North Abbey, the renovation of the former St. Augustine's church at 27th & Girard into sixteen apartment units, wrapped up earlier this summer. We've talked up this project several times as construction progressed, exceptionally pleased to see a church converted and not demolished, for a change. The building has eight units on each floor, with rents ranging from $990/mo for 1 bed/1 bath units to $1,799/mo for 3 bed/2 bath units. Several of the units have some amazing original details, which you can see in the photos on the developer's Facebook page.
You can see in the first photo, there's a new building at 1210 N. 27th St., formerly a vacant lot. It's being built by the same developers that converted the church. We thought it was a single-family home, but it's actually a condo building. The 1 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom lower unit is currently listed at $270K and the 2 bedroom upper unit is listed for $300K. Sales will surely benefit from having a lovely renovated church next door, but they may suffer slightly from having two vacant lots next door and a row of blighted buildings to the north.
We wrote about this row of blighted buildings about a year and a half ago and sadly things remain pretty much the same as they were. In a world that made sense, the owners of these properties would renovate them or sell them to someone who will. Since three of the four buildings are owned by PHA, chances are slim that either will happen and it's more likely the City will demolish the buildings once they decline to the point of becoming dangerous. Remember, we saw this at 20th & Carpenter in 2013. As private development continues to boom nearby, perhaps PHA will relent in shamelessly blighting this block, but we wouldn't bet on it.