A row of East Market Street storefronts owned by Comcast and Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment (HBSE) will continue hosting small local businesses until at least the end of 2026.
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The experimental initiative, dubbed Meantime on Market, is meant to activate the once-barren stretch of the 900 block of East Market Street. When announced earlier this year, it was planned to only last through the end of July.
“Midway through the summer pop-up, I think everybody felt like, ‘Why would we go back to vacancy?’” said Brian Phillips, founder of Interface Studio Architects (ISA), which founded the Meantime project. “I don’t think anybody wanted this to end if it didn’t have to.”
All six businesses that took part in Meantime were offered the opportunity to continue their residency on the 900 block of East Market, and four decided to do so: vintage clothier Almost Famous, music listening hub Clubfriends Radio & Records, media convener space Love Now Media, and West Philadelphia’s Siddiq’s Water Ice.
“This summer has been incredibly meaningful,” Siddiq Moore of Siddiq’s Real Fruit Water Ice, said in a news release. “It’s been an incredible and beautiful experience for our business, and I’m excited to carry that energy into the fall extension.”
The city-operated MY Market East, run by the Planning Commission, will continue to function as a community engagement hub at 930 Market St. as well.
Two Persons Coffee and vintage furniture store Rarify will not continue their tenure on the strip. But those retail spaces will be available for other entrepreneurs to participate in the incubator program and receive three months of free retail space.
Phillips said that Meantime is in talks with several small Philadelphia businesses about occupying the spaces and that an announcement would be coming “in the next couple weeks.”
In the first three weeks of the Meantime businesses being open in May and June, 3,300 people visited the stores and $50,000 in sales were generated, according tothe news release.
“That momentum extended to the corridor as a whole — foot traffic along the observed stretch of Market East rose approximately 10% from May to June, outpacing growth in surrounding areas and signaling that the programs were doing more than filling empty storefronts,” the release reads.
Phillips said weekends have been even busier than weekdays on this stretch of East Market Street, at least for Meantime.
“Weekend life in Center City has, if anything, become more robust than it was 15 years ago,” Phillips said. “Weekday is a little bit tamped down since COVID.”
The properties have a long history with HBSE. From 2022 until early last year, the company planned to build the Philadelphia 76ers a new stadium on East Market Street with accompanying residential and commercial development on the 900 block.
Then in early 2025, after a contentious political battle, HBSE announced that the Sixers would stay in South Philadelphia and renew their alliance with Comcast Spectacor, which owns the team’s current arena in the stadium district.
But last June, HBSE and Comcast purchased the buildings on the 900 block of East Market anyway. They promised a project in this corner of Center City that has long lagged its neighboring counterparts in development and foot traffic. A longtime methadone clinic on the block closed down, too.
The Meantime initiative, first spearheaded by Center City District, activated the long vacant storefronts, which HBSE and Comcast repaired, as they figure out their plans.
HBSE declined to comment on what the extension of Meantime’s tenure on East Market will mean for potential larger development projects.
“Our vision for the Market East Revival has always included both the large-scale investment that can transform this corridor and space for small, local businesses from communities across Philadelphia to help shape its future,” Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said in a statement.
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