PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Philadelphia Housing Authority broke ground Wednesday on a $52 million retail shopping center in North Philadelphia, just days after the agency moved out dozens of protesters who had set up camp on the property. The project is a vital step in transforming the Sharswood neighborhood.
Sharswood Ridge, at 21st and Jefferson streets, is a 234,000-square-foot mixed-use development. It will consist of discount grocery store chain Grocery Outlet, Everest Urgent Care, Santander Bank and Wingstop, plus 98 rental units.
The project comes thanks to a complicated mix of federal, state, local and private funding.
“This was an extremely complicated deal that aligned multiple funding resources,” said Kelvin Jeremiah, president and CEO of Philadelphia Housing Authority. “This is a key component for transforming this community.”
The effort to erect the development began nearly four years ago as part of the Sharswood/Blumberg Choice Neighborhood Initiative.
The project faced multiple barriers, but thanks to PHA loans, New Market Tax Credits, Redevelopment Assistance Capital Tax Program grants and Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation loans, the agency was able to piece together the funding. But it almost didn’t happen.
“The project came very, very close to collapsing,” Jeremiah told the socially distanced crowd outside the site at 2077 Ridge Avenue. “But we did what we had to do to move the project forward.”
Protesters had moved onto the site for the retail center in June. Dozens set up an encampment and refused to move.
PHA had until close of business on Oct. 6 to deliver the land to the developer unencumbered or lose the financing.
Protesters moved out moments before the deadline after PHA agreed to transfer nine blighted properties from its housing stock to a community land trust.
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The properties would become part of a pilot that would allow the trust to raise money and rehab the properties to be used for low-income housing. This week, PHA agreed to transfer 50 additional properties to help clear the encampment along the Ben Franklin Parkway.
“It’s a win for us. Those (properties) are going to be off our books while at the same time we ensure that they’re going to remain affordable,” said Jeremiah, noting that the donated properties are not part of housing stock meant for individuals on the PHA waiting list.
“This will not take away from the housing meant for the 40,000 people waiting,” he added.
The win is that Sharswood Ridge will move forward. Minority-owned and run Mosaic Development Partners will develop the project and manage it, bringing 200 construction jobs and 200 permanent jobs.
“This was very difficult and it shouldn’t be as difficult as it is,” said Mosaic’s Leslie Smallwood-Lewis. “And it’s only difficult because of it is in the neighborhood where it is, and you have to use all and you have to use so many different special financing mechanisms to make the capital stack work and it adds such a level of complexity that it takes all of the players that you see here today to be fully engaged to bring it into fruition.”
Smallwood-Lewis and her managing partner, Greg Reaves, both say neighborhoods like Sharswood face major uphill battles when trying to do developments.
They believe the systems discriminate.
“There’s a project four blocks down with double the investment and gets done in half the time,” said Reaves, “and they are bringing none of these qualities to the community. We are bringing healthcare, groceries, eliminating blight, and it takes three years. The systems are barriers.”
According to PHA, the Sharswood Blumberg community faces a 53.5% poverty rate, 80% unemployment and more than 1,300 vacant parcels, a vacant school building, a depressed commercial corridor, and more.
The redevelopment of the neighborhood by PHA is designed to deal with those issues by delivering 1,200 new units of affordable housing, a commercial corridor and retail space and opportunity.
“This is progress that matters to this community,” said City Council President Darrell Clarke. “There have been discussions about this lot for a long, long time, and we are finally getting it done.”
“This project will be an artery of economic gain and of economic justice for a community that has long been ignored,” said State Rep. Donna Bullock.
Construction on Sharswood Ridge is slated to begin this month and is scheduled to be completed spring of 2022.