In the real estate business, nomenclature can be a funny thing. For years, many realtors referred to the Graduate Hospital neighborhood as South Rittenhouse, hoping to assuage buyer or renter concerns about a transitioning neighborhood. More recently, we've seen northern Point Breeze homes located in "South Graduate," Brewerytown homes in "Fairmount North," and Port Richmond homes in "Upper Fishtown." The trend continues for a project on the 1300 block of N. Howard St. which we first told you about over a year ago. Though the project is very much located in South Kensington, it's being called the "Town Homes at Liberties North." Love it.

Low-res aerial view

As we told you about previously, and as you can see in the image above, the project involves the construction of ten homes at 1323-33 N. Howard St. and eleven homes on the 1300 block of N. Hope Street. In the past, a large warehouse and some dilapidated homes were on this site, but those came down sometime last year. Presently, the homes on Howard Street have been framed out and remarkably seven have already been put under agreement.

Newly framed homes

Only two of these homes are currently on the market, with one listed at $400K and the other at just shy of $440K. The homes will be among the nicest in the neighborhood, with 2,300 sqft of living space, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, and rear-access garage parking. With the success of the homes on Howard Street, it seems likely that the Hope Street side of the project will soon be in full swing as well. Hopefully (no pun intended), this project will inspire Tower Investments to finally do something across the street, which we've been anticipating for years.

We see this as a great project for South Kensington and believe that it's dramatically improving a block that needed some help. Let's just agree not to fool ourselves by thinking of it as Northern Liberties. When's the last time you saw prices in the low to mid-$400K's for new homes with parking south of Girard?