Just across Broad Street in Francisville, Poplar Street has been host to a flurry of rebuilding. Recently, we spied construction at 1429 Poplar St., a property we actually brought to your attention over two years ago when this project was just in its planning stages. Back then, a blighted building with great bones stood on this site. Sadly, that building has been demolished.

Blight of the past

New building is framed

As we told you way back when, developers are constructing a twelve-unit building on this site, but we don't know whether it will be condos or rentals. There's been a mix of both in this immediate area, with condos appearing at 16th & Poplar and plenty of rentals as well due to proximity to Temple. Either way, it's a plus to see blight replaced by a new building. Also on this block, a plan to build a four-unit building next door was denied at the ZBA a couple of weeks ago. But plans we told you about over the summer to build some apartment buildings on the south side of the street, currently a surface parking lot, were approved in July. So look for more construction here, coming soon.

A year ago, it was 19th & Poplar in Francisville, where numerous projects intersected or were within throwing distance of one another. Now anywhere you look from 15th & Poplar, you see redevelopment at work. The 1600 block of Ogden Street, for example, has seen a boom in the last year. And the Vineyards project continues to move forward on 16th Street. And let's not forget all the changes on Ridge Avenue.

This trend seems as though it will continue, at least for a short time, as improvements along North Broad, like the renovation of the old Met Opera House and the Divine Lorraine restoration move forward. Put it all together and it shows major investment in North Broad and Francisville, which you can hear any day in the sounds of construction.