Welcome to the Neighborhood is a mural by David Guinn at the bottom of the South Street Bridge, at the corner of 27th & South. This mural was painted in 2006, when the surrounding neighborhood was very much in transition and nearby Naval Square was only in the early stages of its transformation into a gated residential community. The mural is and was highly visible to drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians making their way off the bridge, welcoming them to the neighborhood in a far classier fashion than they do in say, Las Vegas. But it seems that the experience of entering the neighborhood is likely to change in the near future, as the mural is going to be a casualty of a new project planned for this corner.

2630 South St. has been vacant for decades, dating back to at least the middle of the 20th century. This seems impossible when you consider the state of the neighborhood in 2025, but things weren’t always so rosy around these parts. A little over a hundred years ago, there were two different coal yards across the street from this property. More recently, the site of the AT&T Building at the northwest corner of 27th & South was a salvage yard. So we can appreciate why nobody was in such a hurry to fill this lot for decades.

Developers purchased the lot at 2630 South St. along with the adjacent residential building at 2628 South St. back in 2022. Since then, they’ve been working on getting permits to combine the two properties, demolish the building at 2628 South St., and build a small mixed-use project. Initial plans called for a three-story building with 6 apartments and a small commercial lobby with an ATM. After some back and forth with local RCO SOSNA, the plans shifted to eliminate the lobby and plop an ATM outside the building. The signage was also plussed up in a material way, making it much more subtle. Looking at the evolution of the renderings from from Harman Deutsch Ohler Architecture, the project has definitely improved as it has moved through the approvals process.

You can see, the final version is a three-story building with red brick veneer for the first two floors and a mansard roof for the third floor. Five of the six units will include two-bedrooms, including the two bi-level units which have bedrooms in the basement. With the generously sized apartments ranging up to nearly 1,700 sqft, the developers are definitely not squeezing in as many units as possible for this project. And from where we sit, the new building will fit in nicely with the existing context on the block.

The project got a needed variance from the ZBA last year and the developers have a demolition permit in hand, so it seems like it’s only a matter of time before the building at 2628 South St. disappears, along with the mural on its western facade. We’ll miss seeing the mural when we’re traveling over the bridge, but replacing a long empty lot with some housing is a nice improvement. And after all, a building is much better at welcoming people to a neighborhood than a vacant lot!