The closure of Kensington Community Food Co-Op in February ended a turbulent life for the mission-based grocery store, which collapsed just as the immediate neighborhood covered a massive wave of new construction. Now, the store’s construction will be demolished to make way for a new mixed-use project.
A zoning permit was issued Monday for a six-story structure that will have 19 apartments and an advertising area between floors at 2666-76 Coral Street. The design of the so-called “Lehigh Building” was done through Ambit Architecture, the same company as the Coral House that is located under the structure next door. The project, a five-story structure, will have 41 sets and an advertising area on the ground floor.
Both projects are right next to the five-point intersection of Frankford and Lehigh Avenues, where several primary progression projects have taken shape in recent years.
In January, plans were approved for the structure of a six-store, 157-unit residential complex with approximately 8,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space at 2001 Lehigh Avenue, where a tire store is ultimately located. The renders show an advertising domain that could include a grocery store. The property faces the Lehigh Viaduct, a domain that has long been a hotbed of crime and homelessness.
A six-story multifamily structure with 453 apartments is planned for construction at 2621 Frankford Ave. , just south of Lehigh Avenue. Plans to rebuild the assets emerged in 2016. A permit for the removal of existing structures issued in 2022.
The planned projects around the crossing are at the southern end of a domain that has experienced decades of deindustrialization and divestment. New Kensington Community Development Corp. has been operating for more than a decade to promote the revitalization of the domain through increased land use and expansion of residential density.
The 14-year rise and fall of KCFC, which had been at its home on Coral Street for more than a decade before opening in 2019, is a testament to the long-term challenge of keeping the network’s food projects on their line, especially as their neighborhoods are replaced and demographics change. The former Greensgrow Farms, a network-based agricultural program founded on a Superfund site in Olde Richmond in the late 1990s, thrived for years as a nonprofit promoting access to food and nutrition education. It closed its doors in 2022 amid a series of union court cases and financial mismanagement in the years following the leadership change.
The promise of KCFC as a source grocery store that has served many of those enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program will continue to be a wonderful assumption in light of all the new components being built in East Kensington. Food aid enrollment in Pennsylvania has peaked at an all-time high, in part due to food price inflation and expanded eligibility.
A timeline for the demolition of the KCFC building and the start of painting at the new assignment has not been announced.