A reader reached out to us recently, wondering about the vacant lot at the northwest corner of 22nd & Parrish. And this felt like a reasonable property to wonder about! Fairmount is one of the more desirable neighborhoods in greater Center City, and it’s legitimately curious that this property has been sitting vacant for the last couple years.

Though you’d never know it from looking at the property today, a children’s prison once stood here, covering two city blocks running from 22nd to 24th Streets, between Parrish and Poplar. The House of Refuge, as it was called, moved to Delaware County in 1892 and the property was subdivided into residential lots, with a collection of simple but attractive homes constructed by the turn of the century. You might think, when two city blocks were collectively subdivided at the same time, the new lots would all be similar in size. But the lots have a wide band of sizes, with little rhyme or reason we can divine over a century later. We don’t know why, but 846 N. 22nd St., with 33.75′ of width and measuring over 2,500 sqft, is the largest lot of the bunch, and by a healthy margin.

We suspect the building that was constructed here was originally built as a single family home with a wonderful side yard. Over the years, the building was split into an apartment building, at one point including nine units that we suspect were quite small. Also over time, the decorative turret at the corner was covered in stucco and vinyl, dimming the visual impact of this original architectural detail. In either 2020 or 2021 it appears there was a fire at this property, and the home was demoed in 2022. The site has been vacant ever since.

Given the footprint of the property and its location, it’s a pretty good development site. Developers bought it in early 2022 and the next year pulled permits to build a six-unit building. This by-right application made all kinds of sense, taking advantage of the size of the property and offering three 3-bedroom units and three 2-bedroom units in an approach that would work for condos or rentals. Check out the renderings from Canno Design:

You may have noticed, the permits came through in 2023 and it’s now 2025 and there’s been no progress at the property. Pretty much since pulling the permit, the developers have had the property listed for sale, with the price currently sitting at $800K. It’s certainly possible we’ll see a new party come forward to buy the parcel and build the project and there’s also a chance that the current owners will take it off the market and move forward with construction. We’d wager that either outcome will require at lease a modest improvement in the market, so we’d posit that we won’t see anything move forward here before 2026 at the earliest.