It's been a few years since our last visit to the 1200 block of Carpenter Street, an unusual Hawthorne block in that the south side is covered entirely by a playground and the Hawthorne Cultural Center while the north side of this block is dominated by 1241 Carpenter Studios, a collection of artist studios located in a former belt manufacturing building. Despite these factors, developers were building a triplex on the block when we visited last, and with that building long finished we believe they're renting out the units. Next door to the newish triplex is a double wide 2,500 sqft parcel that's mostly empty but for a small one-story garage.
As you can see in the image above, the owners of this property have been marketing it for sale. And perhaps you can also see that the building has a zoning notice posted, so it's probably a safe bet that they've found somebody that wants to buy it. Looking at the zoning application, we see that the potential buyers want to construct a new building here that rises up to 60' and includes six apartment units. Interestingly, last summer, another proposal came through for this property for a quadplex with two-car parking, but it got withdrawn from the ZBA. We don't go to many community meetings in Hawthorne, perhaps someone who lives in the neighborhood can explain the change in plans? Also, wouldn't you think that neighbors would prefer fewer units with parking, rather than more units and no parking? Of course, the industrial zoning for the property doesn't help anybody.
This project is, of course, small potatoes when considered alongside the Tower Investments proposal for the entire block of Broad & Washington, the edge of which sits just half a block away from here. With that project currently tied up in litigation though, the six-unit building might be the bmoc for this little area in the foreseeable future. That is assuming, of course, that the project gets approval at the ZBA, which we wouldn't consider to be a sure thing. If anyone out there knows how the community reacted to the project, they could probably handicap its odds better than us at this point.