Homes at 2128-32 Hagert St., damaged by a fire that spread in the wee hours of a winter morning last February in East Kensington, look as if they soon will be renovated.

The homes

Permits to renovate the three buildings first pulled in 2008 were renewed this summer. All three are owned by the Fishtown Redevelopment Authority, which appears to have purchased the properties together for $105K in April 2008, and filed for permits to renovate the properties soon after. According to a former resident at 2130 Hagert St., a lawyer who posted the information on Fishtown.us, all three properties were new renovations when he lived there in 2008. Next door, at 2134 Hagert St., “Home Depot boxes served as windows,” he wrote. When we passed by last month the boxes were gone but the home remained vacant.

If the new permits are any indication, work is set to revamp these properties for the second time in a very short time period. The owners should have an easy time finding tenants, as the neighborhood is experiencing a consistently heavy dose of redevelopment, both along the Frankford Ave. commercial corridor and on the surrounding blocks as well.

A few blocks away, at Trenton & Dauphin, new homes are being built on a lot close to where the former 26th Precinct Police Station was renovated into new residential units. And we recently told you about the 2400 block of Frankford Ave., one block east of Hagert, that has been mostly transformed from half-vacant into residential, also in the past year.

Who wants to fix this building up?

With these three homes being renovated, we’re wondering when someone will take an interest in the vacant whitewashed brick factory at the corner of Hagert & Trenton, across from the homes mentioned above. It looks like it would make for lovely loft apartments, possibly with a mixed use component. Anyone know anything about this building?

–Lou Mancinelli