Morning Headlines: Five Developments Set to Revive Tacony

Rendering by Lindsey Tweed via Historic Tacony Revitalization Project website.

Numerous projects are said to be game-changers for the city, but not just in the immediate areas surrounding Center City. According to the Tacony Community Development Corporation’s Alex Balloon, there are at least five that will transform Tacony for the better.

These include the Tacony Library renovation, courtesy of the William Penn Foundation (this is part of a larger city-wide initiative to bring city libraries into the 21st century), as well as the new SawTown Tavern, which Balloon says we can expect to have a “brighter first floor and a game room upstairs” in addition to a ” wood-fired oven for ‘craft”’pizza to go with craft beer” when it replaces Prince’s Cafe on Princeton Street. This delectable switch will take begin to take place at the end of 2015.

Other projects on their way are the Tacony Academy Wissinoming Campus, a new building planned for 6201 Keystone Street, which, Balloon says will have “classrooms, science labs, a library media center, a cafeteria, and a gymnasium;” the Torresdale Ave Storefront Improvement Program, which will provide  much needed makeovers for storefronts “in and along Torresdale;” and Keystone Academy, which will be “moving forward with plans to renovate and improve the former Mary Disston School at 4521 Longshore Ave for its new home.”

• Big Projects Underway for 2015 in Tacony [Historic Tacony Revitalization]

In other news…
• Brewerytown is coming back to life [Metro Philly]
• Investor to PREIT: No more ‘baby steps’; ‘Rip the Band-Aid off’ [PhillyDeals]
• Requiem for a new urbanist dream [PlanPhilly]
• U.S. Real Estate Predictions for 2015 [Huffington Post]
• Here’s the right way to make transit and density work in the suburbs [Grist]