Working behind the big wooden desk in Suite 418 of the McClatchy Building, Morris S. Willner says he is dreaming the kind of big dreams for Upper Darby's 69th Street that only a McClatchy could understand.
Willner, 40, a former mortgage banker who specializes in the renovation of older malls, paid $9 million in late December to the heirs of John H. McClatchy for the McClatchys' 69th Street properties - a four-block area along 69th Street bounded by Market and Walnut Streets.
The properties consist of 49 storefronts, 2,500 off-street parking spaces and the art deco McClatchy Building, headquarters of the pioneer builder who developed the 69th Street shopping district in the late 1920s.
"This is the great John H.'s desk," Willner said in a recent interview inside McClatchy's old office. The desk came with the deal, he said.
When the McClatchy family asked Willner recently if they could buy back the desk, Willner recalled, "I told them if it was ever for sale, I'd let them have it. I think it's only fitting that the original McClatchy desk be in the original McClatchy Building. I can't think of a better place."
Following in the McClatchy tradition, Willner's plans for the old shopping district are grand in design. The biggest change, he said, will be the conversion into office space of about 200,000 square feet of the total 750,000 square feet of retail space he had purchased.
Willner said he planned to beautify the street with trees, lighting and benches, renovate the old storefronts, and attract major retailers to replace Gimbels, which closed last year; J. C. Penney Co., which has announced it will close by June, and Lit Bros., which closed 10 years ago.
"Really," Willner said, "there's nothing that will be untouched on this street as far as renovations go."
The same is true for SEPTA's $10 million restoration of the 69th Street Terminal Building adjacent to the shopping district, SEPTA officials said. The top-to-bottom refurbishing of the terminal is designed to restore the transportation hub to its original look.
The problem of older suburban shopping centers that have lost luster as well as customers is common, but nowhere in Delaware County is it more apparent than along once-gleaming 69th Street. The injection of new blood into 69th Street could launch the street - and ultimately the township - back on the road to its former glory days as a major suburban shopping center, say Upper Darby officials.
