Heading across town over the weekend, we passed by the building that was previously home to Hawthorne's before a fire this past winter closed the business temporarily. When we last visited this site, we were concerned (with the obvious caveat that we're not engineers) that the building might not survive and could be replaced by a brand new structure. Considering that repair efforts appear to be in swing, it appears that demolition and new construction won't be necessary. That's pretty good news, we'd say.
As you continue past Hawthorne's on Fitzwater Street, you quickly come upon a lot at 1118 Fitzwater St. that's been vacant for quite some time. On the fence surrounding this curious lot is a zoning notice which caught our attention, as you might imagine.
The property was purchased late last year by David Haviv, a developer who's done a couple of other projects we've covered over the years. He rebuilt a long blighted rowhome near 6th & Lombard. Ditto a similar project near 11th & Bainbridge. Now, he has his eyes set on this lot, where he has plans to build a four story home with a garage in the rear. The project still needs to go before the ZBA, so we make no promises that the home we just described gets built as we described it. But whatever home ends up here, it's better than a vacant corner lot.
Meanwhile directly across the street, a former corner store is basically unchanged since we last were here a year and a half ago.
Could this space turn into a corner retail space sometime in the future? We don't quite know what we'd want to see here, but similar to the situation across the street, something would be better than nothing at this point.