The former Via thrift shop building at 1401 Broadway in Fountain Hill will be renovated to include six 1-bedroom apartments, according to plans that met with unanimous approval from the borough’s zoning hearing board Tuesday.
A large building that formerly housed a Fountain Hill thrift shop has seen better days, but that’s about to change, according to the developer who is planning to renovate it.
The building at 1401 Broadway that was home to a Via thrift store until it closed last August will be expanded slightly to make better use of the space on its second floor, architect Samantha Falcone told the borough’s zoning hearing board Tuesday.
Currently there are three large apartments on that level, which Falcone said will be renovated and reconfigured to better make use of the space. After expanding the second floor’s square footage by approximately 18 percent, she said it will be converted into six 1-bedroom units, according to the plans she and owner Muhammed Bendjilali presented.
“They are in terrible disrepair,” Falcone said of the existing apartments, one of which has two bedrooms, one which has three bedrooms and one which has three or four bedrooms.
“There are actually holes in the (building’s) roof,” she told zoning hearing board members.
The six new units will have “more reasonably-sized rooms” and incorporate “exterior space that doesn’t currently have a use,” she said.
Attorney Erich Schock, representing Bendjilali’s companies Pinnacle at Fountain Hill LLC and Pinnacle at Broadway LLC, confirmed that he plans to seek a commercial tenant to occupy the space on the first floor that was formerly the well-known thrift store.
Schock noted that there are 32 parking spaces for the building, which will be nearly 4,400 square feet in size with the second story additions the board approved 3-0.
The building is located along a busy stretch of road in the borough that is home to several businesses including Wawa, Kasey Lynn’s on Broadway and Cantelmi Funeral Home.
