A few days back, right after we got off of Delaware Ave. on Christian Street to head across town, we spotted ‘For Sale’ signs on a large building we’d never noticed before. 112-20 Christian St. is owned by the Scandinavian Shipping Supply Co. and was at one point used for food manufacturing and wholesaling. Additionally, it seems that part of the building served at the Royal Norwegian Honorary Consulate in Philadelphia at one time.

The building

Sign for the consulate

The building was offered for sale last month at a price of $1.5M, and was under contract in less than two weeks. Considering the extremely desirable location and the 14K sqft size of the lot upon which this building sits, not to mention the preexisting curb cuts, it seems that the buyer is getting a pretty attractive deal here.

The building that’s currently standing on this spot could probably be salvaged, though a developer would surely be looking for additional height and the existing building may not support additional floors. Alternately, the building could come down, and be replaced by a series of row homes. The only problem there would be the tremendous depth of the property (140′) which would mean some hysterically large rear yards for the new homes.

Could row homes replace the building in the distance, on the left?

Alternately, the best idea here might be a single building with rentals or condos on the upper floors and parking on the first floor. Perhaps something like the project we’ve told you about on the 1500 block of Fairmount Ave., with a slightly more historically minded design, given the area? Would people in the neighborhood be on board with a four story structure here, to make the parking financially feasible on the ground floor?

Nobody would be sad to see the existing building go, right? Unless- does it have some history that we’re clueless about?