There's a cool looking building on the northwest corner of Broad & South that has been home to the World Communications Charter School since it opened almost twenty years ago. This corner was originally home to a row of amazing mansions which were sadly demolished by the 1950s, with the building we see today rising in their place, perhaps as a parking garage. You can see, the original window openings were once ten times the size they are today.
Over the summer, Philly.com reported that the Goldenberg Group had purchased this building, though the story indicated that the school had a lease on the building for several years into the future. At the end of October though, we learned that the school would be closing at the end of the school year, which gives us a sense that something could be brewing here sooner rather than later.
The property is enormous, covering over 30K sqft, with a ton of frontage on South Street. Demolishing the building would allow for something vertical, perhaps similar to Southstar Lofts, which sits on a lot 2/3 the size across the street. If you want to think really big, there's a surface parking lot on the corner of 15th & South which covers another 30K sqft, which could be combined with the WCC lot and two smaller lots in between to allow for a project that would be about half the size of Lincoln Square, coming soon to Broad & Washington. Just how tall a project could/should rise at this corner would spark considerable discussion and debate among neighbors with different ideas of how South Broad Street should look in the future.
Of course, all of this is just fun speculation and we've got no inside information about future plans here. It's quite possible that Goldenberg will sit on the property for the next few years, waiting for the right opportunity to come along. And of course, Goldenberg could probably find another school to take over the building and all of this speculation would be for naught.