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Thursday, November 12, 2009
Trolley Car Cafe joins city rec at East Falls site

South Ferry Road at Kelly Drive: With all the government and private agencies dedicated to urban renewal, you'd think it would have taken less than 40 years to find new tenants for the old city bathhouse in East Falls. Or less than the 13 years it's been since neighborhood leaders targeted it for redevelopment.

It's complicated. I asked Ken Weinstein, Mount Airy developer and diner owner, how many public and private agencies had to be roped together to win the use of the Bathey House for his second Trolley Car restaurant and a bike-and-skate rental. He sent me a flow chart.

Fairmount Park owns the property. The park’s historic preservation trust has an interest in the old bathouse. Developer Brinton Partners collected funding from the Philadelphia Commerce Department and the Reinvestment Fund to redevelop the diner; the Merchants Fund also invested. East Falls Development Corp. collected from the Wiliam Penn Foundation, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, and the state to open the East Falls Gateway Center in the building, including the rentals. And that’s just some of the players.

Weinestein says the groups will spend $625,000 fixing up the property to open in the Spring. Mayor Nutter’s expected for the groundbreaking this morning.

Weinstein’s a patient man: He’s also been working for years to lease vacant train stations across Northwest Philadelphia and nearby suburbs. He tells me he’s gotten “a good bit of interest” in adding the Fort Washington station to his short list, but there’s been “no further movement” from Septa on leasing the Queen Lane or Carpenter Lane stations recently. More in my PhillyDeals column in today's Inquirer here (scroll through or search on "It takes a city").

 

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About Joseph N. DiStefano
Joseph N. DiStefano writes this blog to feed his PhillyDeals column, which is printed in the business pages of The Philadelphia Inquirer every Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Joe has worked at the Inquirer, mostly, since 1988. He has also written for Bloomberg and Gannett, authored the book Comcasted, majored in economics at Penn, and fathered six children. Reach Joe at 215-854-5194 and JoeD@phillynews.com

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