Have you recently seen a storefront turn from eyesore to eye-catching? The Community Design Collaborative and the City of Philadelphia Commerce Department are looking for your nominations to the Citywide Storefront Challenge. The Challenge is a competition to identify those businesses that have recently (January 2008 – September 2010) redesigned their storefronts and now exemplify the principle that: “Good Design is Good Business.” The Awards range from “Most Unique Sign” to the “Nightlife Award” (the improvements that bring a building ‘to life’ at night). You can even suggest your own category.

If you admire a business that has demonstrated care and uniqueness in how it presents itself to its customers and the public, then this could be your opportunity to increase exposure for that business, a design or construction firm, or your own business. The nominated projects will be reviewed by a jury composed of economic development and design professionals. The winning projects will then be on display as part of DesignPhiladelphia, the citywide event that showcases the role design has played in Philadelphia. Submissions are being accepted through September 15, 2010. To get a copy of the application form, click here.

Although it may be too late to redesign a storefront in time for the contest, the Philadelphia Department of Commerce’s Storefront Improvement Program will still reimburse you for up to 50% of the cost of beautifying an eligible storefront. The City wants to encourage storefront improvements to make Philadelphia better for business owners, residents, shoppers and visitors.

For more information about the SIP program or the Storefront Challenge, contact Karen Fegely at 214-683-2025 or .

Germantown Avenue in Mt. Airy, North 5th Street in El Centro de Oro, Ridge Avenue in Roxborough, and Lancaster Avenue in Mantua/Powelton Village have gotten facelifts through the city’s Restore Targeted Blocks Facade Program. Corridor Managers on the staffs of Mt. Airy USA, HACE, People’s Emergency Center CDC, Roxborough Development Corporation and Korean Community Development Services. implemented the program, which provided funding for the design and construction of 15 to 20 façade improvement projects ranging from new signage to lighting to window replacement.

Volunteer architects with the Community Design Collaborative provided some of the initial design concepts for two of the participating corridors through the Collaborative’s rStore program. In 2007 Collaborative volunteers provided design consultations to Nickens Agency Inc., The Eye Institute, and Karate Academy in Mt. Airy and with Cambria Pharmacy on North 5th Street.  The business owners then worked with Mt. Airy USA and HACE to secure funding for the improvements through the Targeted Blocks program.

Check out these before, after and preliminary design images of some of the featured storefronts.

The Collaborative is partnering with the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program on a pilot program that coordinates architectural and landscape improvements with public art on commercial corridors in Philadelphia.

The partnership brings together design professionals and artists in a creative and collaborative effort to holistically address issues facing commercial corridors.  Through the Collaborative’s rStore program, our volunteers will work with muralists to integrate proposed building improvements and surrounding landscaping plans with public murals. This pilot effort will address two sites in Philadelphia, one on East Passyunk Avenue in South Philly and another on Ridge Avenue in Roxborough. “Part of evolving is forming good and new partnerships,” said Jane Golden, Mural Arts Executive Director.

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Six storeowners along North Frankford Avenue now have a new vision for enhancing their storefronts, thanks to the efforts of Collaborative volunteers who worked with the storeowners to develop conceptual designs for façade improvements.

Intern architects Michelle Shuman, Karena Thurston and Alexander Will and cost estimator Scott Dalinka volunteered with the Collaborative through its rStore program to work with the six business owners recruited by Theresa Hanas, Frankford Community Development Corporation’s Main Street Coordinator.

The improvements are part of Frankford CDC’s larger plans for revitalizing Frankford Avenue. As one of six neighborhood business districts in the Philadelphia area that participates in the Main Street Program, Frankford CDC has developed a multi-pronged approach to economic revitalization. The program encourages a strategic emphasis on Design, Promotion, Organization, and Economic Restructuring.

“Working with designers is awesome.  It puts ideas out there that the business owners and I would not have come up with on our own,” said Hanas.

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A team of Collaborative volunteers is working with Cedar Parks Neighbors to create design strategies for redeveloping the commercial corridor on Baltimore Avenue from 49th to 52nd Street. The volunteer team led by David Hincher, an architect at Kieran Timberlake, recently held a community meeting to get neighborhood input on design ideas and to discuss visions for revitalizing the corridor.

Read the University City Review article about the project.

Landscape improvements along 63rd Street in Overbrook Farms designed by Sara Pevaroff Schuh.

Pedestrians and drivers along the 63rd Street Commercial Corridor in historic Overbrook Farms will get a treat this spring when the sidewalk planters built by the Overbrook Farms Club emerge from the snow and begin to bloom.

The landscape improvements were designed by Sara Pevaroff Schuh, Principal of SALT Design Studio and a regular Collaborative volunteer, as part of a larger effort by the Overbrook Farms Club (OFC) to enliven its neighborhood commercial corridor, which extends from City Line Avenue to Woodbine Avenue. The initial idea for the project came from a master plan for the corridor that Collaborative volunteers developed in 2007 to provide OFC with a vision for revitalization and strategies for beautification, façade improvements, and site identity.

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At 8:30 a.m. bright and early on a Thursday morning, a group of local business owners and intern architects were huddled over photos and diagrams in the Frankford Community Development Corporation’s office sketching and discussing lighting and signage.

The meeting was organized by the Community Design Collaborative as part of the rStore program, which provides preliminary design consultations to groups of small business owners organized by community-based nonprofits.  Each rStore project includes a consultation day in which storeowners meet one-on-one with volunteer design professionals.

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