A hot area that we seem to come back to every week or so lies between 10th and Broad, Spring Garden and Fairmount. Some have coined this the “Spring Arts” area, while others are content to call it Poplar, and still others insist that it’s an extension of the Spring Garden neighborhood. Whatever you want to call it, it’s seen rampant development in the past couple of years, and today we bring you another example. 643 N. 11th St. sits on the northeast corner of 11th & Wallace, and broke ground a couple of months ago.

The building

Replacing a vacant lot, this structure will eventually be home to two apartment units, which we would guess will be offered for sale as condos. Looking back a couple of years, this corner was pretty bleak.

In the past

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Oh, Francisville. Every time we turn around, it seems like some rehab or new construction project is getting started. This summer we’ve brought you a number of Francisville posts, many centered around the 19th & Poplar intersection.

These posts have included a 10-home project at Ginnodo and Ridge, a major mixed-use project at 19th and Perkiomen (on which we’ll bring you an update about soon), an eight-unit project coming just north of 19th and Poplar, and several other one and two-off projects, all centered around this corner.

Rendering of the Ginnodo homes, currently under construction

Now, directly across the street from the four duplexes coming to the corner of Cambridge Street, we’ve espied a zoning notice for an application that was granted after a September 12th ZBA hearing.

927 N 19th St.

In its current state, 

Last week, a meeting was hosted at the F.A.C.T. Charter School on the 1000 block of Callowhill Street to discuss big picture planning issues for a large, loosely connected section of the Central District, referred to as the “Chinatown North/Callowhill section.” According to the meeting summary, this area can be separated into five neighborhoods: Poplar, Callowhill, Chinatown North, Superblocks (the area of low-rise buildings and parking lots between Old City and Northern Liberties), and the Waterfront. The results of this meeting, and others like it across town, will be used to inform the larger Phila2035 Central District Plan.

Area map

This area, while underpopulated relative to its size (about 7,000 residents), has still seen a 92% population growth over the last twelve years. We’d imagine that a fair number of newer residents, along with folks who…

There is new affordable living that has come to the 1500 block of Poplar Street. Francisville East, a 44-unit rental housing development is home to 27 one-bedroom units (two and three bedroom units also exist) and was built over what was formerly a completely vacant, unkempt lot in the economically diverse area of Francisville. Nonprofit developer Community Venture and the Francisville Neighborhood Development Corporation have teamed up to create these modern living quarters, which include solar panels, off-street parking, a small garden, as well as adequate sidewalk space.

Vicki Shelton, the rental manager for Community Venture has said that they are looking for attendants that are making a minimum annual income of $18,000, which is fairly reasonable considering that the residents in Francisville East bring in 20 to 60 percent of the area’s median income. The new development was built with senior citizens…