We promise, we'll eventually stop being surprised about the continual southern shifting of the development border in Point Breeze. But that day is not today, folks. Last spring, we visited the 1900 block of Fernon Street and noted that this street, formerly overrun by vacancy, had six homes under construction. Over the summer, we visited the 2000 block of Fernon, and discussed a batch of new homes under construction and a few rehabs to boot. We should not be shocked that similar things are happening on the 1800 block, and yet…
At 1805 Fernon St., V2 Properties has built a new home on what was previously a vacant lot. At 1822 and 1824 Fernon St., different developers (associated with OCF Realty, owners of this website) are undertaking the same task. And at 1828 Fernon St., we see developers bought a two-story property in 2014 for $2,000 (!) and have renovated it and added a 3rd story. It's worth noting, all of these homes have or will have 3rd floor setbacks and none of those setbacks will do anything to maintain the cornice line on the block. As we've advocated for previously, a simple change to the zoning code would improve this situation, but that hasn't happened and it may never happen. Bummer.
If we turn our attention a block to the west, we see a ton of progress on the 1900 block of Fernon Street since our last visit. You can see, the homes that were just getting framed out in March are now finished and are mostly sold. It appears that four have sold, one is under agreement, and one is listed for sale at a price of $365K. All of these homes were built by V2 Properties.
Looking east, toward the 1800 block, we see there are more homes that are now under construction on properties that were previously sitting vacant.
That's another home under construction, plus a pair of foundations. And don't worry, there's more coming. Sixteen properties on this block have changed hands in the last two years, some of them a couple times as they've been bought by developers and purchased by homeowners. Some of those properties have yet to be developed, and we'd think that a couple more could have changed hands but it's not yet reflected in public record. All of this tells us that development is quite robust in this part of the neighborhood and it should continue to push further south into PB. Guess that means we'll have to change our expectations once again.