Naked Philly Blog Posts Archive - Page 4 of 630 - OCF Realty

May 26

A Storage Facility Appears on Swanson Street and For a Change This Makes Sense

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May, 26, 2020 | No Comments | South Philly

A reader reached out the other day, wondering about a new building that appeared over the last several months on Swanson Street, in that weird industrial area behind the Columbus Commons shopping center. The property in question is 2351 S. Swanson St., a parcel that was home to an ink works back in the day. More recently, it looks like it was a Comcast warehouse for a time, and even more recently it was a transportation [...]
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May 22

Development Opportunity on Frankford Avenue?

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May, 22, 2020 | No Comments | Fishtown

Back in the day (and by that we mean like ten years ago), things were radically different on the Frankford Avenue corridor than they are today. As the years have fallen off the calendar, Frankford Avenue has become one of the premier commercial corridors in Philadelphia, with an enviable mix of small businesses that make it a crucial aspect of life in the neighborhood and a destination for people who live elsewhere. A mere ten years [...]
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May 21

Sergeant Street Homes Shedding Their Skins After About a Decade

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May, 21, 2020 | No Comments | Fishtown

For many decades, until around 2008, a pair of industrial buildings covered the property at 2304-18 E. Sergeant St., despite the fact that the immediate surrounding area is primarily residential. Given the industrial history of the neighborhood, this wasn't an unusual situation, but we nevertheless have to think that most neighbors would have preferred the sight of homes over the sight of these worn down structures. Even back in the mid-aughts, we imagine that at least a [...]
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May 20

Put in Your Two Cents About the Future of Washington Avenue, Probably

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May, 20, 2020 | No Comments

Washington Avenue is many things to many people. For contractors, it's a centrally located hub where they can pick up building materials and illegally park in the median with relatively little fear of getting a ticket. For the building supply companies that sell stuff to those contractors, it's a wide street that's accessible for eighteen wheelers and allows for easy double parking when customers are picking up materials. For pedestrians and bikers, it's a terrifying [...]
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May 19

New Mixed Use Building For Sale at Ridge & Girard

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May, 19, 2020 | No Comments | Francisville

The property at 1811-13 Ridge Ave. has been sitting vacant for at least the last twenty-five years. This was not an unusual sight for most of those years, as Francisville was in a severely depressed state, with the Ridge Avenue corridor beset by blight and vacancy. Of course, it's old news at this point that Francisville has undergone a dramatic transformation over the last decade or so, with a ton of new residential construction throughout [...]
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May 18

Two Homes Have Disappeared Near Markward Playground

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May, 18, 2020 | No Comments | Rittenhouse

Though they looked different, the two homes at 403 and 405 S. 26th St. had a fairly classic Fitler Square look to them. The northern home had a white stucco front with black window trim and and a matching and intact original cornice. The southern home had purple shutters and a pergola you could see from the street. Neither home was particularly special architecturally, yet they fit in perfectly with the rest of the neighborhood. In [...]
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May 15

Sweet Renderings For Adaptive Reuse Coming to 12th & Wharton

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May, 15, 2020 | No Comments | Passyunk Square

You may recall, a couple weeks back, we told you about plans to renovate the building at 1201 Wharton St., which would represent a new chapter for a structure that's had a number of uses over the years. As we told you previously, we believe the place was built as a storage facility for a grocery business, eventually transitioning into an auto garage, as shown in the black and white photo below. In recent decades, the building [...]
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May 14

Another Third Floor Setback Fail, This Time in Grays Ferry

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May, 14, 2020 | No Comments | Grays Ferry

The introduction of a new zoning code in Philadelphia in 2012 resulted in numerous positive outcomes. The new code relaxed parking requirements. It codified the involvement of community groups in the zoning process. It dramatically reduced the number of enumerated building uses, simplifying permit application and plan review. And there's some other good stuff in there too. But since it was written as both a planning document and a political document, it also resulted in some odd [...]
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May 13

Historic Home on Spruce Street Picks Up a Pergola?

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May, 13, 2020 | No Comments | Rittenhouse

We were making our way through town up 20th Street the other day, and some rooftop work at 20th & Spruce caught our eye. At first glance, we thought it might be an expansive pergola- but objectively, this didn't make a lick of sense. View of the building This ain't a pergola, folks- it's a fourth floor addition. And it's frankly this fourth floor addition has been a long time coming. The building was constructed as a [...]
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May 12

Demo Notice Means the End of the Line for a Mike’s Car Care?

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May, 12, 2020 | No Comments | East Passyunk

A reader reached out to us the other day, having noticed a demolition notice posted on a building just south of the intersection of 9th & McKean. The suspicion here was that a sizable project was in the works, since this corner is dominated by an auto shop called Mike's Car Care. Certainly, when we visited the property, that was our initial expectation as well. We saw a demo notice Looking west on Emily Street Auto [...]
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