A couple of readers have reached out recently, wondering about some major renovation work taking place at a hundred plus year old warehouse building in Northern Liberties. We were under the impression that 1136 N. American St. had been converted to apartments several years ago, like the Becker Building next door. But it seems we were off base, as Apex Fountains was apparently manufacturing "high quality banquet display and serving products" here until somewhat recently. We'd bet that the building has some interesting history but all we can find from a perfunctory search is that a baby carriage factory was here in the early 20th century.
Looking at the permits for the project, the owners of the property are converting the building into either 79 or 80 apartments (it seems like they keep changing their minds). You'd think that a project like this would have gone through the community process but we can't find any records of a presentation to the NLNA. The permits don't mention parking, however, and we're pretty sure that there's a 3:10 parking requirement- perhaps there's a parking area on the first floor or somewhere else nearby?
It's great to see that this building is getting reused and that the folks at the Becker Building will get some new neighbors and One Shot Coffee will get some new customers. But we are still a little unclear about the parking situation. Does anyone know about a community meeting and a ZBA hearing that we don't know about?