The cider business is exploding in America, with exponential growth over the last half dozen years. And as the Philadelphia area has a thriving local brewery scene, it should come as no surprise that the local cidery scene is on the rise. Still, we must admit that we'd never heard of Kurant Cider until earlier this week, when we read a story from Michael Klein that described their plans for a test kitchen and tasting room on East Girard Avenue. Their future home, 436 E. Girard Ave., is a garage that was originally built in the 1800s and was used most recently as a windshield store. The building has a ton of character right now, with a red door and a second level painted teal. We'd guess that it'll look rather different when they're finished their renovation efforts.
East Girard has seen all kinds of new businesses open over the last few years, but this block has seen less action than some others. Still, Threshold Wellness, located a few doors down, is a relatively new addition to the area, as is the Slice location across the street, which just opened a few months ago. It stands to reason that we'll see even more commercial activity on this stretch in the next few years, partially because of the upcoming cidery but perhaps more due to a couple of major projects in the pipeline.
On the 500 block of E. Girard, we told you over the summer about a mixed-use project with 17 apartments and about 3,000 sqft of retail on the first floor. That project, visible in the first image above, is now under heavy construction. Across the street, it was just about a week ago that we shared the news that developers had purchased the Lou Wolff Auto property at 501 E. Girard Ave., and that it seemed like a guarantee that this 25K sqft site would eventually see a mix of apartments and retail.
While it's true that East Girard has had most of its buzz closer to Frankford Avenue, the 400 and 500 blocks seem will see more activity in the next couple years. This seems like good news for both the people living in the neighborhood today as well as the people who will be coming to the area as these new projects get built out. Let's hope they like cider, too.