We visited the 1900 block of Fernon Street a few months ago and discovered a block under heavy construction. Perhaps this redevelopment effort was spurred by the renovation of the adjacent Ralph Brooks Park, or maybe it happened because development is moving ever further south in Point Breeze and this block happened to have a bunch of empty lots. No matter the explanation, there's at least eight homes at various stages of development on the block. And as you might guess, there's been some solid progress since our last visit.
The 2000 block of Fernon Street is a very different animal, compared to the 1900 block. While the former possessed over twenty vacant lots as recently as a year ago, the latter block has remained mostly intact over time. Looking west on this block, you can see a few vacant lots, but it's mostly unrenovated two-story homes.
It seems that developers took notice of all the action in the 1900 block, because the 2000 block is now starting to see some new development activity. Right now, almost all of this is happening close to 21st Street. Looking at the south side of the street, we see some rehabs that are in process. 2050 Fernon St. and 2060 Fernon St. have gotten new facades, while the old facades at 2052 and 2054 Fernon St. have been ripped off. It's worth noting that 2050 and 2054 Fernon St. were sitting vacant just a few years ago and the other getting rehabbed were seemingly occupied until recently, but they didn't look so good.
The north side of the street has five vacant lots in a row, two of which are now in the process of getting developed. 2053 Fernon St. is another project from V2 Properties, a developer that's got a handful of homes on the 1900 block. Ernik Properties is developing 2057 Fernon St., and we have no idea whether they've got other projects in the neighborhood. Developers own two of the other vacant lots, while the City owns the property in the middle. So it's fair to expect two more of these lots will be developed soon and it could be awhile for the last one.
The reader that tipped us off to this construction also mentioned more development on the 2100 block of Fernon. Considering how quickly development has moved this far south in Point Breeze, it's fair to wonder how much further south we'll be looking in the near future.