We were in Brewerytown earlier today, and a zoning notice at 1222 N. 29th St. caught our eye in passing. In spying the zoning notice, we had an excuse to stare at this wonderful edifice for a moment, admiring its gabled roof, intact cornice, and the brickwork on the facade. Curious as to whether anyone had written about this property in the past, we gave the address a quick Google and discovered that someone had indeed covered this property before… us.

In October of 2014, we told you that the owners of the property had made an appeal to the ZBA to open a tattoo studio on the first floor of the building, but the case had been continued. The project went back to the ZBA in November, and was held for discussion, with a denial coming the next month. Why did the ZBA deny the application? We don’t know. What we do know is that there’s now a new effort to open a business on the first floor of this building, and the proposal might surprise you. Yup, the plans are calling for a tattoo studio.

We have to think that some people that live in the neighborhood can provide a little more context here. Does anyone know why the 2014 application got denied? Can someone fill us in as to whether the current application is the same operator that tried a few years ago or whether it’s somebody new? Also, Electric Temple Tattoo is located around the corner, on the 2800 block of W. Girard. Does it make sense for there to be two tattoo places in this area within half a block of each other?

You can see, the building was built for mixed-use and the first floor retail space has retained its commercial identity even though it’s been empty for many years. We generally would prefer for new businesses to open on the West Girard corridor in this part of town, but the corridor does wrap around to 29th Street, so a business would definitely make sense here. Will that business be a tattoo studio in the near future? Or will that effort fall through again, opening up the opportunity for some other business? Or maybe the space will continue to sit empty for the next few years, and a tattoo place will give it another go in 2021.