Melrose Diner to be demolished — but revived in new 94-unit apartment building

The landmark Melrose Diner, shuttered since a fire a year ago, will be demolished — but the diner will live on as part of a new 94-unit apartment building.

Plans filed with the city on Wednesday, first reported by the Rising Real Estate blog, called for a six-story, 55-foot-tall mixed-use building with a roof deck and ground-floor commercial space.

After reports emerged of impending demolition plans for the famed diner car last year, owner Michael Petrogiannis initially told The Inquirer that he would not demolish it. The new permit does call for a complete demolition of the existing diner and bakery, although a planned ground-floor commercial space in the proposed building would be occupied by a new iteration of the Melrose Diner that he would operate, Petrogiannis told The Inquirer Thursday.

He declined further comment.

Blueprints submitted to the Department of Licenses & Inspections show the configuration would be flipped, with a lobby for residences on 15th Street and a 4,600-square-foot diner with outdoor seating at the parallel intersection of Snyder and Passyunk Avenues. The plans also show an additional 4,000 square feet on the ground floor also marked for use as a sit-down restaurant.

Petrogiannis obtained an initial demolition permit for the stainless-steel-and-neon-trimmed diner shortly before a fire shuttered the business.

He also obtained another permit to tear down the Broad Street Diner, about a mile away at Broad and Ellsworth Streets, which the restaurateur also owns. Those permits similarly called for that diner, which is still operating, to be replaced with another residential structure.

The diner operator hired Plato Marinakos, an architect involved in the botched Market Street demolition that killed six people in 2013, to draft demolition plans for the Melrose site.

It was unclear whether Petrogiannis had secured financing or a development partner for either project.