Sometimes when readers email us, wondering about a particular project or property, we need to do all kinds of research to figure out what’s going on. We’ve become experts in poring over old zoning plans and/or property records to help satisfy the curiosity of someone motivated enough to reach out to us. Every now and again though, we hear from someone that wants more information on a property that we already know about, cutting out all that pesky and time consuming research- and that’s exactly what happened with a former surface parking lot on the 2600 block of Christian Street, in Devil’s Pocket.

A little over a decade ago, a few former industrial buildings got demoed on this block, some of which stretched back to Webster Street. A developer built 8 duplexes, with four on Christian and four on Webster, eventually building three more duplexes to the east on Webster. Part of this project included a surface parking lot at 2623 Christian St., which could accommodate 20 cars for residents of those aforementioned duplexes. As we’ve said on numerous occasions though, a surface parking lot is never the highest and best use for a property, so we’re pleased as punch that the lot is now gone and a project is under construction in its place.

This project calls for three new homes on Webster Street which will be offered for sale in the $600-$700K range. On Christian Street, look for an apartment building which will have 15 units which will be offered as rentals, like the units in the duplexes next door. You can see, the apartment building hasn’t gotten started yet, but the homes are moving along well.

As we said, we know all about this property since it’s owned by a client of OCF Realty, the parent company of Naked Philly. In case you’re wondering whether the presence of the Veolia plant across the street impacts the rentals of the units in the duplexes, we know that it doesn’t really make a difference and those units are in fairly high demand. So figure the apartments will rent pretty quickly as well, once the building gets built. The industrial nature of this part of Devil’s Pocket will slightly reduce the sale price of the homes though, as they would likely sell at a higher price point if they were located a couple blocks to the east. Given the high demand for new construction houses in this neighborhood though, the impact won’t be nearly as significant as one might expect.