After we told you about the ongoing renovation for a building at the corner of 15th & Fitzwater last week, we made our way south down the block, pointing out a vacant lot, a rehabbed home, and some new construction at the corner of Clymer Street. And now we know that we should have turned the corner to share more development news, as the 1400 block of Clymer Street has some interesting plans in its future.
The north side of this block is dominated by the rear of the funeral home on Fitzwater Street, including the back of a warehouse-like building and a surface parking lot. On the south side, you can see a row of two-story homes. 1430-40 Clymer St. had been owned by the same family for decades and were used as rental properties over the years. According to public record, a developer bought the properties over the summer. The address in public record and a commenter on our previous post both indicate that Noah Ostroff, the developer of Lombard Estates and other high end residential development in the area, is the one behind the project.
Permits suggest that the project will entail the demolition of the existing homes and the consolidation of the six lots into five lots. From there, we can imagine large townhomes, perhaps each with a garage, or alternately we could see condos here, like the Garden Square Condos project on 12th Street. The former would require a variance from the ZBA, while the latter, we believe, could be done by right. No matter what gets built here, the project will be easily visible from Fitzwater Street, which is good news given the narrowness of Clymer.
We have to imagine that developers are calling the owners of Slater Funeral Home pretty often, asking if they have any interest in selling their property. Given the project happening in their backyard, we would think that the volume of those calls will soon increase. It's anyone's guess whether they will decide to continue operating here as they have for many years, or whether they'll take a huge payout and look for a new location.