Vacant Red Bell Brewing building sold for $4.12M; apartments planned

Developer David Waxman's MMPartners LLC has acquired the Red Bell Brewing Co. building in the Brewerytown neighborhood north of western Center City for $4.12 million, more than twice what its last owner paid for it less than two years earlier.

Waxman, developer of the nearby Pyramid Lofts warehouse redevelopment, said in an interview Monday that he plans to convert the brewery property at 1500-36 N. 31st St. and 3123-45 W. Jefferson St. into an apartment building that preserves its historic features.

He said that he has not yet determined how many units the project will have but that it would likely be fewer than the 147 proposed by the previous owner of the 204,300-square-foot brewery structure, property investor John Wei.

Wei had paid $1.85 million for the vacant 19th century brewery building on 2.25 acres in April 2016. The sale to MM Partners closed Dec. 25, said Michael Barmash, who represented Wei in the deal as a broker with real estate services firm Colliers International in Philadelphia.

Waxman attributed the jump in the property's price to the success of area projects such as Pyramid Lofts and the Fairmount at Brewerytown, which are drawing developer interest to Brewerytown's northwest corner.

"The neighborhood is really coming into its own," he said.