Although the lion’s share of residents who came out to the Frankford Civic Association’s July 5 session were there to talk about plans for 4834 Penn St., the organization’s members did hear about and vote on some other real-estate proposals.
They backed a proposal to revive a Griscom Street Chinese restaurant and welcomed the idea of adding 39 units to the old Globe Dye Works building on Worth Street.
Frankford residents also supported an Oxford Avenue grocery store’s request for a zoning variance to allow its proprietors to sell hot take-out food. That proposal was supported by acclamation as was the plan for the Globe building.
Globe Development Group LP took over the building, which reaches Torresdale Avenue, a couple years after the dye business closed in 2005. The property’s history dates to 1865.
Frankford Civic Association’s president and zoning officer, Pete Specos, said the owners were applying for an “open variance” for the industrial-zoned property so that they could bring in retail space in the new units they are putting into the building, and not have to continue to apply for variances for each new tenant.
Those tenants will bring jobs to Frankford, Specos said.
“It’s a big boost to this community,” he added in a phone interview on Monday.
And Frankford residents applauded the idea.
They also barely heard a proposal for the grocery store’s variance to allow hot food takeout at 4820 Oxford Ave. before backing it.
Although a takeout Chinese restaurant’s application to reopen was approved, it received a lot of opposition, much of it loud.
The “Chinese store” at 4761 Griscom has not been in operation for several years so it needs a variance to reopen in the residential neighborhood even though it has commercial zoning, Specos said.
The store is near Foulkrod and Griscom, a corner notorious for drug sales, and Kimberly Washington, coordinator of Northeast EPIC Stakeholders and president of the Frankford Parks Group, said the revived restaurant could easily become a hangout for drug dealers. She and several residents said they opposed a variance application that would allow its reopening.
