Almost two months ago, we told you that St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church, located at 3rd & Reed, would soon be demolished. The church closed down a few months ago, and the lovely building which dates back over 120 years is indeed in the process of being torn down.

In the past

Last week

As you may recall, twelve town homes will soon rise in this location, replacing a House of God with houses of granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. We can certainly understand the market dynamics that lead to gorgeous buildings like this being torn down instead of being creatively reused by developers, but that doesn’t make the destruction of this building an easier pill to swallow.

Getting closer. It was (predictably) very dusty, despite the efforts of the demo crew

…

After stuffing our faces with cannoli at the Italian Market Festival, we found ourselves on the 1200 block of Carpenter St. and were surprised to see some new construction activity on the block. 1215 Carpenter St. was an overgrown vacant lot we’d never noticed, and now it’s framed out over two stories.

In the past

Current view

According to a zoning application from a few months ago, this will be a triplex that could rise as high as 60′ in the air. We’re guessing it will end up being four stories tall, as anything taller would require different framing for the first story, from what we understand. We were surprised to see construction here because though there are a couple of homes on the eastern end of this block, it’s not exactly a residential…

Over the winter, we noticed two huge holes in the ground on the 1400 block of Bainbridge St., and explained that they would eventually turn into two 61′ tall homes, each with nine parking spaces, a garage rooftop swimming pool, half-court basketball, and a couple of bowling alley lanes in the basement.

In December

We passed by this site the other day and discovered that framing was underway. As you may or may not be aware, such large buildings can’t be framed out of wood like most of the residential projects we see, but instead require the strength of steel. Check it out.

Steel is rising

Steel yourselves folks, these homes are gonna be mammoth.

Earlier this week, we attended a BVTW zoning meeting and the buzz in the room was primarily about a proposed 70′ building that was dead on arrival. The other prominent project discussed at this meeting was a proposal from US Construction for twenty-four new homes on the 900 block of S. 8th St. and the 800 blocks of Montrose and Carpenter. A 7-Up bottling plant was apparently located here many moons ago, and we confess we’ve wondered about this location for as long as we can remember.

Corner of 8th and Montrose

Looking down 8th St.

View on Carpenter St.

These homes will be demoed

At the meeting, the applicants explained that they were simply presenting for informational purposes and that they still had to…

Earlier this winter we wrote about the possible development of a Francisville lot in the middle of Winding Roses Park, an underutilized neighborhood park located at Uber and Brown, a block away from the Francisville Rec Center. This space had been a quasi-public green space for years, with City agencies owning four of the five lots that make up the park.

Back in January

Regrettably, 1911 Brown St., a lot in the middle of the park, is privately owned by a developer named William Guzman. Over the winter, Guzman moved to build a single-family home on his lot. Our previous story about the lot quoted a Daily News article that said that Guzman was willing to swap his lot for another in the area, but miscommunication and perhaps insufficient effort on the parts of several parties meant that this…

In the last year plus, the teeny and easy to miss 2500 block of Montrose has seen two significant construction projects progress from start to finish. Back in October, we told you about a couple of homes under construction on the eastern end of this Devil’s Pocket block, from builder John McHugh. Those homes now appear to be finished, with one next door still incomplete. Earlier last year, we told you about three condo units that we going up on the western end of the block, pretty much touching the adjacent Veolia Plant and a series of what appear to be transformers. That project is also all done, from the looks of it.

In October

Looking finished, with a third home still being completed

Turn the corner on this little block, however, and you’ll notice…