We were on our way to Reading Terminal Market the other day when a demolition notice caught our eye as we zipped down 12th Street. The notice, along with a Stop Work Order, was posted on 214 N. 12th St., a nice enough building that’s ultimately an edifice that we don’t think anybody is going to miss. Developers had proposed a 6 unit building in its place, but that proposal was withdrawn from consideration at the ZBA about a year ago. We frankly don’t know what they’ve got planned at this juncture, though the CMX-3 zoning designation makes for some interesting opportunities.

You can see in the image above, there’s a two-story building to the south of the soon-to-be-demoed property which happens to be owned by the same developers. They’ve pulled a permit to build a three story addition atop the existing building which we have to think will include a residential component. Unfortunately, for some reason we can’t pull up the info on this property from the Zoning Archive, so we don’t know exactly what’s coming here either. Still, both properties bear watching in the coming months, to see exactly what’s in store on this block that doesn’t typically see much development activity.

Both of these properties are relatively small potatoes, but several surface parking lots on this block represent much bigger opportunities. To be clear, we don’t think that these parking lots, probably pretty important to the Convention Center, are going anywhere anytime soon. But if a developer could pry them away and redevelop these properties, it sure would be an excellent outcome.