Redevelopment

The massive $1.2 billion redevelopment plan of the Cramer Hill neighborhood in Camden led to protests against eminent domain and lawsuits before it finally collapsed. Now, the still-notorious attempt at redevelopment and gentrification has played a part in two federal indictments. "That's beautiful!" said Mary Cortes, a community activist who opposed the plan because 1,200 families were due to be displaced. "Justice is getting done, finally. " Camden's former state senator, Wayne Bryant, a political powerhouse in this impoverished city even though he lived in suburban Lawnside, is already in prison on separate corruption charges.

Saying it had run out of patience with the owners of long-neglected commercial properties, Evesham's township council has embarked on a plan to revitalize or even condemn sites it deems blighted or eyesores. "It's hammer time," Mayor Randy Brown told the council Tuesday night after its members agreed informally to begin establishing a redevelopment plan with authority to designate the properties and take steps to improve them. Under state guidelines, a redevelopment plan allows municipalities to grant tax incentives of up to 30 years for the improvement of sites deemed unsafe, unsanitary, or abandoned, and to use eminent domain to seize sites whose owners persistently neglect them.

Drawing on their religious faith and their financial resources, local Episcopalians have decided to invest $1 million in the redevelopment of poor communities in the Philadelphia area. The investment was announced yesterday by Bishop Allen L. Bartlett Jr., head of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. The money will go to the Delaware Valley Community Reinvestment Fund, which lends money for community development projects, especially those that create low-income housing. The church hopes to raise $5 million for community redevelopment over the next five years, the bishop said during a news conference at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church on Rittenhouse Square.

Township officials will meet with a private developer this week to sign an agreement that could lead to redevelopment of the long defunct Willingboro Plaza. ReNEWal Realty LLC would become partners with the township in cleaning up the plaza, which is polluted with asbestos and contaminated by underground fuel-storage tanks. Stephen R. Jaffe, a Cherry Hill-based environmental lawyer representing the firm, said ReNEWal would decide tomorrow whether to sign a redevelopment agreement with Willingboro.

The Bristol Borough Planning Commission on Monday reviewed the progress of two major redevelopment projects - Riverfront North and Gateway. The update came from Robert Dusek of Direction Associates, of Spring House, the borough's planning consultant. He is working jointly with the borough and the borough's redevelopment authority. Dusek described the 32-acre Riverfront North development parcel, which includes the condemned Superior Zinc plant, as a "magnificent resource. " The property has attracted interest from potential developers, Dusek said.

In 1970, when the last of the rubber and textile mills were pulling out of Passaic, New Jersey's oldest industrial city, the city government came up with a plan to spruce up the decaying downtown and catch up on lost revenues. The goal was to turn Passaic into the shopping capital of the state. But the plans didn't go anywhere - until a year ago, when a devastating fire took care of the decaying downtown by destroying much of it. A year later, some people in Passaic think the fire was the best thing to happen to the city in decades.

Redevelopment has to be the strategy if old, built-out Camden County is to increase revenue while keeping property taxes in check. It's proper, then, for voters to judge county freeholders by how they're handling redevelopment. About $2 billion of redevelopment work is on the drawing board or under way. But the county has bobbled some key projects, such as the Pennsauken Mart site. Voters in Tuesday's freeholder election must consider which candidates can best overcome past stumbles.

Traveling down the roadways of Bensalem Township, Joseph DiGirolamo sits behind the steering wheel of his van, enumerating the township projects that have been completed or begun since voters decided to go to a strong mayor/council form of government in 1990. "We've redeveloped a good deal of the commercial area in the township," DiGirolamo said. "One shopping center had 13 empty sites. Now it only has two. We've redone the township roads. "We're buying more land for our Central Park, which surrounds the township building.

The situation unfolding with regard to Cramer Hill in Camden, Petty's Island, and the Pennsauken riverfront is loaded with opportunities. Unfortunately, it is about to become a litany of mistakes and missed opportunities because of poor public leadership, bad planning, and a lack of vision. Cherokee Investment Partners has proposed a $2.2 billion investment - $1.2 billion in the Cramer Hill neighborhood and $1 billion in Pennsauken. Most of the land it would redevelop is waterfront, including Petty's Island, and much is vacant.

Efforts to secure public financing to redevelop the Gallery at Market East are a "work in progress" and Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust is working on "a number of government concessions that need to occur," Preit chief executive Joseph F. Coradino told investors Wednesday in a quarterly earnings call. "The scope and scale of the project is going to be driven to a great extent by the amount of public financing that we end up getting," Coradino said. The Philadelphia-based regional shopping mall owner reported a quarterly net loss of $14.7 million, or 27 cents per share, for the quarter ended Sept.

