It’s been a long road for the townhome development on the 1300 block of Bainbridge, which we first brought to your attention way back in 2012. At that time, the sizable lot at 1319-51 Bainbridge St. was operating as a surface parking lot, which seemed like a bit of an underuse at such a prominent location. Developers bought the property for $5M, and at the time this was a rather hefty price, but in retrospect it seems almost adorable. They came up with a plan to build 22 homes, along with a small mixed-use building at Clarion & Bainbridge. We were skeptical of this plan, specifically because of the presence of a gas station right next door. Shows what we know.

By 2014, there were four homes on Bainbridge and four homes on Kater, and the homes were selling at prices in the low seven figures. But the developers ran into financing issues and the project sat untouched for a couple years before a new developer stepped in to continue construction. As time has passed, the homes have continued to go up, as did the prices. Incidentally, there’s a very clear architectural line of demarcation which shows where the old developers stopped and the new developers began.

The mixed-use building never came to pass, however. And we’re here to tell you it’s not going to happen ever. Instead, the developers have changed their plans, subdividing the parcel at the corner of Clarion Street, and they’ve already started construction on three more townhomes. For those keeping track at home, that will make for a total of 25 homes in this development. Most recent sales have clocked in at $1.65M and we see a couple are under contract at prices exceeding $1.7M. The Clarion Street homes, since they’ll be even larger than the homes on Bainbridge and Kater, are priced accordingly, and we see one of them is currently under contract at a list price of $2.25M.

While we were doing our research for this story, we were scanning the property using the time machine function on Google Street View, and went all the way back to 2007 to confirm that it was a parking lot back then. While part of the lot was indeed used for surface parking, we were surprised to discover a row of five small and blighted row homes that were standing on this block until 2008. We confess, we don’t remember these homes, but their dilapidated condition before they got torn down really provides a sharp contrast to what this block looks like today. And for people who remember what this neighborhood was like as recently as the late 1990s, this change is even more pronounced.