When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Shannon Elliott worried that she would have to close the door of Harvey Oak Mercantile (HOM), which she has owned since 2018 on Park Avenue Cely A handicraft shop in Asia Building. After receiving a large number of online orders through her website and starting to deliver to local households, she thinks she has passed the worst period. Then, in September, she learned that local developers Bill Cumby and Don Delson planned to demolish her building and replace it with a high-end apartment complex.
"It's heartbreaking," said Elliott, who shared the building with the Park Gallery (a handmade gift shop and a local art gallery owned by Martha Perkins). The building also houses multiple apartment units and office space, and rents in the area are low.
If approved, the $30 million development project will replace Celia Building and another building at 110/112 Park Avenue to create a five-story mixed-use space. The space will include 36 high-end apartment units located above approximately 3,000 square feet of retail space and an underground garage.
The project will be one of the first mixed-use, high-density development projects in the downtown area. Some residents worry that it will change the character of the town, but others believe that high-density housing will serve the community and be more environmentally sustainable.
The nine-member planning committee will meet on Wednesday, December 15 to consider the proposal, which also requires the support of the municipal council.
Cumby, a former mayor and a 50-year resident with deep ties to the town, said that the prices of these units range from 600,000 to 1 million U.S. dollars and are for elderly residents and empty nesters who wish to downsize. The house now, but stay in the city.
Cumby said: "We are trying to build something that is not really usable outside the central city or the Main Line area. We want to give the elderly the opportunity to age in place."
But others worry that the building is too large and will set a precedent for more demolition and reconstruction of the city center.
According to James Peyton-Jones, a resident and engineering professor in Villanova Borough: Scale-it's obviously too big." University.
If the developers are approved, they will need permission to demolish the two buildings. They hope to break ground in June. They estimate that construction will take 14 to 18 months.
A rendering of the Philadelphia-based construction company Bernardon shows the appearance of the 110 Park Avenue project after it has been approved by the Planning Commission and Borough Council. The building will replace two historic properties on Park Avenue, which currently houses two local businesses and several apartments.
An article announcing the project published on Swarthmorean on October 8 caused some readers to be prejudiced, who worried that this was a paid advertisement on behalf of the developer. Until 2018, Delson was the co-owner of Swarthmorean. There is a paragraph in this article listing many activities of Cumby and Delson and charitable donations to local organizations. In the editor's note, the newspaper later clarified that the paragraph was intended "as a context, not an endorsement of the project."
Martha Perkins said that when she received a letter from a property manager in September, she was stunned and informed her that the owner of the Celia building had signed a sales agreement with Cumby and Delson.
"This is a blow to the intestines," she said.
"Our landlord never said this was what they planned to do, they always said it was their retirement plan," Elliott added. "I guess they made an offer to them that they couldn't refuse."
Even if they survived the construction, Eliot and Perkins said that the rent for the new building was too high.
The developer has asked Elliott and Perkins to find a new space before June. Cumby said that he and Delson have offered to help business owners find other retail locations at their current rent during the construction period. However, due to the lack of available retail space in Swarthmore, Perkins and Elliott worried that they might be driven out of the city.
Shannon Elliott prepared a gift for the clients of her company Harvey Oak Mercantile. Both Elliott and Perkins were allowed to find another space for their business by June. (Anatol Shukla/Phoenix)
Elliott said: "It was too fast to be told that I had to exit a four-year-old business in less than a year, and there was no retail space available-I have no choice now."
Elliott lives in Swarthmore with her husband and two children, and she says she has a deep attachment to the town. Both Perkins and Elliott said they were worried that losing their business would have a devastating blow to the local art world.
“We display and sell the works of many local artists, and if we go, it will have a major impact,” Perkins said.
In November, Elliott and Perkins launched an online petition and Facebook page called "Save Our Swarthmore" to oppose the project.
Perkins and Elliott plan to canvass for residents in the next few months and win more support for the petition.
The 110 Park Avenue proposal came at the time of a wave of changes in the downtown area. The roundabout and Inn built in the Swarthmore building in 2014 caused controversy, and some residents expressed concern that these projects were inconsistent with Swarthmore's personality. In 2017, residents passed a referendum allowing the district to issue liquor licenses, which led to the opening of new businesses such as Village Vine and Ship Bottom Brewery (which will open in late December).
Cumby said that the idea for the apartment project was conceived after a 2013 decree established the town center zoning and called for more "mixed-use" spaces.
On October 20, the developers presented an early version of their plan at a meeting of the Swarthmore Planning Committee, where residents expressed a series of concerns about the project.
Many residents expressed concern that the project will exceed the scale of the community.
Architect Chris Kenney moved with his family from Central City in 2005 because he was attracted by Swarthmore's walkability and small town style. Kenny said the project will be "essentially a gated community in our downtown."
"I am very worried about the size and characteristics of this town. I think it will not only change the town, but also us, and it will not change in a good way," he said.
Some residents are more supportive.
