As homes have continued to appreciate in Northern Liberties, the industrial buildings that once dominated the neighborhood have grown increasingly out of place. There was a lumber yard for over a century at 3rd & Girard, but that’s been demoed in favor of an upcoming apartment building. A former wire works on Lawrence Street got torn down a few years back, and seventeen homes rose in its place. And then there’s the Apex building on N. American St., which produced banquet display and serving products, and got converted into apartments relatively recently.

For a little over half a decade, Global Beer Distributors operated out of 1150 N. American St., next door to the old Apex building. We confess, we never actually set foot inside this particular beer distributor, but we have to think it provided a decent service to the surrounding neighborhood. We use the past tense here, because the beer distributor recently shut its doors. And a reader pointed out to us that there’s now a demo notice on the building.

This property was listed for sale last year, with the listing indicating that the building covers 9,600 sqft and the beer distributor was on a month to month least at a rent number of $7K/mo. New owners stepped in at the end of last year, ponying up $2.8M for the property, surely with an eye toward demolition and new construction on the 17K sqft parcel. At this point, we only see permits for demolition and no permits for the project that will follow. The property is zoned IRMX, which allows for a mixed-use building by right, so it’s possible we won’t get too many specifics until construction is just on the horizon. Then again, the property has a somewhat unusual shape, so the developers might find that a zoning variance will allow them to take advantage of a more intuitive design.

You may recall, it was just yesterday that we told you that the old Fishtown Beverage building on Frankford Avenue had been torn down, with new development on the way. We wonder, with bottle shops opening around town and beer and wine now making serious inroads in supermarkets, whether beer distributors are on the wane. Surely some distributors will stick around, but we might be seeing a major change in the booze business in PA happening right before our eyes.