520 Park Avenue now with Coffee Shop, soon with Market!

520 Park Avenue, the conversion of a former Hochschild Kahn warehouse into apartments sits south of Center Street, technically not Mt. Vernon. Of course the developers like to call things "Mount Vernon" rather than "Westside" and that is fine by me as long as there is progress. And as I pointed out before, there is indeed!

Right after the Hotel Indigo added a very fine restaurant and bar at its Cathedral Hill location, catty corner from the Pratt Library on Franklin Street, 520 Park Avenue two blocks to the west, opened a very well designed coffee shop. And their next opening, the "Mount Vernon Marketplace" is right around the corner!

The Ceremony Coffee Roasters hail from Annapolis where they operate a coffee shop and coffee roasting place. Operations here started this week. The very clean interiors are bright and designed around share tables. A special enclosed room is designed for workshops and "cafe training" sessions.

This opening marks another frontier in the never ending coffee shop craze. Thanks to the soon to be opening market, the already operating Trinacria Cafe across the street and the planned cafe at Franklin and Eutaw, this long neglected area is no longer a coffee or gourmet desert.


Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

see below photo tour (all photos ArchPlan Inc.):

The entrance from Park Avenue allows for some outdoor seating

View from the door

The southeasterly view out the windows shows the Library for the Blind (part of the Pratt), the highrises of Charles Plaza, the BGE Building and the golden top of the former Nationsbank Building in the distance. The steeple belongs to the St Alphonsus Church at Saratoga Street

Clean lines and bright light

the Roasters offer a wide variety of beans

The cafe training workshop

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