October 28: 50 townhouses planned for Point Breeze | 20 years of Avenue of the Arts | Penn’s Landing’s recurring dream | $100m offer for 30 schools | Temple’s library plans back to drawing board

Welcome to the working week, Streeters. Here’s what’s buzzing this morning:

Plans for 50 townhomes to replace a warehouse between Wharton and Reed in Point Breeze will be heard at a South Philadelphia H.O.M.E.S. community zoning meeting tonight. Naked Philly’s parent company, OCF Realty, is the broker for the project and they’ve got the intel on the phased development: 38 homes facing Woodstock and Capitol streets, and six houses each facing Wharton and Reed. There is no parking planned for the development, a distinctly urban move that will likely be cause for debate at the zoning meetings.

Tuesday, Avenue of the Arts Inc. will celebrate its 20th anniversary. To mark the occasion, the Inquirer’s Stephan Salisbury takes a look back at 20 years of Avenue of the Arts: While many performance and arts venues have opened since the 1990s on South Broad, challenges remain in attracting audiences, streetscape improvements helped create a nicer public environment but the street lacks small-scale development that could add vitality, and University of the Arts may just be the avenue’s unsung hero.

The latest version of Philadelphia’s recurring dream for a better Penn’s Landing presented last week is really the same ol same ol, writes Inga Saffron. Hargreaves Associates rehashed the ideas in the Master Plan for the Central Delaware, but diluted hopes for more residential development at Penn’s Landing, which will be key to the plan’s success.

A Washington D.C. real estate investment firm’s offer of $100 million to buy 30 of Philly’s shuttered public schools, was dismissed and is now being reinvestigated, the Inquirer reports. Council President Darrell Clarke delivered the offer to the School District, but it was rejected because it did not include any public involvement in determining the fate of these sites, a requirement set by the School Reform Commission. Meanwhile Mayor Michael Nutter and Clarke continue to feud over information sharing and how to best get the school district the money it desperately needs by the end of the year.

Temple’s grand plans to spend $190 million constructing a new library designed by Snøhetta on North Broad Street have been scrapped, but what’s next is up for debate. PhillyDeals reported last week on the scuttled plans for the new facility, predicting upgrades to Paley Library. But Temple representatives told Broad & Cecil, Temple News’ blog, that a new library is still in the works: “We will reinvigorate or do something new with Paley, but it won’t be in place of a new library,” said James Creedon, Temple’s senior vice president for facilities, management and operations.

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