Traveling down Front Street the other day, a sign caught our eye on the building at 1600 N. Front St. offering it up as a development opportunity. When we snapped a photo of the building and the aforementioned sign, we figured we’d share that the property is listed for sale and recommend that someone out there buy it, at the right price. Then we did like five minutes of research and realized that we’re a little late to the party.

The building sits on about 12K sqft of land, has about 14K sqft of interior space, and was listed for sale for many months for $1.875M. While the price is a little on the high side, the size of the parcel and its relatively favorable zoning make it rather interesting for the right developer. As public record hasn’t changed, we don’t know who that developer is or how much they paid, but we do know that they’ve got approval from the ZBA to redevelop the property. The application indicates plans for a five-story building with ground floor commercial, 38 apartments, and 12 parking spots. This project will be pretty consistent with some other projects we’ve seen along Front Street in recent years, and squares with a trend that we’ve seen of renters not really minding the roar of the El out their windows.

And if you don’t mind the El, the location is pretty solid. Across the street to the east is the Honeygrow headquarters, and while you can’t get noodles or a salad over there, it’s a great reuse of an old warehouse. To the south is Oxford Mills, an adaptive reuse of an old factory with apartments that cater to people in the education or non-profit field. And there’s a great cafe on the first floor, too. Also, this address is just a block away from Frankford Avenue, and around the corner from a huge Levantine market/restaurant that’s opening in the next couple months. Said restaurant will have a garden space accessible from Front Street, which will be mere steps away from the front door of the 1600 N. Front St. project.

We have to admit, we didn’t expect that Front Street would be experiencing the wave of development we’ve seen over the last few years. It does make sense though, and with the corridor reaching a critical mass of sorts, we should continue to see additional projects like this as time goes by. Just a few years ago, developing 1600 Front St. would have seemed like a huge risk. Today, it just blends right in with what’s happening in every direction.