The building has been dark for two years. Its last tenant sold lottery tickets, loose cigarettes, and, according to at least four neighbors, the best iced tea within a half-mile. Now a hand-lettered sign in the window says only Coming: Something Good, and the block cannot agree on what that should mean.
We knocked on doors up and down the street to find out.
The three visions competing for one storefront
Roughly, the hopes we heard sorted into three camps, and each one says something about who feels ownership of this corner.
- A grocery, however small, so the nearest fresh produce is not a bus ride away
- A cafe with tables, because the block lost its only sit-down spot when the diner closed
- Nothing that raises the rent next door, whatever it turns out to be
What struck us was not the disagreement but the fact that everyone had thought about it at all. An empty building is usually invisible. This one has become a place where people practice imagining the neighborhood out loud.
We will follow the lease. For now, the most honest sign in Fairmount is the one that promises something good and declines to say what.
Related: Civic Desk · the zoning board's fifth-floor ruling
Further reading: Adaptive reuse
