Staff Blog
Bart Blatstein’s Schmidt’s Brewery project finally gets an opening date
Tower Investments real estate developer Bart Blatstein, whose controversial dealings City Paper has covered quite closely over the years, has long been at odds with the residents of greater Northern Liberties over a multi-million-dollar project proposed for the Schmidt's Brewery site at Second and Girard. Nine years ago this month, Blatstein, whose last large-scale project was the Avenue North complex on Broad Street, purchased the 14-acre property for $1.8 million, promising an elaborate 400,000-square-foot mixed-use shopping center that would bolster the local economy. The site, however, remained largely untouched for many years, drawing the ire of NoLibs residents who voiced concerns about the stagnation of the project and the industrial waste on the site.
Now it's been announced that the Italian-inspired Piazza at Schmidt's — the official name for the project — will finally open on May 15, 2009. The site will feature 500 new residential units and 100,000 square feet of commercial/retail/restaurant space. An 80,000-square-foot outdoor public courtyard will serve as the "centerpiece" of the Piazza; it's said that the 5,000-person communal space, which will feature a permanent performance stage and a LED video projection screen, will be used for community events like concerts, open air markets and movie nights.
UPDATE: A few artist's renderings after the jump. Philebrity has posted some on-site shots, as well.
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May 15, 2009. That must be a misprint…right?
NaTe:
I was also skeptical when I saw it earlier, but that is the official line.
Is THAT what that thing is? I’ve wondered about it as I walked by. I’ve not been by there in a couple of months, but it looked it was “almost done” last August. There were a few weeks where I didn’t see any work going on there.
Here is my confusion… you wrote “at Second and Girard” that is why I could not believe the 5-19-09 opening date as it is currently an open lot at 2nd and Girard.
[...] the seven-story structure that’s part of developer Bart Blatstein’s upcoming Piazza at Schmidt’s at Second and [...]
[...] and more details on developer Bart Blatstein’s Piazza at Schmidt’s project in Northern Liberties are surfacing now that we’re just over a month away from its [...]
Please, please, please let this replace some nights at Festival Pier.