Sharon Mester is the former president of Swarthmore Town Center. Swarthmore Town Center is an advocacy organization dedicated to promoting economic growth in the downtown area. She emphasized the need for dense housing to provide services for the empty-nest elderly and bring benefits to local businesses in the downtown area. human traffic. She said she hopes Elliott and Perkins can find other retail spaces.
Martha Perkins in her Park Commercial Gallery at 104 Park Avenue. Perkins worried that having to close her business would be a loss to the local art world. (Anatol Shukla/Phoenix)
But Elliott said finding available space is more difficult than many residents realize.
"Actually there is only one leasable space open in the entire town. I just can't go in and tell another company to go out so I can go in," she said.
Cumby said that he provided Perkins and Elliott with "first-hand purchase rights" in the project-which means they can rent the two low-level retail spaces in the development before entering the open market. Elliott said the price range of the new unit is unaffordable.
"The new retail space will be at the high end of the Swarthmore lease, and I am at the low end," she said.
Cumby estimates that the price of retail space will be around $25 per square foot, which is higher than the price currently paid by Perkins and Elliott.
"I can't tell you that every business is suitable for the best retail stores in town, maybe not. I can't do anything about it," he said.
Bill Cumby Jr. sits in Hobbs in downtown Swarthmore with the latest renderings of the 110 Park Avenue project. Cumby's construction management company WS Cumby Construction has recently been responsible for several projects in the town, including the Swarthmore Hotel and PPR Apartments. (Owen Motner/Phoenix)
Create a precedent for demolition?
"When I heard that the building might be demolished, I was really scared. It's like your past is gone forever," Elvira Celia, who grew up in Swarthmore in the 1960s and now lives in New York Poeisz said. Her grandfather was an Italian immigrant who built the Celia Building in the 1920s. For decades, Poeisz's family lived in this building and ran a shoe store in the space now occupied by Harvey Oak Mercantile.
According to the historical resource survey commissioned by the administrative district in 2001, almost all buildings in the urban area have historical significance. However, the name does not provide any legal protection for these buildings.
"It's tricky because every building in the city center is on that historical subdivision. I don't know why the people who made this decision a few years ago made this decision," Swarthmore Town Center's current president Kim · O'Halloran (Kim O'Halloran) said.
Several residents urged developers to incorporate the existing facade of Celia Building into the new project. The initial renderings of Cumby and Delson showed that Celia's building was integrated into the design, but was later abandoned.
"I went to the site with a structural engineer and an architect, and it turned out that it was really unreasonable. It was not the concrete fortress I was led to believe, and there was no way to merge it," Cumby said.
Kenny said that demolishing the building and starting from the ground up is “one of the most unsustainable ways to build” and suggested that developers work hard to protect and renovate the Celia Building as part of the project.
"The building is currently occupied, and it would be very surprising if it is found to be in a structural failure state. The building has been adaptively reused," he said.
Structural engineer and borough resident Melanie Rodbart (Melanie Rodbart) worried that the replacement of these two buildings may become a precedent for the demolition of other historic buildings in the business district.
"If both buildings are demolished, the guardrails will be gone. If this happens, it will continue to happen," she said.
"If the plan is approved, there are likely other plans in the pipeline. Peyton-Jones added that there really is no basis to deny the transformation of the rest of the city center into five-story blocks.
Cumby argued that the purpose of the historical resource survey was not to protect downtown buildings from demolition.
The "mass model" prepared by Swarthmore resident and architect Chris Kenney shows the scale of the development in the context of the surrounding streetscape. Both Kenney and Rodbart expressed concern that the renderings released by the developers only showed a limited perspective.
"This is not an anti-demolition decree, it is just a list of buildings that existed at the time. No one would suggest that Shirer Building or Michael Building be demolished, but it is not an iconic building," he said.
The decision to approve the demolition rests with the municipal committee. Cumby is expected to be approved in April this year.
Together with Kenny and other concerned residents, Rodbart is looking for options to legally challenge the demolition, including hiring a lawyer.
"Our zoning code specifically mentions when buildings are allowed to be demolished, and now this project just ignores this," she said.
Developers have added environmentally sustainable features such as green roofs and electric car charging stations to the latest version of the design, but some community members are pushing them to go further.
"I want it to be an all-electric building. The whole idea of climate change is,'Let us be as energy efficient as possible and then electrify everything,'" said Phil Coleman, a lifelong borough and energy resident Using experts, once provided energy efficiency advice to governments around the world.
At the planning committee meeting on October 20, Swarthmore Environmental Committee member Robin Shafley urged developers to use renewable energy such as solar panels, static solar heating, and geothermal heat pumps in their projects.
According to Cumby, many of the exact energy characteristics of the building are uncertain.
"We have not gone that far, once we know the shape of the building we have, this is where many green aspects will be developed," he said.
Cumby said he is not sure whether the building meets the requirements of LEED-LEED is a green building certification program that grades buildings based on environmental sustainability. But he pointed out that his company usually uses many of the LEED recommended practices in their projects, including waste recycling.
The project will have 40 parking spaces under the building, and hydraulic lifts can expand the total capacity to up to 70. Coleman said the total should be close to 20, noting that the construction site is close to public transportation.
