Yesterday, we came upon an excavator in a hole at a construction site at Taney & Brown in the Fairmount neighborhood. Today, we stroll a couple of blocks to the north, to where Taney Street hits Girard Avenue. Last summer, the last time we visited this intersection, developers MM Partners had just demolished two buildings on the northeast corner. Remember, their original plans had been to renovate the buildings that once stood here, but fatal structural problems made salvaging the buildings impossible. So they went the demolition route, and they're now in the process of building a big new building on this parcel dubbed the Braverman Building.
This building, as we told you previously, will have sixteen apartments and two retail spaces. One of those spaces is already spoken for, and will house the MM Partners offices. We'll be interested to see who takes the other space.
Speaking of retail, a few doors down there's a one-story shopping center that we actually mentioned a couple of years ago when one of the tenants left. In the years since, MM Partners has renovated the property, improving the exterior look. Signs on the property suggest they're still looking for a tenant. We wouldn't be sad to see this building demolished and replaced with a taller mixed-use structure, but maybe that's a few years down the road.
To the west, the conversion of the former St. Augustine's Church of the Covenant at 27th & Girard looks to be finished. And what a fine conversion it is! Sixteen new apartments in the building just add to the momentum on Girard Avenue and in Brewerytown in general. Makes us wish that these developers could have first dibs on all the churches coming on the market moving forward.
Combining the former church and the Braverman Building, that's thirty-two new apartments coming online in Brewerytown within a couple hundred yards. And if you consider the 70 units and 10 homes coming soon across the street at 27 Girard, this block is poised for even more change in the coming years.