August 10, 2015
Divine Lorraine Hotel/Facebook
The Divine Lorraine Hotel stands at the corner of Broad Street and Fairmount Avenue in North Philadelphia.
Construction on the Divine Lorraine Hotel could start as early as this month, transforming the historic building from a symbol of blight to a symbol of revitalization.
As Philly.com reported, the 10-year building at Broad Street and Fairmount Avenue, built in 1892, is being redeveloped as a residence with 101 apartments and four high-end restaurants on the lower level.
The hotel, shut down in 1999, has fallen into disrepair. EB Realty Management Corporation is redeveloping the property at a cost of $30 million.
"The renovation of the Divine Lorraine will be an enormous tipping point," deputy mayor Alan Greenberger told Philly.com. "Nobody is going to invest in and around that area with an abandoned building covered in graffiti."
In a sign of how the neighborhood is changing, three more major redevelopments are in the works in the immediate area.
Next to the hotel, a New York firm plans to build 486 apartments, 27 row houses and a supermarket. Five blocks away at Broad and Callowhill streets, construction could start by the end of the year on a 340-unit apartment building. And across the street from that, developers have proposed building a boutique hotel in the old Philadelphia Inquirer/Daily News building.
