It’s quite possible that the old warehouse at 2601 Emerald St. was once a nice enough building, perhaps in its early days as a dye works, and maybe even when it was used by a bottling company through at least the 1960s. As time has passed though, the building has taken on a rough look, with bricked-over windows and cracked stucco, not exactly the kind of building you’d want on your block. Still, the building did the job for Agnew Signs for a stretch of time, at least since the 1980s.

A few years back, a sign appeared on the building (probably made in house) that advertised it was available for sale, which was a pretty good indication that the end of the line had come for Agnew Signs. Developers purchased the property in early 2015, paying $665K. Though the name of the development entity is Emerald Dye Works LLC, we can’t imagine anyone expected that the developers would be preserving the existing building. Now we’ve seen the specific plans, and we can confirm that was a solid presupposition.

The developers are planning to demolish the existing building and construct two rows of residential buildings with frontage on Emerald and Braddock Streets. Each side will consist of seven buildings, with six triplexes and one duplex. In between the buildings will be a small parking area with space for ten cars. Streamline Solutions is the developer, and we’re expecting the units will be offered for sale, as condos. Harman Deutsch has done the architecture work, and they’re responsible for the site plan and renderings that follow.

All of this seems reasonable enough, and would absolutely represent a vast improvement over the status quo. The project goes to Civic Design Review today, for non-binding recommendations about how to move forward. If you were a member of the committee, would you have any feedback/recommended changes? Or would you be comfortable with the project moving forward as it’s currently designed?