In Francisville

We were in Francisville the other day and as we stood at the 15th & Parrish intersection, it struck us just how much change this immediate area has seen over the last several years. The parcel that really drove this home for us was 1501 Parrish St., a property that

Even if you've lived in Francisville for a long time, it's quite possible you've never heard of Bowers Street or Erdman Street. These tiny streets branch off of the 800 block of Perkiomen Street, and both dead-end into the backyards of homes on Leland Street. Just a couple years ago,

A little less than a year ago, we brought 906 N. Broad St. to your attention, dreaming of a better future for the building. We noted the likelihood that it was originally built as a car dealership, but showed you its current blah condition, chopped up into a Family Dollar, a seafood restaurant, and

We've watched with great interest, over the last few years, as Ridge Avenue in Francisville has experienced a slow rebirth. Off the cuff, we can think of roughly a dozen new mixed-use buildings either under construction or recently completed on this corridor, which should collectively provide the neighborhood with an

The area surrounding the intersection of 19th & Poplar has changed dramatically over the years, with new buildings appearing all over the place. We've seen duplexes replace a church at the southwest corner. We've seen a large tract of vacant land filled up on nearby Ginnodo Street. Developers tore down some

It's been a few months since we were here, so of course it's time to revisit Ridge Avenue in Francisville with info about some new development. We found ourselves in the area the other day and a relatively new pile of bricks suddenly caught our gaze. Until somewhat recently, there was a

Development timelines can be impossibly tough to predict. Sometimes a project comes together in a linear fashion and hits milestones as expected, progressing from permitting to groundbreaking to completion in short order. Of course, if real estate development was this easy, everybody would probably do it, right? More often than

Saint Joseph's Hospital used the north side of the 1600 block of Cambridge Street as a surface parking lot for a long time, and it was no big deal. The hospital needed the parking and Francisville wasn't exactly a development hotbed. Times have changed though, on both accounts. With parent

We first visited the 700 block of N. 20th St. back in 2012, noting that developers were planning to demolish a home and replace it with a new quadplex. This block, and several others in the neighborhood, were built up by PHA in the 1980s with small homes that were

Scanning the ZBA calendar earlier this week, we noticed that a new project at 1648-50 Ridge Ave. went to the board yesterday. This property, which sits next door to a community center disguised as a shoe store (because the building once housed a shoe store), has been sitting vacant for