The 3000 block of W. Cabot Street is getting there. If we turn back the clock to 2011, we find a mere ten homes on this little Brewerytown block, with 60% of those homes blighted and vacant (that's 6 out of 10, for those bad at mental math).
At the end of 2015, we checked in on the block and noted that MM Partners and BMK Homes had partnered to purchase three of the homes on the block from the Redevelopment Authority and then renovated them as part of the Stiles Row project. That eliminated half the blighted homes on the block, a dramatic improvement. But we noted that three vacant homes remained, with a pair of privately owned properties wasting away on the south side and a boarded up PHA home on the north side. Visiting the block today, we see a further reduction in the number of blighted properties, with 3008 and 3010 W. Cabot St. getting rehabbed in the last year. Sadly, 3015 W. Cabot St. remains blighted, the only vacant home left on the block.
If you look toward the end of the block on the south side, you can almost make out something else notable in the image above. Let's take a closer look.
Perhaps because they were overgrown with weeds, we didn't even realize that 3014 and 3016 W. Cabot St. existed as developable real estate. But now that they've been cleared out, it's evident that a developer could easily build a pair of homes on these 14'x50' lots. Surely, the zoning notices are due to the fact that the developers will seek to build homes slightly deeper than is permitted by the zoning code, a minimal dimensional variance that should sail through the ZBA. With one of the 31 Brewerytown buildings having appeared on the lot next door last year, the time seems quite ripe for Cabot Street to fill in completely. Of course, with PHA owning the one remaining vacant building on the block, it could be some time before it's really complete. C'mon PHA, fix up 3015 W. Cabot St. and let this little block cross the finish line!