A few years ago, the tide of development started flowing across Washington Avenue, and new homes appeared on blocks like Ellsworth, Federal, and Latona Streets. But there wasn't a whole lot happening south of Wharton Street, at least in the western sections of Point Breeze. More recently, we've seen a serious bump in construction south of Wharton, with many projects in the ground and some more still to come. Today we look at the 1700 block of Dickinson Street, where three homes are currently under construction and at least one more should follow soon.
The southeast corner of 18th & Dickinson has been vacant since at least 2007 per Google Maps, and we're guessing for many years before that as well. If you visit the corner today, you'll see two new homes under construction. Emerald Properties bought the three lots on the corner a couple of years ago and now they're redeveloping the properties. The corner lot is zoned commercial and has approvals for a first floor commercial space and an apartment above. They have an application to the ZBA to build a single-family home, but whether they get approval remains to be seen.
Just a few doors to the east at 1712 Dickinson St., there's another project underway. This was also a vacant lot, but now another single-family home is getting built. Innova is the developer, so we assumed that this was another affordable housing project in the neighborhood. But we were mistaken. The home is currently listed for sale for just under $420K. According to the listing, the house has over 3,000 sqft of living space, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, and is energy efficient. Has anyone heard of any other other Innova projects that sell for market rate?
And there's other projects coming soon to this area, which we'll cover soon. In the meantime, we wonder about the northeast corner of 18th & Dickinson, currently a corner store with a parking lot.
Given all the development nearby and the opportunity to build four homes on this parcel, it wouldn't surprise us to see this property turn over sometime soon. On the other hand, given its similarity to a certain parcel on Frankford Avenue, maybe tacos would be a better choice.