We were in Northern Liberties the other day, and noticed some fairly significant demolition activity on the southwest corner of 3rd & Poplar. There had been a couple of old warehouses/garages on this corner, with a collection of pet-friendly businesses occupying said buildings. Pet store Doggie Style, a veterinarian, and the Saved Me adoption services were all here, along with a large dog run in the rear- obviously that’s no longer the case.

Earlier this year, we told you to expect this demolition, and shared plans for a significant new project here. That project will entail three homes on Orianna Street, ten homes on Poplar Street, and a new mixed-use building on 3rd Street with 25 apartments and retail on the first floor. The homes will each have a parking space, and there will be 12 additional spots associated with the project located on the site. The architecture work comes from Atrium Design Group, and from where we sit, they’ve designed a project that will represent a huge step up for this property over what was here before. Not only do we like the look of the buildings that are planned, but we would argue that residential with a dash of commercial makes much more sense here than its previous use.

Doggie Style obviously needed to find a new home, and we were a little surprised to see that they relocated to a new space directly across the street. This should limit confusion from long term customers, at least.

You may remember, the southeast corner of this intersection was previously a section of the old Ortlieb’s brewery, which was demoed back in 2014. In its place, a project called Ortlieb Square has appeared, bringing eighteen duplexes and a mixed-use building at the corner, whose ground floor is occupied by Doggie Style, like we said. Looking at Ortlieb Square alongside the planned project across the street, we’re seeing two significant industrial parcels going mostly residential in a very short time frame. This is consistent with what we’ve seen all over Northern Liberties over the last several years, as its industrial past fades more and more into history. We figure this trend will only continue until there’s no old warehouses left in this part of town. Unfortunately, most of the construction replacing these old buildings won’t look as nice as the project that’s coming soon at 3rd & Poplar.