Empty Lot of the Week-- September 8th

Spring Garden Super-Lot

Bounded by Broad, 15th, Spring Garden, and Brandywine Streets


This lot stares back at you.

                    This is one of those empty lots that never should have happened. The worst part is that this lot changes hands quite often... you would think that ONE of these owners would buckle down and actually develop something here instead of just sitting on it and making piles and piles of dough from people parking. Well, I guess I answered my own question right there.
                    This Asphalt Assfield never really had anything exciting sitting on it. It's not like there's some kind of long history or great story associated with this thing. It's just a crappy block that became a crappy empty lot and has stayed that way for decades. It held an auto dealership on the Broad Street side and rowhomes on the 15th Street side.

1948. The lot is in the upper left.

                  A lone wolf rowhome still stands facing 15th street, standing in fuckyouance to all the others that are gone. Its a clubhouse for some kind of private club and was purchased by someone in 2003 for $100,000.

They should call it the Fuck You Empty Lot House.

                  The Spring Garden Super-lot was recently sold to some guy from Long Beach Island in November of 2010 for the low low price of $309,494. That seems a bit strange. Previous lots I've written about that are 1/10th the size have sold for 2-3 million. The property tax is 17,960.56, which is also much much lower than other lots that are much smaller. Suspicious, this is. Hopefully I won't get whacked for bringing it up.
                    I wish I had some kind of crazy story about something cool that happened in this spot, but again, there's nothing. The only thing I can really tell you is how the eastern end of this space has been a decades-long empty lot BEFORE. It was a lumber yard in the mid 19th Century and an unused parcel in the late 19th Century. Buildings first appeared there in 1910.
                    So if there's nothing cool about this lot, why write about it? Well, there shouldn't be a empty fucking lot at such a major intersection and it needs to be exposed, that's why. Build something here already! With all of the gentrification and development plans for this part of North Broad that everyone seems to be excited about, 7 million possibilities exist for this piece of shit.
                      A condo tower. A commercial skyscraper. An Ass-Shaving Resource Center. A Museum of Fingernail History. A giant sculpture of a stapler. The possibilities are endless!

UPDATE! Philaphile Scoats has pointed out that this lot is actually TWO empty lots put together. The west side is the one owned by the guy from LBI. The other side was purchased in 2000 by some dude from NYC. Thanks for the tip!

This is still better than what's there now.