Since the community opened nearly five years ago, the owners of South Front Apartments have had a waiting list of people who want to live there.

The development transformed a vacant and dilapidated public housing project, Nesbitt Courts, into a successful multi-family venture. These days, the same development company is finishing adjacent apartments and commercial space in South Front Phase II, a refurbished former industrial property at 1510 S. Third St.

“Based on the success of the first phase, we wanted to continue the momentum we had here and add some more commercial space. We felt it would make it an even more vibrant community,” said Mark Maynard Jr., co-director of Tribute Investment & Development Inc..

When finished, South Front Phase II will contain 54 apartments: 10 two-bedroom units and 44 lofts and flats. In an interview at the site on Thursday morning, Maynard said quite a few of the apartments have already been leased, and two are occupied.

Eight one-bedroom apartments are expected to be finished by next week.

The first commercial tenant for the redevelopment project was announced earlier this month: Chef Vivian Howard and Ben Knight, the couple who own Chef & the Farmer in Kinston and star in the PBS show A Chef's Life, recently signed a lease for a 3,700-square-foot portion of the property at 206 Greenfield St.

Their restaurant, Benny’s Big Time Pizzeria, is expected to be serving wood-fired pizzas to customers by late summer or early fall of next year, Maynard said. He said he met with Howard and Knight recently to discuss the design of the building.

“It’s fascinating just to hear them talk about their vision for the space,” Maynard said.

More tenant announcements are likely to come soon. The orange house at 1502 S. Third St., also owned by Tribute, will become a bakery/coffee shop.

An 18,000-square-foot building where Capps Industrial Supply is located on a neighboring parcel will be home to a few new tenants, including possibly a grocery store. 

On the same piece of L-shaped property, a white building will be demolished to make room for two restaurants that will face Greenfield Street behind the Satellite Bar and Lounge. Tribute has submitted a request to the city to rezone the property from a light industrial designation to Urban Mixed Use, a request that is expected to be considered by the city’s planning commission on Jan. 4.

Originally, the South Front Phase II property housed Wilmington Printing Company and was then home to the Block Shirt Company, which closed in the 1990s.

Maynard’s father, Mark Maynard Sr., bought the property in 1999, and part of it was home to the corporate office of the Maynards’ Tribute Companies. The rest was leased to various tenants.

Mark Maynard Jr. is leading the development of South Front Phase II for Tribute. While the company is also known for building new apartments, including hundreds of units under construction in Wilmington, Maynard is used to the ins and outs of working with historic properties.

“It’s more work, but it’s more fun,” he said.

The historical nature of the buildings in South Front Phase II is part of the decor, with exposed wooden trusses in the two-bedroom apartments, for example. Amenities will include a conference room, cross training-style gym with a couple hundred preprogrammed workouts, poker room, pet wash and billiards.

A pocket garden within the community will include a sculpture by Michael Van Hout, a Wilmington artist who works with wire. He’s also completing a mural that will cover an entire wall in the entrance to South Front Phase II that pays homage to the building’s shirt factory history.

“There’s nothing else like it in Wilmington," Maynard said.