RECENT COMMENTS

New day rising for Fairmount

After hitting very hard times in the early 1990s, the southern half of the Fairmount neighborhood – the area between Fairmount Avenue and Carrington Street, 25th and Mosby – was first stabilized and then reborn under the spirit of Mary Thompson and the New Vision Civic League, and the new construction and renovation work of groups like Better Housing Coalition.

Though this effort basically stopped with the market crash of the late 2000s, eight years later Fairmount is on the cusp on whatever comes next.

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1200 block of 22nd Street (1990s)

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1100 block of 23rd Street (1990s)

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BHC renovated or built more than 40 houses in 9 square blocks of Fairmount through 2008, including the award-winning renovation of a house on Fairmount Avenue which had been all-but-lost to fire a few years before. This work massively rebuilt the failed housing infrastructure of the neighborhood, which in turn attracted private investment.

All of this momentum stalled with the market crash of the late 2000s and the following wave of foreclosures.

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Early 2000s renovations or new houses in Fairmount

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There are signs that this end of Fairmount has turned the corner, though. The new traffic circle at 25th and Nine Mile is completed and has redrawn a prominent neighborhood gateway. BHC has plans to remake the entire block of the Citadel of Hope on the neighborhood’s southern border with Union Hill. The long-rumored grocery store at 25th and Nine Mile is rumored to be ever-closer, and there is word of a fantastic new tenant coming to the storefront at 2125 Fairmount Avenue. Perhaps most tellingly, two new market-rate houses are proposed for Carrington Street and 1106 North 20th Street has been restored and is now for sale.

With all of the new houses and energy just across 25th Street and Bon Secours’ plans for the next few blocks up Nine Mile, it looks like it may finally be Fairmount’s turn, too.

If you’re interested in southern Fairmount, come out to the next New Visions Civic League meeting on Saturday, March 5 at 10:00 AM at the East End Library.

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2317 Carrington Street

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2413 Carrington Street

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1106 North 20th Street

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2125 Fairmount Avenue.