In Francisville, development around 19th & Poplar over the past couple of years has had a transformative effect on the surrounding neighborhood. To name just a couple, projects like a ten-home development on Ginnodo Street and a 35-unit development that replaced several vacant structures have helped contribute toward making this area into an up and coming residential hotbed.

Over the weekend, we updated you about the construction of three duplexes at 1834-38 Poplar Street, noting that the three structures were mostly framed out. And today, we’re sharing the news that the project along Ginnodo Street, located across the street from Saint Joseph’s Prep near 18th & Ridge is just about completed and ready for livin’. In fact, at least three of the homes closest to Ridge Avenue are already occupied.

A bunch of new homes

Other side of the development

When this writer lived on Ginnodo Street in 2009, folks ran in and out of what was then a collection of abandoned lots into a string of vacant homes on 19th Street just north of Poplar, sometimes with the police in hot pursuit. Gunshots were all too common an occurrence, just a few short years ago.

We imagine that now, with 10 new homes on Ginnodo Street, the new 1900 Poplar project finished last year, and plans for a new home at 1835-37 Ginnodo (one of those aforementioned vacant lots) times have really changed for this area and that the experience of current residents is a little different than ours back in 2009. And with this progress in the neighborhood, it leads us to wonder just when Ridge Avenue will start to get some additional love, like this blight on the 1800 block or any number of vacant lots as you head toward Fairmount. Hopefully, that transformation will come as quickly as it did to the 1800 block of Ginnodo Street.

–Lou Mancinelli