If you’re anything like us, you took a bunch of walks around town over the holidays. Getting more steps in is always one of our New Year’s resolutions, so we took the opportunity to stroll around Fishtown last week, right before the calendar flipped. One building we noticed on said stroll is the new mixed-use project at the intersection of Frankford Avenue and Berks Street.

The four story building at 1828 Franford Ave., with 9 apartments and ground floor retail, takes the place of a demolished three story residential building. We noticed that a Taylor Chip cookie shop will be occupying the retail space, and now we can’t stop thinking about cookies. This has put another one of our resolutions to the test. The project has been dubbed ‘The Fishton’ <sic>. This name makes us think of a ton of fish, so maybe a fish market instead of a cookie shop might have made more sense here?

The sweet looking plans from Ambit Architecture show that the by-right project took advantage of the City’s mixed-income housing bonus to grow an extra 7 feet in height above the typically permitted 38′. The use of brick along the most visible facades is a nice upgrade over the more common paneling seen on similar projects, and the rounded windows add character to what could have been a run of the mill boxy building. It reminds us of how the same design team used curved window frames on a recent project down the street.

We love to see a bonus utilized in a way that adds a few more units in such a desirable neighborhood and right next to the Shissler Recreation Center and the Kensington High School for the Creative and Performing Arts. But with the Berks Station on the MFL just around the corner, we can’t help but wonder if City Council wouldn’t have been better off allowing a bit more density along this transit-adjacent corridor. Substantially higher zoning would have paradoxically triggered parking minimums, but like we’ve said before, a modest upzoning to CMX-2.5 would be a boon for Frankford Avenue.

With many of the surrounding blocks only zoned for single family houses it’s a bit of a shame that this stretch of Frankford Ave. is zoned for relatively short buildings. With many of the neighboring lots having already been redeveloped over the last decade, it seems unlikely we’re see many buildings taller than four stories anytime soon. On the other hand, the four-story buildings are a big step up from what was here previously.

The last large vacant lot on this stretch is across the street at the site of the former, Bethesda Presbyterian Church, currently used as a garden center by the New Kensington Community Development Corporation. With that site unlikely to be redeveloped into housing anytime soon, the Fishton might be one of the last new buildings we see on this portion of the commercial strip for a while.