Typically, I’m assembling a little zoning review as I type these posts, and making up some opinions as I go. This time, I was approached ahead of time!
Comey & Shepherd reached to Trilobite Design to provide our review and ideation for this infill lot in Northside. If real estate is location, location, location, then this lot is IT. It iss centrally located only a block off the main strip in Northside on a nice, established residential street. It’s narrow like the whole neighborhood, but next to an alley, providing an opportunity to park behind.
Finding a walkable, urban infill lot in a thriving neighborhood is rare. Finding one where the architectural heavy lifting has already begun is the holy grail. We collaborated with listing agents Robert DiTomassi and Barbra Druffel to visualize exactly what is possible on this footprint, creating a speculative design that proves this vacant “missing tooth” in the streetscape is actually a prime opportunity for a high-performance urban sanctuary.
The Property: The Basics
Here’s what you need to know about this Northside gem:
- Size: A 25 x 112.5-foot lot (0.06 acres) of prime urban real estate
- Location: Truly unbeatable. It’s bordered by Pope Alley on one side and sits just two short blocks from Hamilton Avenue’s thriving business district and Chase Playground. You are a mere four-block walk to the Northside Transit Center, McKie Rec Center, the library, Ruth’s, and Parker Woods.
- Utilities: Being a historic infill lot in the heart of the city, you have public water, sewer, and electricity right at the street. (Gas is there too, but we don’t need that. We’re building sustainable, right?)
- The Footprint: Yes, it’s a narrow 25-foot frontage, which can intimidate some buyers. But that’s exactly why they brought us in. With the alley access providing a perfect opportunity for rear parking, the lot is primed for smart, vertical, and highly efficient design.
The Vision: A High-Performance Urban Sanctuary
Because of the lot’s unique dimensions, we didn’t just review it; we designed for it. Building a custom home involves roughly 20,000 decisions. We went ahead and made the first few thousand to show you the site’s true potential. This property is a “choose your own adventure,” capable of supporting a stunning single-family home, and it’s big enough to accomodate an ADU also.
The Dream: A sleek, modern row house concept that heals the neighborhood’s streetscape while offering something entirely new: an airtight, net-zero-ready retreat right in the middle of the city’s best energy.
The Green Build: Urban living usually comes with urban noise. A narrow lot in a dense neighborhood is exactly where our expertise in architectural acoustics and Passive House standards shines brightest. By utilizing super-insulated walls, high-performance windows with deep reveals, and an Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) for continuous filtered air, this concept becomes a thermal and acoustic fortress. You get the vibrancy of Northside right outside your front door, and absolute pin-drop silence the moment you close it.
The shed roof shown faces due south, which would also be a perfect opportunity for a solar array.
The Developer’s Edge
For the startup developer looking for a niche, sustainable infill project, this is a ready-to-go canvas. The hardest part of urban development is imagination. We’ve done the preliminary zoning review, the schematic ideation, and the sustainability specs.
If you buy this lot, you can start from scratch, or pick up this vision and finish it with your personality and polish. If you want to build a healthy, sustainable home for your family that will last for generations, I know a spot.
Listed at $55,000 4153 Langland Street, Cincinnati, OH 45223
Ready to talk about bringing this exact rendering to life, or exploring your own custom ideas for the site? Reach out. Let’s build the future of Northside.
