A reader gave us the heads up that at Tuesday’s Bella Vista Town Watch meeting, there would be a presentation for a ridiculous new building at 712-14 S. 8th St., currently a rental parking lot. According to the meeting announcement, developers are planning a seventy-foot-tall six-story building for this 3,500 sqft lot with ten apartments and two parking spots.

The lot

Closer look

To try to gain an understanding of exactly how ridiculous the proposal was going to be and because we can’t get enough of community meetings, we decided to attend last night. At the meeting were several dozen neighbors, irate at the idea of what they believed to be an overuse at this location and a building that wouldn’t fit in with the surrounding neighborhood.

The strange thing about the presentation was that the representative…

For as long as we can remember, 1110-14 South St. has been a vacant lot despite its relatively prime location. Used primarily as a parking lot, some fairly awful murals have adorned one side of the lot, essentially putting some (cheap) lipstick on a pig. But today we bring some good news- this lot will soon be filled in by a mixed-use development! Yeeeeehaaaaa!

From a distance

Closer look

A couple of weeks ago, the ZBA approved a plan to construct two buildings on this lot. Both will have commercial spaces on the first floor, with apartments above. 1110-12 will have six residential units, while 1114 will have five. Neither commercial space has been spoken for as of yet, though

A little less than a year ago, we first told you about plans for the construction of seven new homes at 114-22 Ellsworth St., a vacant lot in Pennsport. Since then, foundations have been poured, framing has taken place, interior work has been done, and the homes look like they’re coming down the home stretch.

In the past

Current view

From further back

From what we can tell, the homes are not listed on the market as of yet, but we’re expecting pricing in the high $400K range. With two dozen additional new homes coming to the neighborhood in the year to come, we’d have to think that these developers are pleased with their timing, getting a little separation from the competition.

Rendering of the homes from Harman Deutsch

Pretty soon, it seems, there won’t be any vacant land left in Pennsport.

Back in October, we first told you about plans to construct four quadplexes on the northwest corner of 16th & Poplar, ostensibly for student housing. In the past few months, foundations have been poured and framing looks to be nearing completion. Looking at the site today, you get a pretty good sense of what the buildings will ultimately look like.

Framed out

Closer look

On the plus side, we were pleased to see four vacant lots, some of which were previously owned by PHA, redeveloped by a private developer. Our only minor complaint was that the design of the project in conjunction with the number of apartments would mean small, oddly shaped units that would be extremely conducive to student tenants. By that we mean the units would likely never be attractive to individuals looking to stay in…

As we often do, we were perusing the ZBA calendar the other day and noticed that owners of 1204 S. 12th St. were hoping to construct six new single-family homes with carports and a shared driveway. It was only when we swung by this address that it occurred to us that this was the not-yet-completed final phase of the Latona Court homes, a project we last checked in on about a month ago.

The lot

New homes under construction to the south

According to Passyunk Post, the original plan for this parcel was a large single family home. Because of this unexplained change of plans from developer Gagan Lakhmna, the Passyunk Square Civic Association zoning committee came out in opposition to this plan. Neighbors were apparently concerned about added traffic, and…

A few weeks ago, a reader checked in and gave us the heads up that an overgrown lot at Front & Spring Garden had been cleaned up. This lot was previously full of weeds, and featured little jersey barriers as well as a chain-link fence.

In the past

Recent shot

The owner of the property is a company called 101-115 Spring Garden Street LP, based in Jenkintown. Not only do they own this large vacant lot, but they also apparently own most of the parking lot across the street. They purchased these properties together back in 2005 for $2.2M, and we can’t imagine they’re getting any kind of a return on that investment at this time.

We don’t see any permits pulled for the lot, which makes us wonder whether this was simply an effort to expand…