November 25: $29.6M LOVE Park garage offer | Temple’s revised library plan | Mormon temple update | PHA awarded $500K neighborhood planning grant | Soko Lofts project for sale

Welcome to the working week, Streeters. Like yesterday, today promises to be a chilly one: The wind chill could make the high of 37° feel like 25°. Welcome to winter. Here’s a bunch of development news to start off your Monday:

A Chicago company has offered the city $29.6 million for the garage under LOVE Park, but no one in City Council will introduce Mayor Nutter’s bill to enable the sale, the Daily News reports. Plans to sell the city-owned garage have been floated for years, as have promises of a modernized garage capped by a renovated LOVE Park. The offer has a 120-day window, so the fear is that if council doesn’t act the buyer will walk. Does City Council President Darrell Clarke, whose district LOVE Park is in, have some kind of issue with the sale?

Temple University recently scuttled plans to build its new library on North Broad Street. But now Temple News reports that Temple trustees approved a plan to build the new library on 13th Street between Norris Street and Polett Walk, replacing Barton Hall. The Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta is still involved in designing the library along with Stantec, a local company.

The new Mormon temple being built at 18th and Vine is an unusual construction site with impeccable cleanliness; optional pre-meeting prayer; no caffeine, swearing, or smoking. Philly.com checks in on the construction of the new temple, which is on target for completion in 2016.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded the Philadelphia Housing Authority a $500,000 grant to help revive the area surrounding Blumberg housing project at North 23rd and Jefferson streets. The Inquirer explains that the Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant will enable PHA, the city, and neighbors develop a plan for interrelated improvements in “housing, commercial development, public safety, and early-childhood development.”

South Kensington’s Soko Lofts project is shovel-ready but the developer is looking to sell, the Business Journal reports. The developer spent nine months gathering necessary approvals for the 278-unit mixed-use complex on an ex-industrial site. The sale would include the ready-to-build site and all design documents that would enable a new buyer to spring into action.

The Buzz is Eyes on the Street’s morning news digest. Have a tip? Send it along.
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