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A weekly series of foul-mouthed investigations into empty lots, dead-ass proposals and other design phenomena in Philadelphia. Find more stories like this at Philaphilia.blogspot.com.
You think Philly's Delaware Riverfront is development-cursed? Check out Camden's. Camden's waterfront has many development-driving advantages over Philadelphia's. There's no gigantic interstate highway running alongside it, the real estate is much more abundant (and much less expensive), and the view of Philadelpia's skyline from Camden is about 10,000 times better than the reverse. Despite all that, Camden's waterfront has been through just as many goofy waterfront proposals as Philly's in the last 30 years. This is the story of one that was pretty certain to happen until it all went to shit.
Back in 1983, when Camden first committed itself to redeveloping its waterfront as a mixed-use attraction, one of the first things ever mentioned was a new highrise that would become home to the city's most popular native company, Campbell's Soup. Campbell's spent the next seven years attempting to develop their own $50-60 million waterfront building, but failed miserably due to the fact that the business was getting its ass kicked during that period. In March 1990 they announced that they would instead lease space in the first building of a complex called the River's Edge Corporate Center.
This new business center was being developed by DKM Properties of Lawrenceville, New Jersey and was first announced around the same time as the original Campbell's plan, but didn't make any progress until 1990. It was to consist of over 700,000 square feet of office space in three buildings on a 13-acre site. The first phase was to be a 14-story, 275,000 square foot, $36 million office building that would stand right near the water just north of the new New Jersey State Aquarium, which was under construction at the time. Campbell's signed a 10-year lease deal for 125,000 square feet of the new tower while the State of New Jersey committed to 10 years in another 50,000 square feet. The New Jersey Department of Treasury was to move into the space.
City Paper has won nine awards in the Professional Keystone Press Awards for writing, photography and design that was published during the 2012 calendar year. The categories and winners are:
Investigative Reporting: 2nd Place, Isaiah Thompson, for his cover story about how the D.A. seizes millions in alleged crime money, regardless of whther a crime has been committed.
Column: 2nd Place, Daniel Denvir, for three of his "Hostile Witness" columns.
Feature Story: 2nd Place, Emily Guendelsberger, for her story about the revived the 215 Festival.
Personality Profile: Honorable Mention, Drew Lazor, for his profile of chef Chris Kearse.
Business/Consumer Story: 2nd Place, Samantha Melamed, for her story about social-enterprise businesses.
Feature Beat Reporting: 1st Place, Shaun Brady, for three music stories
Photo Story: 2nd Place, Neal Santos, for his photographs of underground pool leagues.
Page Design: 1st Place, editorial art director Reseca Peskin and editorial designer Matt Egger.
Graphic/Photo Illustration: 2nd Place, Evan M. Lopez, for his illustrations for our Halloween issue.
Click on the links to check out our award-winning work!
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A high-profile East Falls developer, Mark E. Sherman, owes the city nearly $900,000 in back taxes, according to Office of Property Assessment records.
Sherman is a major landowner in the area, notably of the former Dobson Mills complex, now known eponymously as Sherman Mills. The large factory buildings were rehabbed into "affordable" artist studios, apparently, with $784,375 of grants from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. That development, along with a number of prominent commercial spaces he owns along the neighborhood's main street, Ridge Avenue, will be $892,258.61 in arrears after this year's tax bill is served on March 31.
It's unclear why Sherman, a seemingly successful developer that was cushioned by public dollars, stopped paying his taxes on these properties, and at least one other he owns in West Philadelphia, around 2010. Stayed tuned for more details.
Civic leaders from around Philly have been lobbying the city to release more information about just how they came to the new property tax assessments, which are supposed to represent "actual values" but have drawn criticism from residents and politicians. They may get an assist from new legislation that the state House and Senate passed and sent to Gov. Corbett for his signature. Among the stipulations of Senate Bill 66, which would standardize reassessment processes across the state, is a requirement that "the methodology used … to value property in this commonwealth be made public."
A great deal of mic time at yesterday's City Council hearing on tax delinquency was dedicated to griping about the impenetrability of the Revenue Department. (Councilman Jim Kenney's comment about the department's "appalling lack of cooperation" was just one example.) City Controller Alan Butkovitz has also been asking for the information, warning of the city's liability if OPA's assessments are as far off as many allege.
Last month, along with the release of tax assessments tallied as part of the Actual Value Initiative, Mayor Nutter sent out a spreadsheet of how the tax reform would affect his property and those of top staffers. Among other results, it appeared that Nutter stands to save a not-insubstantial amount of money. Given some dissent in City Council over how to proceed with AVI, we thought, "Why not go a step further and look at how AVI would affect every single council member?"
Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown has had a rough few years. In the midst of a divorce, she was fined by the Ethics Board and tied to a scandal that resulted in her former campaign manager pleading guilty to wire fraud. Reynolds Brown has also stated that she has had financial troubles. It would seem that those problems have spilled over to her former home at 601 N. 33rd St. It is now a rental property that she previously claimed as a source of income on financial-disclosure forms — and it is also tax delinquent.
