A Northern Liberties neighbor reached out to us a few months back, having noticed some geotechnical work taking place on a parking lot on the east side of the 600 block of N. Front Street. We previously brought this property to your attention back in 2014, noting that it was listed for sale and thinking that the sole building on the property would make for a unique restaurant or retail space. With the soil testing taking place, we figured that the parcel would get redeveloped sometime soon, and assumed some kind of residential development on the horizon. How wrong we were.

Sure, town homes or an apartment building would make sense at this location, as there’s been a ton of residential development in the immediate area over the last few years. A few dozen homes have risen on Front Street. The questionably named Penn Treaty Village Pennthouses turned a couple of vacant industrial buildings into a couple hundred apartments. And then there’s the recently completed WLiving apartment building, just to the west of here. But as we implied, a residential use won’t be the fate of the lot at the northeast corner of Front & Spring Garden.

This morning, we saw the agenda for tonight’s Northern Liberties Neighbors Association zoning meeting and noticed something quite unexpected. At 8:20pm, there’s an initial presentation for a Wawa gas station and a parking garage at the corner of Front & Spring Garden. We reached out to NLNA to get more info, and learned that the project will cover properties on both the northeast and the northwest corners of the intersection. We have to think that the Wawa will be on the east side and the parking garage on the west side, but we confess we aren’t sure of any more details.

If you happen to find yourself at tonight’s meeting and you find out some additional information, please fill in the blanks in the comments!