Right near Girard Avenue, plans for another piece of infill development points to how builders continue to find locations for projects almost anywhere they can among the rapidly redeveloping residential rows of Fishtown.
Last month, the Fishtown Neighbors Association supported developers' plans to build a new home with a garage at 631 E. Flora St., currently a vacant lot. This lot came as part of a package with a two-story home behind it at 628 Moyer St., which the developer has renovated and listed for sale for $295K. The combo of home and lot were purchased last August for $212K. You can see how those numbers could work.
The new home will join a parade of construction on this block. When we last checked in on this street, two homes had recently been built and additional foundations had been poured. Now, it looks like all the homes in the development are under construction and at least one of the new homes is occupied. Quite a change from what was once a giant vacant lot.
Both the current and future Flora projects are taller than the already existing homes on the block. Infill development that rises higher than the block's preexisting row homes is a constant thread we've seen happening across the city. This development is the place where the needs of a 21st-century urban household meet the fading styles of the early twentieth-century.
With that in mind, we start to wonder whether the row of nine garages next to the proposed home on Flora Street could soon disappear. On the other hand, parking is a decidedly modern concern, which might mean that the owner of that property is getting enough income from the parking spaces that selling won't be on the agenda for many years. As usual, time will tell.