In Spring Garden

Oh Girard Avenue, the plight of your blight is like a slow jazz song, like at these two locations just outside Northern Liberties just a block apart. At the southwest intersection of Franklin and Girard Avenues, a large building has sat unoccupied and rundown for years. Meanwhile, a block to the east,

About a month ago, grocery-loving residents of the greater Center City area were abuzz with the news that a new, enormous Whole Foods would be opening at the Best Western site at 22nd Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, replacing the store's too-small Callowhill location. Coming in 2017, the new market will

Last summer, we first told you about the Goldtex building at 12th & Wood, a vacant and blighted industrial building that was set to become 168 loft apartment units. As has been covered ad nauseum in the papers, the developers, Post Bros., had a battle from very early on with

Over the summer, we broke the news that the Church of the Assumption, the classic structure built over 150 years ago, was under contract with developer John Wei. The church is architect Patrick Charles Keely's oldest remaining building, and the subject of its demolition has tied up in the courts since it was

We were in the area the other day, dodging the rain, and spotted a 'For Sale' sign on 607 N 18th St., a property that's caught our eye in the past. We've wondered about the mystery former business that once occupied the now vacant storefront, as well as the unattractive

A couple of readers have checked in recently, noting that the historic but blighted Purvis House at 1601 Mount Vernon St. was experiencing some changes of late. We finally made it over to the area yesterday.

Looking at the L&I Map, the building has three fresh violations as of the beginning of this

The 1300 block of Ridge Avenue has had a rough go of it for many years now. At its intersection with Broad Street stands the vacant and blighted Divine Lorraine. Much of the western side of the block is taken up by the building that formerly housed the Ridge Avenue

Thus sayeth the mighty cartoon Union rat!

Gotta love:

1) The OCF green tie

2) That the rat actually is drinking a cup of coffee!

3) The 'Please don't litter' tag on the bottom

4) The phone number listed on the flyer is wrong. It's actually 215-735-7368

5) The miniature American flags

What else? There's got to

With the success of Union Transfer, at 10th & Spring Garden, and the apparent popularity of the recently rising "Spring Arts" neighborhood, we’re wondering if developers will be attracted to a building that currently contains a Nationwide Auto Body, now for sale at 1221 Mt.Vernon St.

It’s available for $1.8M through Rust Real Estate,

Over the summer, we told you about a new home replacing a vacant lot at 16th & Green Sts., one of the largest new construction single family homes we could recall ever hearing about. Clocking in at over 8,000 sqft, the home will include 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms, a roof deck,