For decades, under multiple ownerships, Fishtown Beverage made its home at 1511 Frankford Ave. and peddled beer to the masses in the neighborhood. But a couple of years ago, it closed its doors, apparently for good. The large property, which stretches back to Oxford Street, sold to developers in 2014. Late last year, they pulled a zoning permit to change the lot lines to split off two home-sizes parcels at 1430-32 E. Oxford St., and a couple months later they got support from Fishtown Neighbors Association to build two new homes. Actually, it looks like they're just doing a renovation job on two buildings that were there previously.
You can see in the image above, there's a large fenced-in lot immediately next door. That lot stretches all the way to Frankford Avenue, and the old beer distributor sits on the parcel as well. In all, there's about 6,000 sqft there, with frontage on both Oxford Street and Frankford Avenue.
Aside from shaving off a small amount of the property to build the two homes we just mentioned above, we honestly have no idea what the developers have planned for the rest of the property. With good size and commercial zoning, this would seem like a great opportunity for a mixed-use building. They could have thirteen units above a commercial space by right, though they might still need a variance as the lot doesn't exactly lend itself to having a required rear yard. Alternately, they could further subdivide and build a collection of smaller buildings, maybe with more homes on Oxford and something mixed-use on Frankford Avenue. But if that was the plan, we suspect they'd have done that already. Another option, of course, is to find another beer distributor for the location.
Has anyone in the neighborhood heard anything about the plans for this property?