharmacies on the 1700 block of South Street alone?

Looking toward the other pharmacies

Some area residents responded to news of the CVS with a pout. Neighbors were not…

While battening down the hatches and as the hunkering down has begun, we decided to poke around on the zoning dockets for the end of this month, and came upon a biggie. Last week, a developer presented a project to the ZBA at 810 Arch St., which has been a surface lot for decades.

The lot

Unfortunate PPA lot next door

According to the zoning application, the plan for this site is for a nine story building with a commercial space on the first floor and 112 apartment units. Also included in the property will be offices, lounges, community rooms, an exercise room, and thirty-eight bike spaces. And… that’s pretty much all we know.

According to public record, the owner of the lot is the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, and has been since 1970. We’re…

We were driving through the neighborhood the other day, and spotted a ‘For Sale’ sign next to a parking lot at the corner of Berks & Moyer. We weren’t sure whether the parking lot was for sale, the buildings next door, or everything together, so we decided to do a little poking around on the subject.

The parking lot

And the buildings next door

According to the listing for 1221-31 E Berks St., it’s all for sale. The parcel is nearly 15,000 sqft, with the parking lot covering about two-thirds of that space. This compound has been on the market for a little over three months, with an asking price just short of $1.5M. From a listing from a few years ago, it seems that the buildings, currently used as offices, were built somewhat recently. Should a…

A reader checked in the other day, wondering why the northeast corner of 22nd & Lombard is a parking lot. Considering its stellar Fitler Square location, one would think that developers would have picked this 60′x68′ property up years ago and constructed new homes on this site, probably with some garages to boot.

Prime parking lot

The parking lot was (as you can imagine) home to buildings at one point. Back in 1959, Joseph Tompkins petitioned the ZBA for permission to tear down the existing buildings, which consisted of three dwellings that were so substandard “that would not warrant the cost of putting them in first class shape,” and a dilapidated former harness shop on the corner. The ZBA approved, and the parking lot has persisted for over fifty years.

Meanwhile, across the street from this surface lot is one of our…