Construction on Melrose Diner site to begin soon, while Broad Street Diner site earmarked for a hotel
A new apartment building is coming to West Passyunk Avenue, followed by a new hotel for South Broad Street.
The family who owns the Broad Street Diner and the site of the former Melrose Diner have big real estate development plans in the works.
The iconic Melrose Diner between West Passyunk and Snyder Avenues was demolished in 2023, and plans for an apartment project there have been evolving, with the latest proposal being a five-story, 64-unit building with two levels of underground parking and two commercial spaces.
The new Melrose Diner will be almost 3,000 square feet, with seating for 136 people inside and for 46 people outside.
Once that is completed, the Broad Street Diner at 1135 S. Broad St. will be torn down and, in combination with an adjoining lot, be replaced by a five-story, 110-room Hyatt hotel with no additional commercial space and 30 parking spaces.
“Within the next few months we are going to start building” at the Melrose site, said Maria Petrogiannis, head of development for MR Realty Associates, which owns the properties. She is the daughter of Michael Petrogiannis, who owns six other eateries in the region, including the Mayfair and the Country Club diners.
“Once we build that and get the Melrose back up and running, he’s going to move all his employees over from the Broad Street to the [new] Melrose,” said Maria Petrogiannis. “And then we’re going to move forward with that project and build a Hyatt there.”
The proposal to replace the Broad Street Diner with a hotel was first reported by the Philadelphia Business Journal.
Demolition permits were first pulled for both the Broad Street and Melrose diners in the summer of 2022. Then the West Passyunk icon was torn down the following year, leaving its former site hemmed in by a chain-link fence.
The apartment proposal has moved through a few iterations, with a larger 94-unit proposal that would have required a trip to the Zoning Board of Adjustment scrapped for the new proposal, which will include larger units and does not require zoning changes.
MR Realty Associates’ development plans also have been hampered by the challenges confronting the rest of the real estate industry, with high interest rates and elevated construction material costs freezing projects across the city.
“It was going to be smaller units, and now it’s going to be larger units,” Maria Petrogiannis said. “We have eight lofts, which are bi-level units. There will be two two-bedrooms on each floor and 10 one-bedrooms per floor with a few studios.”
The hotel proposal in place of the Broad Street Diner will require a zoning change, which can be granted either by the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment or by City Council legislation. That means the developer will have to court local neighborhood groups, which can be influential at zoning board hearings.
A Hyatt Studios extended-stay hotel is proposed for the site. This is a new brand from the company, launched in 2023 with the idea of targeting secondary and tertiary markets, according to reporting at the time. The first Hyatt Studios locations are being opened this year.
MR Realty Associates plans to build another Hyatt Studios location in Bensalem at the site of Michael’s Cafe, which was Petrogiannis’ Bucks County nightclub. It was demolished following the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We also have approvals to build a Hyatt there,” said Maria Petrogiannis. “It’s a much larger site, but we have been going back and forth with the township for a bit.”
The Melrose site, which faces no regulatory hurdles, is first on the agenda.
Michael Petrogiannis put many of the beloved symbols of the diner into storage when it was demolished and planned to outfit the new diner location in his apartment building with those totems. The family sees it as a chance to extend the fortunes of bustling East Passyunk across Broad Street.
“East Passyunk is already amazing, but this will jump-start the development of West Passyunk and the other side of Broad Street,” said Maria Petrogiannis. “It will be positive for the neighborhood and businesses surrounding as well.”