Heading down Ridge Avenue the other day, some new construction just south of Girard caught out eye. A new building sits a couple doors down from the Smith Chapel Baptist Church, which is located in the historic former Northwestern National Bank. This area has seen a staggering amount of new construction over the last decade or so, none of which holds a candle to the wonderful architecture on display from this late 19th century edifice.

But we digress. Near the gorgeous former bank, 1820-22 Ridge Ave. has been sitting vacant for a very long time. Incidentally, 1824 Ridge Ave. was also empty for many years, but got filled in back in 2019 with a three-story building with three units and commercial space. Currently, there’s construction at 1820-22 Ridge Ave., which will result in a five-story building with ground-floor retail and a total of 16 units. Clearly, this will be a massive upgrade over the vacant lots and will add useful density to a commercial corridor that’s still finding its footing.

We like the height and the density, but are a bit bummed out by what might have been. If only the aforementioned building at 1824 Ridge Ave. had not been built a few years back and the developers of the project at the corner had been able to integrate the lot into their taller project, we would be seeing even more density here. In addition, potential commercial tenants would have a larger footprint if the project were built across three lots instead of two. It’s not the end of the world, of course, but it’s a frustrating inefficiency that we wish could have somehow been avoided.

Perhaps, in this fantasy world, we could have seen something similar to the completed building at 1810 Ridge Ave., just across the street. We last checked in on this project back in 2020, when it was just an elevator tower and a steel base. Today, it’s a completed building called Ridge Pointe, with 24 apartments and a kitchen supply business on the first floor.

Remember, this property was part of the Ridge Avenue Farmers Market site and had been sitting vacant since the building’s demolition in the 1990s. That entire site is now filled in with a combination of multi-family and single-family homes. This infill development is consistent with what we’ve seen up and down Ridge Ave. over the last several years, such that there are not so many vacant lots left on the corridor. Seeing 1820-22 Ridge Ave. now getting filled in takes another space off the table, and continues the trend of revitalization of this long dormant stretch.