About this time last year, Mayor Nutter officially announced plans for the Philadelphia Police to relocate their headquarters to the imperial Liberty Mutual Provident Insurance building, located at 4601 Market St. in West Philadelphia. The announcement proved the police still planned to move in to the building, a move that’s been discussed for years, and one that a 2008 Inquirer article reported would cost around $70M, a number seemingly out of reach for the City to pay.

Provident building

The announcement was included in his 2013-2017 FY Budget, revealed last March. In addition to a $20M investment for a redevelopment of Love Park that will improve access to the recently improved Parkway and the redeveloped Dilworth Plaza, it called for $9M for the relocation of police headquarters to 46th and Market. That’s $61M shy of the reported cost of renovation in the aforementioned Inquirer article, so your guess is as good as ours as to where the rest of the cash will come from.

We’ve wondered how definite plans are for a police relocation and we haven’t heard anything on the plans one way or the other in over a year. Well, a couple of weeks ago, we spotted two Servepro trucks parked in front of the building. Servepro provides fire, water, and cleanup restoration services. Might this be a sign that some of movement is finally underway?

Trucks out front

If the police do indeed move to this area, it will mark one more change for an area that’s experienced plenty in recent years. In January, CHOP opened the Nicholas and Athena Karabots Primary Care Center, located at 48th and Market. A few months ago, the City demolished a row of buildings across the street from the Liberty Mutual Buildings. That demolition was performed, it is said, in order to make way for the $75M Enterprise Heights development. And if the police do indeed start calling this area home, be on the lookout for new retail to serve the sudden influx of new customers.

–Lou Mancinelli