UPDATE (Oct. 27, 2014): A recent article from Technically Philly shows that SEER Interactive does not own the church at 1028 N. 3rd St. and did not present to the NLNA as an earlier report from Philly Living suggests. SEER will be moving their operations to the Piazza at Schmidt's in mid-2015. According to Technically, an LLC linked to Barzilay Development now owns the church and wants to turn it into apartments. A NLNA zoning agenda for Sept. 29 shows that architect Peter Lazor was slated to talk to the neighbors about changes to the 'Search Church', which would include "[a] proposal for first floor office space and single family space above with 4 parking spots in front courtyard". Lazor designed the plans for Sanctuary Lofts, an adaptive reuse church-to-apartments project from Barzilay Development.
The owners of the old church at 1028 N. 3rd St., which currently houses SEO company SEER Interactive, recently went before the Northern Liberties Neighborhood Association (NLNA) to put forth their plans to add a residence inside their 'Search Church' and expand the front of the property to incorporate four parking spaces. As you already know, the NLNA is pretty tough when it comes to anything regarding parking. So, let's just say, that the two parties aren't on the same page and NLNA put the kibosh on the SEER's plans.
Philly Living reports that two of the spaces would be "open air" and the other two would be housed in a garage in the front of the building that would double as a deck for the new 2-bedroom apartment. The garage would architecturally match the church, which was constructed in 1850 and nicknamed the Search Church for obvious reasons.
Ultimately, the NLNA decided to not support the apartment project and its accompanying parking situation. As you probably expected, it was the decision was unanimous.
SEER moved out of an apartment and into the church in 2011. For an idea of what it looks like on the inside, hit up this video from SEER:
· Mixed-use conversion's parking spaces don't fly with NLNA [Philly Living]
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