More snake eyes on casino plans? Imagine that a choice must be made among six massive development proposals, ranging from $400 million to $900 million in capital investment. The agency charged with this important decision has no urban redevelopment experience, has not engaged consultants in the fields of architecture and planning, and is not accountable to the city in which the development will take place. What could possibly go wrong? Actually, that is the situation with the state Gaming Control Board in its second effort to pick a casino site for Philadelphia.

Brandywine Realty Trust says it will redevelop 1900 Market St., which houses Nasdaq's Philadelphia Stock Exchange operations and investment and law offices, "as a Class A office building. " Work will start next year and be done by 2015, the company said. Separately, Brandywine, of Radnor, has asked Campus Crest Communities, a Georgia company known mostly for building student housing at suburban and small-town colleges in the South and West, to put up student housing on a site approved for a 36-story high-rise at 2930 Chestnut St. in University City, according to two real estate industry sources familiar with the deal.

Chuck Ulmann, who has lived a few minutes outside the borough proper for the last 42 years, has kindly agreed to provide as comprehensive a tour of West Chester as six hours allows. Ulmann, who worked in the pharmaceuticals industry from college through retirement, is not only well-versed in West Chester's architectural history but has, over the years, shepherded groups through the borough's streets and alleys, showing them the highlights. In the first hour of the tour, Ulmann proves that just about every style of housing from the early 19th century to 2012 is represented in West Chester.

  Nancy Jamanow pulled into a parking lot on Main Street in Marlton last week and gazed at the "For Sale" sign on the vacant Beneficial Bank building. "I love this building. I really wish we could do something with it," Jamanow, Evesham's development director, said of the Federal-style brick structure. "But it needs so many upgrades to be compliant. I think it would be very, very difficult to save. " Built in 1927 and topped by a louvered cupola, the former Farmers & Mechanics Bank is one of seven vacant or "underutilized" commercial properties the township has identified for possible inclusion in a redevelopment plan.

Saying it had run out of patience with the owners of long-neglected commercial properties, Evesham's township council has embarked on a plan to revitalize or even condemn sites it deems blighted or eyesores. "It's hammer time," Mayor Randy Brown told the council Tuesday night after its members agreed informally to begin establishing a redevelopment plan with authority to designate the properties and take steps to improve them. Under state guidelines, a redevelopment plan allows municipalities to grant tax incentives of up to 30 years for the improvement of sites deemed unsafe, unsanitary, or abandoned, and to use eminent domain to seize sites whose owners persistently neglect them.

Efforts to secure public financing to redevelop the Gallery at Market East are a "work in progress" and Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust is working on "a number of government concessions that need to occur," Preit chief executive Joseph F. Coradino told investors Wednesday in a quarterly earnings call. "The scope and scale of the project is going to be driven to a great extent by the amount of public financing that we end up getting," Coradino said. The Philadelphia-based regional shopping mall owner reported a quarterly net loss of $14.7 million, or 27 cents per share, for the quarter ended Sept.

Everybody used to call it The Strip, and it was an avenue worthy of the nickname. For decades, West Philadelphia's 52d Street was one of the city's premier boulevards, a regional retail magnet and an entertainment corridor with nightclubs, restaurants, and as many as five movie theaters. More recently, though, 52d Street has been, in the words of Mayor Nutter, "a hot mess. " Like so many of Philadelphia's neighborhood commercial districts, the 52d Street corridor was clobbered by the rise of malls and the overall decline of its surrounding residential neighborhoods.

Reeling from negative publicity over its handling of a trash-filled lot in Point Breeze, Philadelphia's Redevelopment Authority has a new controversy on its hands there. Real estate investors are complaining that the city plans to take their land for affordable housing in the up-and-coming neighborhood just south of Center City, depriving them of the ability to build, profit, and pay taxes. "The city has dozens of lots. Why don't they do something with them first?" asked Turlough Harte, whose company, Harte Investments, owns two parcels in the 1200 block of South 17th Street that are on a list of 43 properties slated for takeover by PRA. Indeed, the city or other government agencies own 311 lots in the neighborhood.

By the time all the dignitaries, friends, and others close to former Camden Mayor Melvin R. "Randy" Primas Jr. arrived at his funeral Friday, most were done mourning. Friday's ceremony, which started with a two-hour viewing and concluded with a 90-minute "home-going" service at St. John Baptist Church in East Camden, featured more laughs than tears. It was a reunion for current and former politicians, clergy and residents. People hugged and waved from opposite sides of the church, which was filled with nearly 1,000 people.