Over the winter a reader living on the 1500 block of Brown Street emailed us, frustrated about the condition the blighted properties on Ridge Avenue abutting the back of her home. We had some good news at the time, that three of the worst buildings, 1526-30 Ridge Ave., had been listed

We had a hankering for a Steap and Grind sandwich yesterday, and something caught our eye as we approached the excellent Frankford Avenue cafe. We don't know how long it's been there, but a construction fence has appeared at 1716-32 Frankford Ave.It's a big lotThis property looks like it was

A couple of readers reached out last week, wondering about the early stages of construction on the 2400 block of E. Dauphin St., next door to three new houses from BMK Homes. Intrigued, we went out to investigate. We were surprised to discover that we'd actually covered this project a

As a general rule, we prefer seeing adaptive reuse, not demolition and new construction. Understanding that's not always possible, it still bums us out when we see awesome old buildings torn down and replaced by standard residential development. But such is life in our living, breathing city. So yeah, we

Chestnut Street has seen a serious retail revival in recent years, marking a major recovery from the damage caused by the Chestnut Street Transitway (and Philly's general malaise through the early 1990s). Stores like Uniqlo and Nordstrom Rack have opened their first downtown locations on Chestnut. Joan Shepp, seeking more

Back in the summer of 2014, we told you about some new homes under construction on the 400 block of Mercy Street, half a block north of Snyder Avenue. This was a notable development because we don't typically see construction in Whitman, though it's not so far from Pennsport. Maybe

The 1300 block of N. 6th St. is slowly transforming thanks to the work of different developers, all of whom are building residential projects. As recently as 2011, the block looked like this:Just a few years agoThat's a lot of vacant land, but compared to some other blocks nearby, it's

The revitalization of Front Street took another step forward a couple of weeks ago with the opening of Front Street Cafe at the corner of Front & Thompson. We visited the new place a few days ago and came away impressed with the present and eager to return once the

A long vacant building at 1654 Ridge Ave. changed hands a few months ago, and the developers will soon go to the ZBA for permission to build an addition on the existing structure, with plans for ground-floor retail and seven apartments above. This building once contained a pharmacy and a

If you've traveled down 2nd Street in the last couple months, you've surely noticed that there's some relatively new construction activity on the southeast corner of 2nd & Vine. We've actually been meaning to cover this one for awhile, but the volume of traffic on 2nd Street has generally made