The project wouldn’t just beautify a gritty old railroad. It would also improve mobility in the city.

Source: Reading Viaduct Would Make It Easier to Get Around Philly

The City Planning Commission voted on Tuesday to recommend two bills rezoning the former Inquirer building on North Broad, the Philadelphia School District Headquarters,…

Source: PlanPhilly | Former Inquirer building and surrounding properties to be rezoned

A couple years back, we told you about a blighted former auto repair shop at 1200 Spring Garden St. and wondered whether it could get redeveloped at some point in the near future. Oh, for a detailed history of this property from the profound and profane GroJLart, click here (RIP City Paper). To recount some recent history, investors bought the property back in 2008 for a little over $1M, shuttered the auto shop, put a chain link fence up around the property, and proceeded to collect beaucoup bucks from four billboards while the property sat otherwise unused and overgrown. The surrounding neighborhood has been on an upward trajectory since then, but this property has looked worse every year.We passed by earlier this week though, and spied a bunch of building materials on the property. We’re talking stacks of 2x4s and plywood and a huge pile of sand. Check it out.

Source: What’s Happening at 12th & Spring Garden? | Naked Philly

The Divine Lorraine (699 N. Broad St.) means a lot of different things to Philadelphians. To some, it is Philadelphia’s most distinctive eyesore, a condemned high rise pocked with graffiti on North Broad Street. To others, it is an integral part of Philadelphia’s history, a testament to late Victorian architecture, a kind of structure that […]

Source: The One That Got Away: Reconstruction of the Divine Lorraine – Spirit News – Spirit News

Plans for a major mixed-use development at 9th and Callowhill streets were called “unresolved” and “amateurish” at yesterday’s Civic Design Review meeting, leading the committee to vote for the developers to present revised plans at a later date. The development at 900-934 Callowhill Street calls for146 residential units, 79 underground parking spaces, 49 bicycle parking spaces, and about 14,186 square feet of commercial space.

Source: Plans for Callowhill Mixed-Use Development ‘Just Not There’ – development watch – Curbed Philly

The Reading Viaduct Rail Park is entering a transitional stage, and Dave Kyu’s latest work is set to take full advantage. An artist with a socially conscious, literary bent, Kyu has been working on interviews and projects with Asian Arts Initiative’s Social Practice Lab for the last few years, including “Write Sky” and “Sign of the Times.” (Asian Arts served as Flying Kite’s On the Ground home through the end of January.) The former Mural Arts (MAP) project manager of the inaugural Neighborhood Time Exchange project in West Philly, he is still involved with the organization on a freelance basis.

Source: On the Ground: Melding art and sound in the shadow of the Reading Viaduct

We were in the neighborhood on this mild morning, and happened upon some unexpected construction on the 1200 block of Ridge Avenue. Across the street from the excellent Doctor J mural, a two-story building at 1232 Ridge Ave. is growing up, with a two-story addition and a four-story new building next door. The old building wasn’t terribly exciting, but it did have several architectural features that helped it fit in with other active and former warehouses in the area. The vacant lot next door looked like it was previously used for parking from time to time.In the pastIf you pass by today, it’s a very different scene.

Source: Nice Addition In Progress on Ridge Avenue | Naked Philly

Momentum behind the conversion of the Reading Viaduct into a functional green space is building, and local business owners know that means radical transformation for Callowhill. Will this high-profile amenity make or break the neighborhood?

Source: On the Ground: For businesses adjacent to the upcoming Rail Park, change is on the way

HIGH ABOVE the Callowhill neighborhood on the elevated, long-abandoned Reading Viaduct railway bed, there is a swing suspended from the rusted ruins of the catenary wires that once powered trains to North Philly, Germantown, and beyond.

Bundled against a recent wintry morning, Sarah McEneaney sat on that swing as she has many times before, gliding gracefully through the frigid air with a warm smile, happy that her longtime dream will soon come true.

Source: Callowhill neighbors await their park in the sky