Things have changed in a big way on the 1600 block of Point Breeze Avenue over the last several years, which is quite consistent with what we’ve seen in the surrounding neighborhood. This block in particular was pretty awful as recently as 2017, with a mix of vacant lots and blighted buildings overwhelming the handful of occupied, maintained buildings. In the years since, we’ve seen a collection of small to mid-size apartment buildings rising on this block, filling in several of these vacancies with new residents. We brought a few of these projects to your attention back in 2018, when many were under construction. Needless to say, all of those buildings have been completed.

The largest vacant lot on the block, 1622 Point Breeze Ave., was still sitting vacant back in 2018. This was still true when we came back to the block in 2020. This lot, regrettably, had been sitting empty for decades. In the mid-2010s, it was used for a couple years as a pop-up beer garden. Going back many years, the Point Breeze Theater stood, in part, on this lot. This building was built in 1911 as a live theatre and converted to movies in 1922. It fell out of use in the 1950s and was demoed sometime in the middle of the 20th century. Sadly, we can’t find any photos of this lost building. We can show you, however, what this property looked like a couple years ago.

Things look rather different today. Instead of a vacant lot, there’s now a 57-unit apartment building here. We would have liked to see a sizable commercial space on the first floor of this building; after all, it sits on one of the more prominent commercial corridors in South Philadelphia. Unfortunately, the zoning for this property allows multi-family use but prohibits commercial use. And there’s not a developer in this whole city that would willingly take a project in front of the ZBA in Point Breeze unless absolutely necessary. Quite reasonably, that wasn’t the approach taken here, so check out this 100% residential building:

Construction is complete and units are currently available for lease. The building offers a mix of studios and one-bedroom units, with the studios renting for $1225/mo and the one-bedrooms renting for $1325/mo. After concessions, those rents look more like $980/mo and $1060/mo, respectively. Those are some of the lowest rents in town this summer, at least in terms of new construction.

Don’t get us wrong, we love an old timey cinema. And we rather enjoy beer gardens too. That being said, we are none too fond of large vacant lots, especially when those large vacant lots are surrounded by relatively new apartment buildings in a growing part of the city. And while we would have loved to see commercial here, we still consider this project to be a big win. Here’s to hoping that the new residents patronize businesses on the corridor, making it a more desirable place to own and open a business. And while we’re at it, can we ask for the Point Breeze Ave. corridor to be remapped to allow for commercial use, if a developer is so inclined? Pretty please, with sugar on top?

Disclaimer: 1622 Point Breeze Ave. is owned by an affiliate of OCF Realty, parent company of Naked Philly