We were making our way back to town from Manayunk and due to some (entirely expected) traffic on I-76, we decided to take the scenic route, Ridge Avenue. We've already told you about the supermarket coming soon to Ridge Avenue. And it's well known that PHA will be moving its headquarters to the 2000 block of Ridge in the next year or so. As we approached Girard, we noticed a sign for another project at the six point intersection of 19th & Ridge.
You can see on the sign, the Pointe at 19th and Ridge project will entail 20 new homes and a mixed-use building with 40 additional units. Looking into public record, it appears that these lots were all owned by the Redevelopment Authority and the developers bought the collection of properties for $100K. As you might guess with the purchase price, a portion of the lots are going to be sold as affordable housing. According to minutes from a PRA meeting from about a year ago, the project was to have 22 units of affordable housing, with prices ranging from $194K for 900 sqft homes to $238K for 1,100 sqft homes. In addition, the minutes called out 36 units of market rate housing. This adds up to less than the 60 units advertised on the sign, so it's fair to assume that some elements of the project have changed. Also, the project website indicates that prices are starting at $238K, so perhaps the lower priced homes have been bumped up or switched over to market rate.
This stretch of Ridge Avenue has pretty much been a vast wasteland of empty lots for as long as we can remember. Within a few years, it will be mostly filled by a combination of homes, office space, and retail. There's quite a transformation on the horizon, folks.