As we mentioned when we visited the 3600 block of Haverford Avenue over the summer, it's one of the worst looking blocks in the area. Aside from a colorful artist studio, the northern side of the block is entirely vacant, thanks to a seemingly fizzled effort to build a Mantua supermarket. There's a church and a vacant auto shop on the south side of the block, along with some more vacant land, making for a slightly less bleak situation than across the street. But the south side of the block has at least one upgrade in store, as the ZBA approved plans a few months ago for developers to demolish the empty auto shop and construct a mixed-use building with 21 apartments. You can see though, work has not yet begun.
And lo, another project could be coming to this block! There's some vacant land at 3604-08 Haverford Ave., immediately to the east of the auto shop. These lots were owned by the City for about 50 years and in an amazing and unexpected development, the current owner was able to purchase them. For reasons we cannot understand, the City sold the lots for a combined $55K, far below what they'd sell them for on the open market. Then again, the City doesn't really need money these days so who cares.
The fortunate developer that bought these lots has a plan to build a 12-unit building here, though it will need to go to the ZBA because the property is, for some reason, zoned industrial. This will dovetail nicely with the project next door and together they will go a long way toward making this block generally less terrible. We have to imagine that all of these apartment will target students, like so much of the development we've seen in southern Mantua in the last couple years.
Speaking of City owned property, the Redevelopment Authority owns every lot on the north side of the block, other than the aforementioned artist studio. With two sizable assemblages on either side of the studio, we could see some significant projects happen here at some point in the future, assuming the supermarket plan is truly abandoned. We just hope that, if the City sells the land on the north side of the block for private development, they do a better job getting a price that approaches market rate.
Whoops, we forgot, the City doesn't need the money. Carry on then.