Just across the street from a Pep Boys that we speculated about this summer sits 1200 S. Broad St., a funky Mid-Century Modern design at the corner of Broad & Federal, just inside the Point Breeze border. Currently home to People Employing People, an education and job support service for those with disabilities, and former home to Pep Bowl (more on that in a bit, don’t worry), this building screams 1954, which is when it was built. With a design from contemporary leader Carroll, Grisdale & Van Alen, this Modernist structure was originally home to the Order Sons of Italy in America, Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania until the mid-1970s. When we stopped to check out the building, the main entrance along Federal was buzzing with activity, with the facade retaining nearly all of its original, gorgeous character.
But there are plans to go up here, as the building was sold to developers earlier this year. Spring Hill Services are the new owners, and they will be leasing back some of the space to both PEP entities – the service as well as the bowling alley. As for the rest of the space? Plans call for some demo work, with a two-story addition being added above the two-story base. 53 units will take up these floors, with 6 of the units marked as affordable, adding to the density for this CMX-2 zoned property. Excitingly, Pep Bowl will indeed return in the future, with a new entrance welcoming those who just need to roll. Things are still a bit fuzzy here, as a zoning refusal that was scheduled for this week was pushed to February, and a pending historical designation is adding to the uncertain future plans. All told, it sure seems as if something will happen here soon.
Other new construction is taking place just across Carlisle, where a slick single-family home from Landmark Architectural Design is getting close to completion. Just south on Carlisle, a project we covered several years back is now completed, with another project from Landmark adding 16 more units (and Greenstreet Coffee to the 15th St. side of the project). The latter project replaced a pretty cool looking facade, sadly.
While we await the future for the (potentially) protected landmark, we can’t help but gawk as we peer north along Broad. Standing at Federal St., the amount of development to the north makes one feel as if they are almost in Center City, with hundreds of new units and several new businesses changing the pep in the block’s step (sorry). We are excited to see what sort of designs will come our way as South Broad continues to evolve.
