As Fishtown and East Kensington are doing real estate backflips, we're increasingly seeing development and opportunity past Lehigh Avenue, literally on the other side of the tracks. For example, earlier this year, we told you about a plan for eight homes to replace a warehouse on the 2800 block of Belgrade Street. We're seeing renovations on Richmond Street, with new restaurants and even a yoga studio. And you may recall a few years back we told you about the renovation of the Keystone Telephone Warehouse on the 2700 block of Frankford Avenue. That building has about 7,200 sqft and is now available for lease, if you're interested.
Traveling up Frankford Avenue earlier this week, we noticed a 'For Sale' sign at 2844 Frankford Ave., a warehouse that's been home to Hamada Roofing & Sheet Metal for many years. The building was listed for sale for $750K back in the springtime and went under agreement in less than two months. The property is enormous with over 22K sqft of space, most of which is currently occupied by a two story warehouse. It's zoned for industrial use, so it's entirely possible that the property is getting purchased by another business which will utilize it in a similar fashion to its current owner. Alternately, we can see a situation where residential developers would buy this parcel and build a large mixed-use property, or maybe a combination of homes and apartments.
A major mixed-use project with an awesome tenant could drive additional development in this area. Ideally, we'd love to see a large restaurant appear on this stretch of Frankford Avenue to recreate the buzz generated when Frankford Hall opened half a decade ago. We don't imagine that this area will ever match the energy of Frankford in those other neighborhoods, but a little bump wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.