South Kensington should soon lose another large vacant lot. We actually told you about a redevelopment plan for 171 W. Jefferson St. back in the summer of 2012, when it looked like this:
At that time, the owners of the property had it listed for sale for $699K and we'd guess that somebody had it under agreement with a zoning contingency. A proposal for eighteen homes on this 14,100 sqft parcel went before the ZBA three times, finally getting dismissed in September of 2012. We couldn't tell you why, exactly, but suffice to say the project fell through and the property didn't end up selling. As the years passed, the lot remained more or less the same, but the property immediately to the west saw a new apartment building go up.
You may have noticed in the photos above, the property is now surrounded by a chain link fence, indicating development in the near future. Looking at the L&I Map, we discovered that a new plan came before the ZBA a couple months back for seventeen homes and it won approval on the first try. New owners, based out of Princeton, bought the property for $1.2M about a year and a half ago, and they look to be serious about building homes here. Look for a row of homes on Hancock Street, another row on Palethorp Street, and a drive-aisle accessed via Jefferson Street. With the success of the Townhomes at Liberties North project a few blocks away and the 20-home Mascher Street project around the corner, we imagine that this project will move quickly and the homes will sell at aggressive prices. And South Kensington will get a bunch of new neighbors that are very excited to live just five minutes off of Frankford Avenue.