A couple years back, we told you about some demolition activity on 4th Street just south of Dickinson Square Park, where an old meeting hall was approaching its end. That building is now gone, but nothing has replaced it just yet. It's worth mentioning though, that a new duplex has been built on a nearby parcel.
Around the corner, we spied some new construction on the 400 block of Watkins Street. Developers purchased 409-413 Watkins St. last year, clearly intending to redevelop the properties. Previously, this property consisted of a two vacant lots and a one-story garage. With variances in hand, the developers demoed the garage and set out to build three new homes, and the permits suggest front-loading garages. Looking at the homes though, we see windows on the first floor, not garage doors. Wonder what happened?
The same developers own the one-story garage in the foreground of the image above, but we don't see any permits just yet. We wonder whether they'll opt to build an addition rather than a new home, in an effort to maintain the ground-floor parking.
The south side of this block contains a bunch of two-story homes, but a large section of the north side looks pretty lousy at the moment. But with a location just around the corner from one of the best parks in South Philly and new homes coming on the block, it shouldn't be too long until developers snatch up these other underused properties.