As we've said ad nauseum, the East Girard Avenue corridor continues to improve. Some of that improvement is coming in the form of new construction, like the still-newish building at Shackamaxon Street with five apartments and a Palm Tree Market. Or the building planned at Crease Street which we just covered the other day. Other improvements are coming in the form of the renovation of existing buildings, like the former auto supply shop at Marlborough, which looks far better than it once did but still lacks a retail tenant, from what we've heard. Today we bring you anothe renovation which is improving some tired old buildings near Montgomery Avenue.
603 and 605 E. Girard Ave. have been on and off the market for the last few years before finally selling to developers last summer. According to the listing, one of the storefronts was previously home to a television repair shop and the other housed a workshop of some kind. The listing had this photo of the defunct store, showing at least one amazing feature.
Now, as you can see in the first images, both of the buildings are under construction. They will eventually house a few apartments and surely they'll have sparkly new commercial spaces too. It remains to be seen whether the owners will combine the retail spaces or leave them separate, though we'd think that combining them would attract more tenants. Also, 603 E. Girard Ave. goes all the way back to Flora Street so we wouldn't be shocked to see the developers lop off part of the property and build a new house back there. At this time though, permits make no indication of such a plan.
Once the work is done, hopefully the developers will have an easy time attracting new residential and commercial tenants. As for the residents, they'll have the wonderful Kraftwork just a few steps away, which seems like a fantastic but dangerous proposition.