It was about a year ago that we last checked in on the former Abigail Vare school at 1619 E. Moyamensing Ave., a visit that came four years after the school closed its doors and three years after the School District sold the building to the Concordia Group. As we told you back then, the redevelopment of the school building was put on ice for quite some time as the sale was tied up in the courts. Within a month of the resolution of the sale dispute though, the developers were starting to work on interior demolition. As you might expect, they’ve made pretty good progress over the last year, at least as far as we can tell from the outside. Most obviously, they’ve replaced a couple hundred old windows. Inside, we can see new framing that will eventually accommodate 41 rental apartments and we have to think that these units will retain some original school details.

The renovation of the old school building isn’t the only aspect of this development- it also includes the construction of five new homes on the 200 block of Morris Street. The developers are calling this little development Abby Row, you know, as a play on the name of that Beatles album everyone loves. And Abby is a nickname for Abigail, like the namesake of the former school… get it?

The homes are well along in the construction process, fully framed and bricked, and with trades actively working inside. If we had to guess, we’d think the homes will be finished in roughly three months. And that’s good news for the people buying the homes, as we see that four of the homes are already under agreement at prices ranging from $650K to $670K. That’s a pretty high price point for homes in this part of town, but the prices make sense when you consider that each home will have two-car garage parking and over 2,500 sqft of living space.

With the Southwark on Reed project totally sold out even though it’s still under construction, this is the only project of this nature we can think of in this area, which probably explains why the homes have sold so quickly. Given that Concordia built that project as well, we’d guess that the buyers for this project are overflow buyers from Southwark on Reed. And looking at the success they’ve had with both projects, we have to think they’re on the lookout for other opportunities nearby.