South Kensington has seen all kinds of development over the last few years, and as we told you earlier this week, there are some pretty significant projects still in the pipeline. Through it all, the former Gretz Brewery at 1524 Germantown Ave. has been sitting vacant and blighted, a reminder of what so much of the neighborhood looked like less than a decade ago. We first wrote about this building years ago, noting that the brewery was founded as Rieger & Gretz Brewing Company in 1881, and stating our belief that the buildings had not been used since the brewery ceased operations in 1960.

By the end of 2012, the City had posted a demolition notice on the building, and we were worried that the entire compound would be torn down. Fortunately and unfortunately, the demo notice only applied to the building at the corner, which was demoed in 2013. Checking in on the property today, we see that aside from the demolition from a few years ago, it pretty much looks the way it did when we first wrote about it. And by that we mean it has amazing bones but looks severely distressed.

A neighbor reached out to us the other day, noting that they’d spied workers at Gretz in recent weeks. Some workers were cleaning up inside the building with shovels and a bobcat, while others were tidying up outside, taming the massive weeds that had grown around the property. According to public record, Rufo Companies still owns the property and the owners are working through a payoff agreement to resolve some outstanding delinquent taxes. But that’s not gospel, as public record can sometimes take months to update. It’s entirely possible that a new owner is cleaning up the property in advance of renovation or demolition. Maybe Rufo still owns the building, has no immediate plans for it, and has workers performing some cleanup work in response to a violation. Or maybe Rufo is finally getting ready to develop the property, perhaps with the 39-townhome project they’ve had on their website for a long time.

We’ll hope that this work is a sign of upcoming development, either from Rufo Companies or a new developer. And if not, we’re confident that the surrounding neighborhood will continue to see the same development trajectory it’s experienced in the last number of years. Still, it would be a boon for the area to see this blight eliminated once and for all. If it sticks around though, just don’t think that a Doors and Windows violation will cause any headaches for the owner, or anyone else, for that matter.