Recent history has been a little odd for the building at 113-15 Arch St., but developers are now looking to stabilize its future with a major renovation effort. Back in the day, at least part of the property was home to a paint business. By the early 1970s it was in terrible condition, and its exterior was restored to more or less its current state by the late 1970s.

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In the 1950s
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Looking worse in 1970
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The buildings

Looking at a number of old listings, it seems the building was chopped up into nine units, with a mix of apartments, office space, and ground floor retail. Developers bought the building, with its 22K sqft of interior space, for $3M back in 2014 which seemed to make sense at the time given that the rent rolls were over $20K/month. And looking at some of the interior photos from the old listings, the building was in pretty good shape, and looked like it had gotten some work done in recent years.

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Looking inside, image from Trend

Less than two years after it sold for $3M, the property was back on the market. According to the listing, the folks that bought the place for $3M demoed the interior and procured plans to convert it into a 19-unit rental apartment building. And for all their trouble, they sold the building at a loss, for $2.73M.

The current owners are taking a decidedly different approach, and are looking to convert the building into a condo building with 7 residential units and retail on the first floor. The zoning application indicates that the project will include additions to the existing building which we have to think will be set back far enough from Arch Street that they won’t impact views of the historic facade. The project will also include 7 parking spaces, accessed in the back. In addition, the application specifically details that the retail won’t include the sale of adult-oriented merchandise, sales of drug paraphernalia, or a gun shop. Good thinking for a condo building, guys.

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View from the west

Of course, this development will have some construction company, as the National project juts around the corner from 2nd Street onto this section of Arch. Just in case you were worried that the additions at 113-15 Arch St. would indeed be visible from the street, it seems likely that they’ll be blocked by the new construction next door. Ah, what a relief, we know you were deeply concerned.