A little bottle of wine to spruce up an area

Sometimes, all it takes is a little chardonnay to get a neighborhood back on track.

Part of a larger revitalization of the area, demolition is set to begin on the current over-the-counter liquor store on the 4900 block of Baltimore Ave., which will be moved down the block and will re-open in late spring.

The new liquor store will be much larger, have a larger selection and allow for customers to browse the selection instead of the current set-up, in which products are kept behind the counter.

"This will be a nice wine and spirits store that will serve to draw more costumers from the neighborhood," said Carolyn Hewson, director of Neighborhood Initiatives at University City District. "A broader audience is shopping on Baltimore Ave., and the new store reflects those changes."

The idea is to provide area residents with a place to buy higher-end liquor without having to go into Center City.

But the addition of the new liquor store has a more important benefit - hopefully ridding the area of the vagrancy that has accompanied the current Wine and Spirits Shoppe.

Dorothy Berlin, secretary on the Board of Directors for Cedar Park, said that people would often buy half-pint bottles of vodka from the store, walk across the street to Cedar Park and spend much of the day there drinking in public.

It often led, she said, to constant panhandling and public urination and ultimately deterred residents from using the park.

The Crossroads project, which began in 2003, is an effort by the Cedar Park Neighbors Community Association to improve the state of the park. But area leaders soon realized that renovating the liquor store and eliminating its supposed negative side effects was the first step in the process.

"We said, look, if we're gonna try to improve the park, we must do something about the liquor store," Berlin said. "It was just a bad scene."

Though Penn students rarely make their way that far west, especially to purchase alcohol, the block of 49th and Baltimore streets is undergoing many other positive changes.

A yoga studio, sign manufacturer and the Dock Street Brewing Co. pizzeria are all new businesses opening in June that are likely to draw residents to the area.

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