Several months ago, we featured the Samuel Machinery Company building at 135-37 N. 3rd St. as a ‘Blight of the Week’ property. And oh did it ever deserve the honor. See, it’s one thing for a row home in a residential neighborhood to have boarded up windows or a failing facade. It’s another thing entirely for a double-wide historic brownstone building in the heart of Old City to be crumbling for years, acquiring numerous violations, and generally causing anyone who walked by to wonder how it was possible that such a building could be in such a state at this location.

In February

Fifty years ago

At last, it seems, there’s good news on the horizon for this property. Hidden City reports that the owners, Electra LLC, are finally moving forward with the renovation of the building. Apparently, the lengthy holdup was related to four years of litigation involving the acquisition of half of the property, which was originally purchased back in 2007 at sheriff’s sale. While the owners were able to do some minor work while this legal challenge was taking place, their hands were tied in many regards, since they didn’t own the entire structure.

Recent shot looks similar to February

Now, with ownership firmly in their grasp, they’re moving forward with a plan to turn the upper floors of the building into fourteen apartments and the ground floor into a large commercial space. Work has mostly focused on shoring up the building structurally in the last few months, but with that finished, they will be moving forward in short order on a year and a half’s worth of interior and exterior renovation to the building. Architectural work is being done by Civitas Architects, a Center City firm.

No question, this is wonderful news for this block and Old City in general. Amazingly, there are still several other properties in this neighborhood that have sat vacant and blighted for years, but we have a sense that there’s some renewed momentum toward cleaning up those stragglers. And with a change finally coming to the Samuel Machinery building, probably the most prominent blighted property in the neighborhood, we feel like anything is possible.