Fishtown, Fishtown ― there's a lot a building going down in this area. And while it's not all large-scale or multi-unit, like plans for Moyer Court or the IceHouse project, a string of one-off projects are peppering the plate of revitalization in the riverwards. Today, we look at a pair of projects that are coincidentally happening next door to each other.
At 1246 E. Fletcher St., members of the Fishtown Neighbors Association zoning committee recently approved developers' plans build a new home in the oversized rear yard of a home on Colona Street. Forever, we imagine, this giant yard was fenced in on Fletcher Street, with one story garages on either side.
Now, the awful fence is gone. And so is one the garages. Last year, completely different developers got approval to demolish the garages that fronted both Fletcher and Colona Streets, and replace them with new single family homes. If you're keeping score here, that will be one new home on Colona Street and two new homes on Fletcher Street in the coming months. These projects represent yet again (cue music: Grizzly Bear “Yet Again”) examples in Fishtown of one and two-off infill development where developers are taking advantage of underused lots and attempting to fill enormous demand for new construction homes.
A little more than a block away on Flora Street is a similar project that we covered last month. These infill developments and others like them are piling up and pushing Fishtown redevelopment in tiny increments. All of the aforementioned projects are in an area of Fishtown that's pretty close to the border of Port Richmond. Could the action start pushing more aggressively into that neighborhood? Could it eventually reach the Northeast? We're not ruling it out.