The 1100 block of Chestnut Street was pretty awful for a long time, an extension of the blah retail experience on nearby blocks of Market Street. While the north side of the block remains mostly mired in crapitude, the south side has seen a major transformation, thanks to a significant mixed-use project from Brickstone which wrapped up about a year ago. That projects includes 115 apartments, a City Target location which we explored last summer, and a liquor store. The new residents and businesses have provided new life to this block.

Immediately next door to the Brickstone project are two vacant buildings that hearken back to the old days for this block. As recently as a couple years ago, 1108 and 1110 Chestnut St. were home to Armand’s Sound and Video, along with a nail salon and a cell phone store, but currently they are sitting empty and looking lousy.

Fortunately, it looks like this won’t be the situation for very long. As is sometimes our wont, we were thumbing through the MSC Retail website and happened upon a listing for these properties. We learned that roughly 2,300 sqft of space is available for lease at 1108 Chestnut St., with another 2,000 sqft in the basement. Next door, at 1110 Chestnut St., an interested tenant can rent 2,300 sqft on the first floor, 2000+ sqft in the basement, and another 2,300 sqft on the 2nd floor. The brochure for the properties shows that they’re currently in shell condition, but renderings indicate that both will be renovated once they’re leased. We would have thought that developers would have looked to demolish the building at 1110 Chestnut St. and build something taller, but what do we know.

Missed opportunity for more height aside, all of this sounds just great, and we look forward to seeing continued improvement on this block. Looking farther into the future, don’t forget that the original plans for the East Market project, progressing nicely on the 1100 block of Market Street, call for later phases on the north side of the 1100 block of Chestnut Street. Put another way, some forward thinking restaurateur that opens up in one of the spaces described above could find themselves, a few years from now, with a huge pool of customers living and working very close by. Now we just have to decide whether we want to open the Da Vinci Cafe or Bistro. Life is full of tough choices.