The aging parking garage on the corner of Fourth Street and Chestnut Street and its neighbor a pink former JC Penney’s department store stretching to the Guthrie Green should be seeing a few needed exterior improvements in the near future. The parking garage’s first level retail was last occupied by a Walgreen’s and a wig shop. The Walgreen’s moved several years ago to the corner of Broadway and Brook Street and the corner has been vacant since.
Jewish Hospital owns the stretch of buildings from Chestnut to Guthrie and uses them for office space and tentative plans call for revamping the facades and extending offices into the parking garage structure. The properties had been for sale recently, drawing interest from the likes of the Cordish Companies as a possible extension of the 4th Street Live! entertainment district, but the asking price for the properties has been prohibitively high. While the project calls for the elimination of street retail venues, it will improve the general streetscape and does keep workers downtown during the day. The extent of the exterior renovations is still unknown.
