A couple years back, we showed you some demolition activity on the north side of the 2300 block of Fairmount, and told you about plans for a new mixed-use building from Loonstyn Properties. In case you’ve forgotten, the project called for three retail spaces on the first floor, 33 units on the upper floors, and 21 basement parking spots. And it made sense to us, with the combination of a large Fairmount Avenue parcel and a developer that had previously built similar projects in the area. Still, each project is unique unto itself and even though it seemed relatively intuitive, some of the near neighbors had concerns, with worries about density, parking access, and trash collection. We weren’t even sure that the project would necessarily move forward because of these concerns, at least without some changes.

It appears the project got denied at the ZBA in the summer of 2016, but was somehow able to move forward anyway. The only change we can see, from looking at the permits, is that the underground parking lot will have 14 spots instead of the previously presented 21 spots. Maybe someone can fill in the missing information and tell us how this is possible? However they worked it, the developer is now moving forward with construction, with steel framing now in place for the first floor.

When we last covered the project, we showed you a rendering that the developer presented at an FCA zoning meeting. The rendering, done by CANNO Design, showed a building that would be a truly welcome architectural addition to Fairmount Avenue. We suspect you’d agree.

At this point in the construction process, it’s impossible to predict whether the finished product will indeed look like the rendering or whether there were other changes made to the project aside from the reduction in the number of parking spaces. We can only hope that the developer will maintain the look shown in the rendering, and that there won’t be much value engineering during construction. And now that the building is under construction, neighbors on both sides of Fairmount Avenue can start thinking about potential tenants for those retail spaces. What would you like to see here?