Over the last few months we’ve covered multiple projects along the Lancaster Avenue corridor, as developers seek to provide homes to folks eager to be close to the jobs and amenities in University City, but at slightly more affordable prices. And a recently permitted project for eight units near 42nd & Haverford indicates the transformation of this pocket of West Philadelphia is hardly over. The new three story building at 613 Brooklyn St. will dramatically improve the roughly 4,000 sqft property which previously contained a two-story home in the front and the blighted remains of an old building in the rear.

As we can see from the plans from Designblendz, the building will have frontage on Brooklyn Street, with an 18′-wide section expanding in the rear to fully take advantage of available square footage in the back of this oddly shaped property. Several of the other units will have access to balconies that project out on the north side of the building. The architects are able to provide the windows and balconies on the north side by setting the front section seven and a half feet from the property line, providing additional light and air for the units in this section of the building.

The rendering shows brick on the first two floors of the front, with a whole lot of what looks like vinyl siding on the northern side. With the Philadelphia Housing Authority owning the vacant lot next door at 615 Brooklyn St., it’s unclear when we’ll see a new building next door, to hide some of that siding. There’s a world in which that property gets redeveloped in a year, and it could still be vacant in a decade. Speaking of affordable housing, this property sits just outside the Mixed Income Overlay District, so the developers are not compelled to offer any affordable units in this project. They could have picked up some height and density using the Mixed Income Housing zoning bonus, but they aren’t going in that direction with this project.

Incidentally, a four unit project was recently completed down the street at 627 Brooklyn St., replacing another two-story home. And we have a feeling that these two projects won’t be the last on this block. This little block offers a unique combination of zoning favorable for apartments, low density existing properties, and several vacant lots. All of that taken together with the fact that development keeps pushing north and west in West Philadelphia, and it’s quite possible this block will look very different in a few years. With many of the proximate blocks zoned for single family homes, the opportunity for more apartments in this pocket of West Philadelphia is limited without variances, so it stands to reason that developers will focus on this block in particular. In conjunction with private development, we’ll hope that PHA gets moving soon with their handful of vacant lots on the block.