The 400 block of Moyer Street sits half a block away from East Girard, but since it dead-ends at E. Columbia Ave., it's fairly easy to miss. That being said, the quantity of construction on this little block is wildly disproportionate to its relatively low profile. We've actually visited this block on several occasions in the past, laying the groundwork for a number of projects. But when we passed by last week (hope everyone had a nice holiday by the way), we spied plenty of progress on multiple fronts.
The first phase of Awesometown has arrived at 425-39 Moyer St., which was for many years a vacant lot. This project was in the works for a long time, with the New Kensington Community Development Corporation ultimately teaming up with Postgreen Homes to get this fourteen unit development off the ground. The first phase includes eight homes, of which seven are sold. A second phase will mean four homes on Thompson Street and a pair of homes on an interior courtyard. When we last checked in on the project at the beginning of this year, foundations were just getting poured, so it's nice to see such progress as the year approaches its end.
A few doors down from the Awesometown homes, a four-story condo building is also a relatively fresh face on the block. That's Phase II of the Icehouse project, a nine-unit building that's tied to an adaptive reuse on E. Columbia Ave. and a new building currently under construction at the corner of Thompson & Columbia. Original plans called for a rooftop dogpark for this building, does anyone know if that ever happened?
Across the street, you can see a new row of homes under construction. This is the Moyer Street Court project, an eleven home development that's been a long time coming. We first considered the possibility of development at 412 Moyer St. almost four years ago when a building, once used as a repossession lot for cars, was partially torn down and available for sale. Our last visit was about a year and a half ago, when the building had been purchased by developers and fully demolished. It's a different scene today, where the first five homes in this project each sold for around $500K and all but one of the six homes fronting Moyer Street are under agreement well before construction wraps up. When the project is done, the front of it will look like this:
Some time next year, this flurry of construction activity on this block should be finished, with a total of twenty-eight new homes/apartments in its wake. That's a crazy number, topped by only a handful of other blocks in the neighborhood in the last few years. With no more vacant lots remaining, look for construction to take a long vacation from the 400 block of Moyer Street- we're sure the folks who have lived here for years will greatly appreciate it.