1931 N 2nd StUnder construction

A six-story, 21-unit building is under construction at 1931 N 2nd Street in Fishtown, adding another mid-rise piece to a corridor that has been absorbing density steadily over the past few years. The project includes a rooftop deck, an elevator, ground-floor non-residential space fronting 2nd Street, and seven bike parking spots. Five of the units will be income-restricted affordable, with the rest meeting Type B accessibility standards and one Type A accessible unit. The building is cleared for occupancy loads of up to 49 people on the roof and will be fully sprinklered.

The site is a roughly 3,900-square-foot lot in a CMX2.5 zone, which allows this kind of mid-rise density by right. Roadrash & Cash Inc, the owner of record, has held the parcel since 2012, sitting on it for more than a decade before moving forward with construction. The building uses a mixed construction type—Type IA on the ground floor and Type IIIB on the upper five stories—separated by horizontal fire barriers, a technical solution that reflects the project's modest scale and the practical constraints of the lot.

This stretch of 2nd Street has become a proving ground for developers working in the 10- to 40-unit range. Within a half-mile radius, more than 300 new units have been planned or delivered, including projects at 1935 N 2nd (13 units), 2034 N 2nd (40 units), 300 W Norris (33 units), and 1924 N Front (32 units). The pattern is consistent: modest lots filled to maximum allowable height and density, often with token commercial shells and a handful of affordable units baked in to meet city incentives or requirements.

The long gap between Roadrash & Cash's 2012 acquisition and the current construction timeline suggests the project penciled out only recently, likely as rents and land values in Fishtown continued to rise. That calculus will apply to other underbuilt parcels nearby, especially those held by long-term owners who have watched the corridor transform around them. If 1931 N 2nd delivers successfully, it provides another data point for what a 4,000-square-foot lot in CMX2.5 can support—and what neighboring sites might eventually yield.