Her husband, Howard Brown, technically owns the row house in the city’s Mantua section, but Reynolds Brown’s name appears on the current rental license. The property is in arrears to the tune of $4,223 and the city has placed two liens on the house for nonpayment. Reynolds Brown says she purchased that property “shortly after college” as part of a first-time-homebuyer program operated by the Philadelphia Housing Development Corp. in 1980. During her first campaign for an at-large City Council seat in 1999, she transferred the property to her husband’s name. Reynolds Brown declined to say why she transferred ownership during the heat of a political campaign, calling it “a private decision.”
She denied knowledge of the debt, saying she was first notified about the back taxes, which stretch back to 2011, when City Paper called for comment. Reynolds Brown claims she hasn’t received documents on the status of this property “because they don’t come to my marital residence, where I currently live.” However, the Office of Property Assessment’s listed mailing address for the owner of 601 N. 33rd St. is that “marital residence,” in Wynnefield.
Workers at federal agencies' Philly locations gathered at a protest on Independence Mall this afternoon as part of a nationwide day of protests said they're already receiving furlough notices and planning for reduced government services as a result of the sequester, the budget cuts that came into effect March 1. From reduced housing subsidies to short-staffing of federal corrections facilities to the Liberty Bell and other national park sites closing early, they argue, the impacts in Philly could be signification.
Adam Duncan, who works with the National Park Service and is vice president of AFGE Local 2038, says forget about extended July 4 hours for the Liberty Bell. That will be closing at 5 p.m. daily thanks to the sequester, and eight other buildings could see hours cut back to a few days a week or even face closure. Duncan says chronic understaffing and furloughs have already affected the NPS; some interpreters are now forced to take off two months a year. That, he argued, will result in a negative economic impact for the whole region's business community if it reduces the Independence National Historical Park's 3.6 million annual visitors.
City Councilman Mark Squilla has a low tax bill, even by Philadelphia's famously low standards. But, if the current iteration of the Actual Value Initiative were implemented, Squilla would actually get a break on his already low taxes, even though all his neighbors would get stuck with 160 percent increases.
But the councilman, unlike Philadelphia's numerous tax cheats, isn't happy about saving a few hundred dollars on taxes. He views his bonus as the result of another possible flaw with AVI — the way tax abatements are reconciled with rising home values.
"I was aware that my taxes were going down because of the abatement," said Squilla in an email. "This a perfect reason to phase this process in over a period of years."
A weekly series of foul-mouthed investigations into empty lots, dead-ass proposals and other design phenomena in Philadelphia. Find more stories like this at Philaphilia.blogspot.com.
Though most empty lots piss me off, I can understand how they form. Sometimes it's a patch of old buildings too far gone to save that get knocked down. Sometimes there's actually a need for surface parking in the area. Sometimes an owner just doesn't have the resources to save it. This one, however, pisses me off like no other. This is a lot that was cleared for development that was a shitty idea from the rip. On top of that, I hate empty lots that take over what were previously a whole bunch of little streets, and this is one of those as well. Wanna know what else I hate? Parking garages that are right next to surface parking lots. This is one of those, too!!! Even worse, the garage has empty lots on both sides. How much worse can it get? Much worse.
This lot started its development life in the late 1830s. Originally, it consisted of no less than four interstitial streets and one primary street. The little streets were called Craydon Street, Path Street, McDonald Place, and Western Avenue. The larger street was called Palmetto. The small ones were each lined with tiny trinity rowhouses, some built of wood. McDonald Place and Western Avenue each had a private courtyard space. Most likely, these courtyards were where each street's water pump and gas lamp were located. Schuylkill 7th (now 16th), Schuylkill 8th (now 15th), and Palmetto Streets was lined with stately row-mansions. An even tinier set of alleys provided shortcuts to and fro.
By the late 1800s, much of the construction on the small streets started to disappear. The houses on the southern side of McDonald Place were all eliminated in favor of the Talmage & Weidley Brass Foundry, where ingots and castings were made. Once the 20th Century rolled around, even bigger changes happened. The Talmage & Weidley foundry expanded out, creating an annex building in the small block bounded by what was now called Hicks (formerly Path), Mole (formerly Craydon), Florist (previously unnamed), and Spring (previously Cowslip) streets. New houses were built along Hicks Street. On the 16th Street side of the lot, a few buildings were taken down in favor of a relay station for the Keystone Telephone Company.
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The Philadelphia Police Department has failed to rein in stops-and-frisks without reasonable suspicion as required by a 2011 consent decree, according to a report filed today by the American Civil Liberties Union and civil-rights law firm Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg in federal court.
“This report tells us that the city has not achieved the goal of ensuring that its stop-and-frisk practices are legal and fair,” said lawyer David Rudovsky in a statement. “The PPD will need to improve its own monitoring and supervision systems to meet that goal, or the court will be asked to impose appropriate sanctions.”
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