Coming down Point Breeze Avenue, there’s a new building at 2151-53 Cross St. that’s visible from about a block away. Though the address of this property, for a long time a vacant lot, is on Cross Street, the majority of its frontage is on Point Breeze Avenue. So the property sits on a commercial corridor, but it’s zoned CMX-1, which is a zoning designation where retail requires a variance if it’s next door to residential properties. That sounds like a recipe for a strictly residential building to us, but kudos to the developers, who went to the ZBA to get a variance to build a mixed-use building on this parcel. Frankly, we don’t think we would have taken the risk.
The new building, from Designblendz, will have a vacant triangular commercial space on the first floor, an apartment on the 2nd floor, and bi-level apartments on floors 3 and 4. Given the uneven redevelopment of this commercial corridor, we wonder just what kind of business will open here and how long it will take for the building to find a retail tenant. On the other hand, the apartments, which we have to think will be rentals, will be in high demand and should find tenants if they’re priced appropriately.
You might have noticed, there’s some additional construction activity happening next door on Cross Street. A former church at 2141-43 Cross St. has picked up a third floor. This building was used as a club for the 36th Ward Republicans back in the 1930s, and has been used as a church for at least the last few decades. Developers have bought the church and are converting the double-wide property into two single family homes.
The same developer that’s renovating the club-turned-church also owns the three lots to the west of the property. Here, at 2145, 2147 and 2149 Cross St., they’re pursuing a trio of single-family homes. So in all, this will be a five-home development here, with three of the homes being new from the ground up, and two of the homes reusing at least some of an old building. We’ll be interested to see whether the price points will be at all different between the two different types of homes.