The Grays Ferry Pathmark closed its doors last fall, creating a food desert in the neighborhood and a giant vacancy in the creatively named Grays Ferry Shopping Center. At the beginning of this year, we heard rumbings that Fresh Grocer would be taking over the Pathmark space but we haven't heard confirmation of that rumor. We told you last April that Laserdome, a laser tag company out of Lancaster, would be taking over the space, but that information was utterly false and was only presented because we're so creative and hilarious.
Just the other day, we were passing by the shopping center on our way to West Philly and spied something new and different. There's a construction fence in front of the former Pathmark!
Looking at the L&I Map, we see two permits that partially explain the situation. In June, the property owners pulled a building permit to create a vanilla box grocery store space here, and that permit indicates that additional permits are required for tenant fit out. Two days ago, another permit was pulled, this time for alterations to the tenant space, including "new interior partition walls, accessible service counter, accessible restrooms, exterior concrete stairs, bollard installation, wall/floor/ceiling finishing, and roof mechanical support." This sounds like the additional permit that's required for tenant fit out, does it not?
Has anyone heard any further news on the Fresh Grocer rumor? Has anyone else heard about the possibility of a Shop Rite coming to this space? Can the combined energies of our hopes and dreams make a Wegmans happen at this location? Eh, probably not. But for people who live in this area, the fact that work is now happening here should be a cause for excitement. It certainly looks like a grocery store will be appearing in Grays Ferry very soon.