Fishtown keeps improving and as the neighborhood grows, people are more and more willing to live at addresses that were previously considered to be undesirable. We've seen all kinds of projects cropping up on Front Street, for example, despite the frequent rumble of the El. Similarly, we've seen several projects appear next to I-95, like the Riverview Court townhome project. Today we turn our attention to 1025 E. Montgomery Ave., a 15K sqft warehouse next to I-95 that was listed for sale earlier this year for $630K and could be the next residential development site in the neighborhood.
This property has been home for years to the Mateson Chemical Corporation, a company that has had great success with a deodorizing product with an amazing name called the Bad Air Sponge. Developers have this property under agreement and presented a plan to the community for eleven residential units just this past week. According to a (very short) thread on Fishtown.us, the community did not vote in support of the project. Was anyone at the meeting that can shed some light on what happened?
The property is zoned for industrial, not residential use, but given the proliferation of residential development so close to the highway we don't see why apartments wouldn't make sense here. It's worth noting, the former Chandler School is located across the street and was converted into apartments several years ago.
We can certainly understand why the chemical company would be looking to move right now, as demand for property is at an all time high in the neighborhood. We'd guess that the developers will ultimately get a variance to convert this building to residential use, though they might need to concede some units in order to get support from the community. We can't quite tell from the ground, but we would have to imagine that river views from a rooftop deck on this building would be pretty unbelievable.