A recurring theme around here is an industrial property getting retrofitted to new purposes. Today, let’s add the former print shop at 250 W Girard Ave. to the long and decorated list of such projects. This building could soon pick up a two-story addition which would include 12 apartments and ground-floor retail. This has been a long time coming, with two prior iterations getting permits over the last few years.

In 2020, the owners of the property got a zoning permit to add a third story to the building. This permit called out the required commercial space on the first floor and indicated that the rest of the building would be vacant. The next year, the same group pulled a new permit that called for seven apartments in the building and also eliminated one of the two pilot houses in the original plan. After, they made some improvements to the building, replacing a number of windows, putting on a new roof, and making some repairs to the facade. All of this, it seems, was in an effort to improve the property’s marketability, as it was listed for sale for $2M at the end of 2023. By the middle of 2024, new buyers stepped in, paying a little more than $1.5M.

The new owners have a slightly more ambitious plan, which like the previous proposals, is permitted by right. The latest plans call for two new floors on the building, a plan that’s only possible thanks to the Mixed-Income Housing zoning bonus. This bonus bumps up the allowable height and also triggers a 50% density bonus, enabling the developers to legally increase the unit count to 12. The use of this bonus means that two of the units will be rent restricted over the next 50 years.

From the elevation drawing from KCA Design Associates, we see that the additional floors will be set back from the front and rear of the existing building. We have to think that the motivation for this again ties back to a desire to pursue a by-right project. If this property were vacant and a developer wanted to build something, they would need to maintain 20% open area, per the code. The existing building takes up the whole lot, which is considered a pre-existing non-conformity. The addition, as it’s not pre-existing, needs to maintain the required amount of open area even though it will sit 25′ feet off the ground. It’s a bit of a quirk which will certainly create a separation between the new section and the old section, but might also look a little odd when it’s actually built. But hey, we’ll take a slightly odd design over the risk of going to the ZBA ten times out of ten.

While this project is an exciting development for a property that’s looked pretty rough over the years, it’s still merely theoretical. Across the street, something more concrete is finally moving forward. We first covered 310 W. Girard Ave. back in 2014, when 120 years of continuous use as a lumber yard was coming to an end. Since then, a few different proposals have come and gone, with the buildings on the site demoed back in 2017. In 2021, we shared renderings of a 7-story building with apartments over commercial, but still nothing moved forward. Finally, at the end of last year, developers pulled a building permit for 166 units and early this year, construction finally started. The project will surely take a couple years to complete, by which point there will hopefully be a dozen new neighbors living across the street in a building that was once used as a print shop.