We were heading west from Northern Liberties and spotted a newly dug pre-foundation at 1022-24 Fairmount Ave., next to a huge vacant lot. Aside from a couple of privately owned homes and lots on the south side of this block, the rest of the immediate area is either owned by the RDA or PHA. The edge of the Richard Allen PHA development is across the street, and there’s a whole lot of vacant land to the south.

Large hole

Foundation on the way

Across the street

At first glance, we figured that this was a new PHA development, perhaps in the style of the regrettable building at 20th and Carpenter Sts.

Unfortunate

You can imagine our surprise when we took a look at public record and saw that this property is, in fact, being developed privately. Carmel Developments, a company that built a condo building in the Spring Arts area that we told you about in the past, purchased these two lots for $80K about a year ago. Here’s a look at their last project in the area:

622 N 12th St.

On this double-wide lot on Fairmount Ave., we’re expecting another condo building, or perhaps rentals. Could this rendering, which we discovered on the Carmel website, be a rendering of this project? We’d like to think so.

Rendering of this project?

No matter what it looks like, this is a gutsy move by this developer, really testing the limits of the expansion of the Spring Arts neighborhood to the north. We’ll keep an eye out for what happens here as Carmel tests the old saying ‘If you built it, they will come.’ Well, they’ll almost definitely come, but how much will they pay?

We shall see.