At 1720 Fairmount Ave., what was for years a storage lot for building materials like brick and stone is now a framed out four-story building. When it's finished, it will include 18 new apartments and complete one of the closing paragraphs of the tale about redevelopment along Fairmount Avenue.
It's been a couple of years in the making, and seeing this project get some legs, and then a torso, as it was framed, shows developers are looking to get people living in the building sometime this year.
With projects like this getting chugging along, this block is becoming privy to the rush of redevelopment that swept through nearby, beginning at Uber Street, with a Loonstyn mixed-use project that wrapped up in 2012, and heading all the way the way to Broad Street, where the new Project H.O.M.E. development—JBJ Soul Homes, now occupies a formerly vacant triangular parcel. And let's not forget the Folsom Powerhouse project, still progressing on the 1700 block of Folsom Street, just north of Fairmount.
Fairmount Avenue is a far different today than it was just a few years ago. You've got Tela's Market at 19th & Fairmount, the aforementioned mixed-use projects that have brought other businesses to the corridor, and a 33-unit apartment building along the 1500 block. There's also this great cafe/brunch place across from the Penitentiary. Work finally got started recently at the long-vacant building at the corner of 17th & Fairmount. Plus, right at 18th & Fairmount, you've got construction at the former Mortgage Security Building.
With considerable progress at 1720 Fairmount Ave., we bid adieu to another formerly vacant parcel on the corridor. These lots are becoming a rare breed these days, though a few still linger. Our bet is that before you know it, those lots will get redeveloped too, filling in the remaining gaps. And with a huge bump in development and population in Francisville just to the north of Fairmount Avenue, the area is growing even more attractive for businesses. Of course, Terror Behind the Walls every fall doesn't hurt either.