1716 Frankford AveUnder construction

A 40-unit residential building with ground-floor commercial space is under construction at 1716 Frankford Avenue in Fishtown, cleared to build last October and now working through foundation and dimensional amendments. The three-story structure will span a nearly half-acre lot and include a common roof deck with pilot houses, though the retail portion remains shell space requiring separate fit-out approval before anyone can occupy it. At 40 units over that footprint, the project leans toward efficiency rather than luxury in its unit mix, a practical play given CMX2 zoning that allows this sort of mid-rise mixed-use by right.

The developer behind the project is listed as Swc Palmer And Frankford, an entity that seems purpose-built for this corner site. With no recent sale on record, it's unclear how long the land has been in their hands or what they paid, though the scope—three stories, 40 units, sprinklered throughout—suggests a builder threading the needle between neighborhood-scale construction costs and Fishtown's still-strong absorption.

The project lands in the middle of a localized development wave that has added or is adding roughly 470 units within a half-mile radius. Nearby efforts range from smaller nine-unit infills at 1700 and 1828 Frankford to larger builds like the 114-unit complex at 1440 North Front and the 108-unit development on Hancock. This stretch of Frankford Avenue has long mixed older commercial strips with vacant or underused lots, and 1716 fills one of those gaps without fundamentally altering the street's three- to four-story grain.

The combination of by-right zoning, a sizable but manageable lot, and an active construction timeline makes this a useful benchmark for similarly scaled parcels along the Palmer–Frankford corridor. If the retail space finds a tenant and the units lease or sell without drama, expect other landowners in the immediate area to take note—especially those sitting on surface parking or single-story taxpayers that could accommodate the same formula.