It's interesting to observe the differences in the types of projects presented in Northern Liberties and Fishtown.
The former is the area where manufacturers constructed large warehouses, and the latter is where many residential row home neighborhoods developed to meet the need for worker housing. So as Fishtown sees a record numbers of zoning applications- there were 54 zoning applications in 2013 compared to 30 in 2011- a large percentage of those proposals are coming in the form of one-off projects occurring in various locations, like cavities being filled.
Let’s look at this project here at 1324 E. Berks St. in Fishtown. Developers received support from the Fishtown Neighbors Association zoning committee this month for plans to build a three-story family home with two-car parking in the front, designed by Moto DesignShop. The long-vacant property was last purchased in December 2012 for $135K and will join a thoroughly residential and already developed block, assuming it's approved by the ZBA.
“It's all urban infill,” said Matt Karp, FNA zoning chair, about redevelopment in Fishtown. “It has to be one-off [projects] here because we don't have that many gaps. So it's hard to have large projects like in Northern Liberties where they have a lot of warehouses.”
For example, there’s another single-family home under construction just a few doors away. And we recently wrote about another one-off project on a residential block in transition a block north along the 1300 block of Susquehanna. It's not like Fishtown is void of large projects- for example Ice House Phase II at Columbia & Thompson– it's simply that the majority of projects in Fishtown, are as Karp said, infill, occupying locations that need a lift or have long been vacant. We wonder if 2014 will be another record year for projects in this neighborhood.