When PHA built and sold a collection of low slung affordable housing units on the southern side of Francisville in the early 1980s, they surely didn't anticipate that these homes would become incredibly hot commodities to market rate developers several decades later. Slowly, over the course of the last few years, we've seen numerous homes on 19th Street, 20th Street, and Brown Street get demolished and replaced by multi-family buildings with units generally selling as condos. Exactly four years ago, we told you that something similar was happening on the 700 block of N. Capitol Street, as a small but wide home was demoed and replaced with a triplex.
Something similar is now happening at 755 N. Capitol St., where a reader tipped us off that another home has been demolished. Rather than a triplex, these developers are building a quadplex. Perhaps they've sacrificed the parking element in order to build the extra unit in this project, which appears to be happening by right.
It stands to reason that this will happen a few more times in the coming years, until all of the homes turn over or the area gets rezoned from its current multi-family zoning status. While we're here, it seems like a good idea to check in on the southwest corner of Capitol & Brown. We first brought this property to your attention several years ago, as developers were looking to add a story to an old warehouse and convert it to residential use. When that fell through, they then put the property on the market, and found a buyer earlier this year. Looking at the property now, we see two new single family homes are under construction.
According to the sign, the project has been dubbed Capital (sic) Estates. One of these 2,300 sqft homes is now listed for $725K, a single family price point not commonly seen in this neighborhood. Provided they get buyers at these prices, this could encourage additional home development in a neighborhood that has skewed toward condos in recent memory.