It's been a long time coming, but Brewerytown might finally get a much-needed supermarket at the intersection of 31st Street and Girard Avenue.

After a meeting held Friday, Oct. 30, representatives from Farm Fresh Produce and Poultry signed a letter of intent to purchase the triangular, 2.8-acre tract along the 3100 block of Girard Ave. from the Westrum Development Co.

According to Herman Rollins - who owns Farm Fresh Produce and Poultry with his wife, Judith - the Cherry Hill, N.J.-based couple will secure the land for about $2 million.

They hope to bring a 35,000-square-foot supermarket to the site in the near future.

"We have everything we need to put the market there," said Rollins during an interview on Monday, Nov. 2.

Rollins said that for many months, his company worked with Westrum president, John Westrum, to hammer out details of the purchase.

The plot has been notoriously tricky to develop, especially for large supermarket chains.

In fact, for much of last year, the Community Design Collaborative's InFill Philadelphia program asked a professional architecture firm to design a structure that fit the site, simply to experiment with ideas on how it might be done.

While Farm Fresh Produce and Poultry is still working out all the details of the future supermarket's potential design, Rollins said the site's dimensions weren't what kept the project on ice for so many months.

Instead, the sticking point, he said, was a provision in the neighborhood's Industrial Transformation District stipulating that the size of any commercial property in the ITD must be built in relationship to the amount of new residential units.

The ITD was introduced by Councilman Darrel Clarke (D- 5th dist.) in 2007 as way of giving Westrum blanket approval for variances needed on roughly 16 acres of property north of Girard Avenue. The district - the first of its kind in the city - also came with a number of restrictions and stipulations the developer must observe. One provision allows a ratio of 100 square feet of commercial space for each residential unit within the ITD.

Because Westrum has developed only 144 residential units in the Brewertyown IDT thus far, any new commercial space could be limited to 14,400 square feet - far short of the planned 35,000-square-foot supermarket.

Without a variance from the city, the supermarket could be too big for the area.

Repeated calls to Clarke's office questioning the intent of the commercial space restriction were not returned as of press time.

But, Rollins said his team believes the city will approve a variance at the site.

His attorney seems to agree.

"There's a tie to the number of units per square foot of commercial, but it's not clear if that's physical or if it's planned (structures)," said David Weinstein, attorney for Farm Fresh Produce and Poultry.

With Westrum still planning to build 533 residential units on properties throughout the neighborhood, Weinstein said that, the ITD might actually permit commercial space for all of the planned residential units, not just what has been built.

Then, the ITD would allow for about 53,000 square feet of commercial space, more than enough for the supermarket.

Now that they have a signed letter of intent, Weinstein said, the grocer would begin seeking needed permits from the city this week.

Rollins said his team planned to meet early this week with representatives from the city's Planning Commission and the Department of Licenses and Inspections to obtain clarification on the ITD clause.

The plans aren't yet finalized, but, as with most large-scale projects in the city, while the supermarket project progresses, Weinstein said the community would be invited to provide input on the plan.

"We will also be speaking with the community," he promised. "We anticipate keeping the trust of the community."

Rollins, who grew up in Brewerytown at a home along 33rd Street, said he is excited to begin planning for the supermarket and, if everything goes well, he hopes to have the store up and running in six to 10 months.

"My family still lives all around there, and I feel like some of these areas are a little overlooked," said Rollins about the neighborhood. "We've got to bring necessities to the people."

He said that as a child, he could remember a number of stores in the area where you could walk to get fresh produce and groceries.

But now, most of Brewerytown's grocery stores are gone. All that remains, he lamented, are corner stores with little produce and a weekly roadside farmers market that operates seasonally.

"Now, you need to get on a bus or a subway or call a taxi (to go to a grocery store). The money you spend just to get there could be money you're spending on food," said Rollins.

When asked if they had any past experience in running a supermarket or other large retail operations, the Rollins family would not comment.

Contacted just after the deal finalized last week, developer Westrum said that even though some work might be needed to ensure the supermarket meets the zoning requirements of the ITD, he believes a local market could finally become a reality for residents.

"I've already worked through this with people who do zoning stuff," he said confidently. "Everybody wants this to happen. It would be great."

Upon hearing the news, Bob Seabury, spokesman for the Girard Supermarket Coalition, reacted with a laugh and upbeat excitement.

His group, which represents a number of area community groups and local businesses, has been trying to bring a supermarket to Girard Avenue since they founded the organization in 2007.

But, he said the neighborhood's need for a supermarket in the area goes back further than that. Since the 1990s, Brewerytown has been underserved, he said.

In order to help bring healthier food to the area, his group arranged a weekly farmers market to provide fresh produce for residents.

"We lost our supermarket in the late 1990s. We have some local corner stores and we do a farmers market, but this really is excellent news," he said. "I look forward to working with them, so it will be a success for them and make sure it will also be able to meet the needs of such a diverse community."

Reporter Hayden Mitman can be reached at 215-354-3124 or hmitman@phillynews.com