There's a building on the northeast corner of 3rd & Girard that we suspected was sitting vacant for many years.
Uh, our bad. It turns out the building at 1201 N. 3rd St. has been in use as a master carpentry shop, so says a listing for the property from 2015. When you consider the development that's been happening on either side of Girard Avenue, and the slow but steady improvements to this chunk of Girard Avenue as a commercial corridor, it seems the growing value of the building encouraged the owners to find a new location to make stuff out of wood. Developers bought the property a little over a year ago, and a sign from MSC Retail has been hanging on the side of the building for awhile now. The listing describes 1,300 sqft of space plus a basement and a wide sidewalk to accommodate outdoor seating, so a restaurant seemed like a possibility. We passed by last week, and a sign on the building suggests something definitively inedible.
For those that don't feel like squinting, that's a sign advertising a UPS Store on the first floor. Very few people will find this news to be particularly exciting, but this business will provide needed services to folks in the neighborhood and we'd argue it's exactly the kind of business needed on a growing commercial corridor. Also worth noting, the upper floors of the building are being renovated and converted into two apartments. Windows that had been sealed over have been reopened, and the building will soon look like this, per MSC.
This rendering is not too shabby, and a fantastic improvement over what the building has looked like for many years.