Marbles plans courtyard expansion

A former Blount Street service station could be torn down in order to make way for an expansion of the Marbles Kids Museum that would create an “Urban Courtyard.”

Formerly known as Bradley’s Service Garage, the former service station was originally built in 1964, seven years after the land came into the hands of the Bradley family. It sits directly behind the Marbles Kids Museum at Moore Square.

The Bradley heirs eventually sold the property to an LLC by the name of Herndon & Herndon Enterprises in 2006. Herndon & Herndon eventually lost the property to the city and the county as part of a judgment in a lawsuit the entities had brought against the real estate firm in 2012.

The property was acquired by the Marbles Kids Museum in an upset bid process for a little more than $50,000.

Marbles doesn’t seem to have done anything with it since that initial purchase: the last permit we could find was from February 2010.

It looks like that’s about to change. Nearly three and a half years after dropping $50,000 on the land, the museum has filed an application with the Historic Development Commission laying out its future plan for the site: the creation of an Urban Courtyard.