We’ve always had a bit of a crush on 2212 Walnut St., sometimes known as the WPEN building. The building was constructed in 1928, and designed by Ralph Bencker, the architect for 1901 Walnut St. and the guy who did storefront work for several Horn & Hardart locations during that era. From the 1950s through the late 1970s, WPEN made its home here, before moving to Bala Cynwyd. In more recent years, the building was home to Springboard Media, which sold Mac products way before it was cool.

The building

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The building is a wonderful example of Art Deco design. The granite facade combined with the copper spandrels make for one of the most unique looking buildings in Center City. As you would imagine, the building is indeed historically listed.

We’d kind of forgotten that Springboard moved out of this space last year, but when we recently stopped for gas across the street we were reminded that this space has been sitting vacant for a minute. Permits and signs in the windows indicated that something new was going on in the space, but our standard research methods to find this kind of stuff out left us wanting. According to the L&I Map, the building will have a business and professional office on the first floor and in the basement, with three apartments upstairs. Great, thanks L&I.

Another angle, looking into the sun

Digging a little deeper, we discovered that the Philadelphia Game Lab has plans to take over this space in the near future. According to the website for this non-profit dedicated to the development of video games, they’ll have a gallery and retail space at the on the ground floor, and about 8K sqft to host game development teams in the back and in the basement. From what we can gather, the Lab was supposed to be in place by now, but you know how construction can go sometimes.

We’re not entirely sure what the retail space will offer, but we’ll be sure to pop in once it’s finished and give y’all the lowdown. In the meantime, we’re just happy to see that this amazing building will continue to have an active retail use.