You may recall, the other day we told you that Phil's Battery Service was moving from their location on the 200 block of Tasker Street to a new spot deeper in South Philly. We speculated that another large development could soon replace this business, which occupies about 8,000 sqft of land. When we were photographing their soon-to-close location, we noticed fresh demolition across the street.
According to Hidden City, the Greenwich Street Church was originally built in 1866. For over a hundred years, it served a Presbyterian Congregation, and in 1987 it was converted into the Khmer Palelai Buddhist Temple. The monks moved to Southwest Philly, and now their former home is no more.
Seeing the huge vacant lot, we suspected that this site would soon be the next huge residential development to crop up in this neighborhood. With over 11K sqft of space and over 60 feet of frontage on both Tasker and Greenwich Streets, you could easily build ten homes here with parking. Instead, it seems like the plans here are much more modest. Hidden City says that the owners of the property, who are members of the family that own Pat's Steaks, intend to only build two houses here.
Two houses!?! Two? Really? They paid over $700K, plus who knows how much more to demolish a non-historic building with plenty of history, to build two homes on 11K sqft? Are we missing something? Is this just some ruse to convince a developer to step up and pay over a million bucks for the lot? Seriously guys, we don't understand.
And yes, this post qualifies as an official offer of one million dollars for the property. Maybe with a zoning contingency though, okay?