The Chestnut Hill Newsstand shortly after it was taken over by Stewart Graham. (Photo by Pete Mazzaccaro)

by Pete Mazzaccaro

The plans aren’t quite complete, but work is being done to reopen the currently shuttered Chestnut Hill Newsstand as a newsstand with coffee under the management of the Chestnut Hill Coffee Company.

Chestnut Hill Coffee Company property owner Sanjiv Jain told the Local he has taken over the lease for the newsstand and expects to have it open soon as a business that retains some of the functions of the newsstand but also provides another outlet for the coffee company’s products.

“We’re putting our plans together, still,” Jain told the Local. “We’re excited by the opportunity.”

Readers may recall that newsstand manager Dan Fromm started an online fundraising effort in September to prevent what he said would be the newsstand’s closing. Fromm set a goal of $16,000 but failed to raise more than $2,000.

The stand was shuttered right around Christmas and remains so today.

­Hiller Stewart Graham, who took over the newsstand approximately seven years ago, told the Local last week that he had sold the lease he had with property owners SEPTA to Jain for $1.

“I was just losing money,” Graham said. “In the last six years I lost about $130,000.”

Graham said he believed Jain and Coffee Company owner Sultan Malikyar will do a better job with the newsstand.

“I think they’re both entrepreneurial and have creative ideas about what they can do there,” Graham said.

Jain told the Local it was too soon to promise a start date for operations, but that his intention was to get the newsstand running again as soon as possible.

“I don’t like leaving anything closed for too long,” he said. “We’re working to get up and running soon.”

Pete Mazzaccaro can be reached at 215-248-8802