New Plans for Royal Theater: South Street Retail, 30 Rental Units
The meeting about the fate of the Royal Theater, the historic property on South Street, is now in session. (Need a refresher? Go here and here.) We’ll have a full report tomorrow, but here’s what we know so far thanks to the Philadelphia Daily News’ David Gambacorta, whose live tweeting of this event is both informative and hilarious.
Universal Companies, which owns the property, has a new plan in place that includes:
1. Retention of the historic facade.
2. 7,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space fronting South Street
3. Roughly 30 rental units on upper floors
4. 13 parking spaces
5. 6 new townhomes with garages fronting Kater Street
You might recall that Universal has had plans for this building before — and the old plans didn’t look too different, with the exception of the townhomes, which seem similar to plans once proposed by OCF Realty — but wasn’t able to secure sufficient funding. What makes them think they’d be able to secure the funding now? We shall see.
Meanwhile, we thank David Gambacorta for his live tweets and hope he gets coffee and dinner soon.
Another local resident detailing looong personal history of bad dealings with Universal. I really think coffee would have helped.
— David Gambacorta (@dgambacorta) November 12, 2013
Other people in line behind Guy Who Dislikes Universal clearly regretting not stopping for dinner first.
— David Gambacorta (@dgambacorta) November 12, 2013
