A lousy poem:
Great white whale of Philadelphia development;
Embarrassing vacancies at the intersection of two arteries;
The rumor mill churns, but no butter is made;
Oh Broad and Washington!
Almost a decade ago, there were plans for a large mixed-use project on the northeast corner of this intersection. The company who proposed that project went bust. When the Phillies won the World Series, a giant pinata lived here. He's gone to a better place. Two years ago, we heard rumblings that Dranoff Properties had legitimate interest in the property. Nothing came of it. Now it's relatively common knowledge that Tower Investments has plans to redevelop this parcel into a large commercial hub. Last week, Metro Commercial produced a retail packet that not only detailed different leasing opportunities but also provided the most insight to date into the concept Tower will propose.
As you can see, the project in its current form includes a movie theater, a gym, a grocery store, a couple of additional large retail spaces, and a collection of smaller retail spaces near the corner. It also has over a thousand parking spots. Also notable, there are no residential units proposed. If you'd like to see extensive floor plans, check out this story from Passyunk Post.
Yesterday, PhillyChitChat set Twitter abuzz when he shared the rumor that Wegman's will be signing on as the grocery tenant at this corner. Obviously, this would be totally amazing. Not only would our favorite supermarket be coming to town, but the staggering number of parking spaces proposed would seemingly be justified as well. Wegman's has been traditionally a suburban supermarket, building huge big-box locations surrounded by parking lots. But they will soon be opening an 80,000 sqft location in Newton Massachusetts. This will be a much smaller store than their usual stores, and could indicate a willingness to cater their model to new markets.
So could this really be happening?!?! Unfortunately, our sources tell us that it isn't. As was the case previously, we're hearing that the likely tenant will be a Superfresh or a Giant. But hey, we've been wrong before. And this is one case where we really hope we're wrong again.
Wegman's today, Wegman's tomorrow, Wegman's forever!!!