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 rise and fall of 14 years 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 its line, especially as its neighborhoods are replaced and demographics are replaced. 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.