Though it's located in one of the most established parts of town, the 3rd & Market intersection has been in a major state of flux over the last few years. As recently as 2011, you could find a cell phone store, a shirt store, a suit store, and a long-tenured Italian restaurant here. But every one of those stores is now gone. On the northeast corner, a CVS and a collection of apartments have replaced the Shirt Corner store and a collection of other buildings that it turns out weren't so structurally sound. On ther northwest corner, a new OCF Coffee House location is just a few weeks away, which seems like a nice trade for a cell phone store, even if we weren't engaging in self promotion.
On the south side of the street though, two great retail spaces remain available. When we last visited this intersection toward the end of the summer, we mentioned rumors that Starbucks was planning to open in the space on the southeast corner which housed Pizzicato for a couple decades. We're now hearing that's not happening, which is good news for the current and future coffee shops in the area, including the Starbucks location just a block to the north. The signs on the property from CBRE would seem to indicate that it's still there for the taking.
Across the street, the southwest corner was home to Suit Corner until it burned down several years ago, and and the corner is now seeing a new four-story building progress through construction. This property will have twelve rental apartments on its upper floors, along with a 1,400 sqft first floor commercial space plus basement. Check it out:
The building should be finished in the next couple of months. While it's still cookin', what would you like to see here? And don't you dare say Starbucks.
Disclosure: The building at 300 Market Street is being developed by a client of OCF Realty, the parent company of Naked Philly.