"It may be much lower than what they proposed," he said. "The entire one-person, one-vehicle economy is going out."
"We have a train line, we have a bus from Chester to Upper Darby, we have Uber and Lyft, do you really need a car?" He added.
Some environmental and housing advocates regard dense housing near public transportation hubs as a priority. This fight mainly took place in the city, but it caused more and more controversy in suburban communities like Swarthmore.
Gabriel Straus '23 rented a four-bedroom apartment on Park Avenue with his roommate and is a supporter of the project.
"From a climate perspective, we need to build denser, traffic-oriented development projects in inner-ring suburbs like Swarthmore," he said.
Coleman agrees, noting that the energy lost from demolition of existing buildings will “dwarf the energy benefits of more densely populated dwellings over the 50 or 150 year lifespan of new developments”.
"Affordable housing has no goal"
The starting price of apartment units is $600,000, which has exacerbated some residents' concerns about the lack of affordable housing in the city. The project will involve the destruction of several affordable rental units in the area.
Gavin Stief is the current tenant of Celia Building. He said in an op-ed on Swarthmorean in September that he was looking for a new apartment, but "in this overheated rental market, there are very few options."
Schaufler urged developers to reserve six affordable units to replace those that would be lost if the project were approved in public comments in October, but Cumby said he has no plans to do so.
"We are not affordable housing developers. We have worked with these developers in the past. They tend to build in affected places like North Philadelphia, Chester or Jersey City, rather than in Swarthmore," he said .
Rachel Pastan, Helen Nadel, and Jayatri Das, three residents of Swarthmore, initiated a petition calling on the Borough Council to establish an affordable housing working group to study increasing the number of affordable housing in the town .
"The town government has no definition of affordable housing or goals for affordable housing. There are naturally affordable housing in the town, but there is no record of how many units exist or where they are located," Nader said.
The group plans to present their proposal at the upcoming borough committee meeting in January and hopes to vote on it in the coming months.
Kim O'Halloran said that mixed-use projects like 110 Park Avenue are a step in the right direction, but pointed out that more community input is needed, especially from businesses.
Cumby and Delson plan to hold a Zoom meeting this Monday to answer questions from downtown businessmen.
Theresa Richardson, who owns the popular Park Avenue brunch spot Occasionally Yours with her husband, said that she did not know enough about the project to make a judgment, but worried that the construction process might affect the business.
"What I care about most is the timetable. I want to know how long it will take from start to finish. It is difficult for them to predict, but I want to at least have an idea," she said.
Pete Canakis co-owns Renato Pizza with his father and lives in Broomall. He said that he believes the development project is part of a new wave of construction, which will modernize the downtown area and bring more customers to his business.
"Small businesses need traffic, which will attract more people into everyone's business, whether it's a pizzeria, a market or a hardware store," he said.
Bill Ryba has owned Paulson and Company Rugs since 2007 and is just a short walk from the proposed construction site at 110 Park Avenue. He said he thinks the construction process will be "a major event", but being close to the new housing will bring more customers.
"I think they will lay the floor, they will need carpet, and I am here, so this should be good for me, I can help them," he said.
Small business owners Martha Perkins and Shannon Elliott stand outside the Celia building, which houses the Gallery on Park and Harvey Oak Mercantile. If the 110 Park Avenue project is approved, the businesses of Elliott and Perkins will be replaced. (Anatol Shukla/Phoenix)
Currently, Elliott and Perkins have a steady stream of holiday shoppers on hand, buying candles, greeting cards, jewelry, and other handmade gifts—many of which are delivered to the store by local artists.
The uncertainty of their company's future almost worries both women.
"If I have to move to a place outside of Swarthmore, I won't, that's it. I am Gallery on Park, and I am committed to staying in Swarthmore, if my business is in this town If I don’t get my foothold, then I’ll close the door,” Perkins said.
Elliott said that many customers who came in expressed support, but did not know that the project is still in progress.
"There are many people in the community who don't know what happened," she said. "They like a cute store like me, but I might close down because of it."
If we want to control rents and housing prices, we need to build more housing. The high price tag of the apartment indicates something: The people living in this development have the resources to buy a house in Swarthmore. If the building is not built, they still need a place to live: they will not live in this apartment, but will drive long-term residents out of their homes. But this does not involve any construction, so the "neighborhood character" we are so worried about will only die slowly and silently as the prices of long-term residents rise. The same thing happened in countless communities across the country. Measures such as rent control or "affordable housing" treat symptoms, not diseases-they are like turning on the air conditioner when your house is on fire.
In fact, every housing project, no matter how limited, is subject to complaints. I know that no one really wants a construction site in their backyard, and no one wants the business to disappear. But we can't kill every project just because it doesn't meet our perfect standards or because it might cause inconvenience to someone. Not only does it push up rents, but it also means that the only people affected by construction and development are places without political capital, where developers cannot be involved in litigation (read: poor, historically disadvantaged communities, usually ethnic minorities) ).
Finally, can we stop pretending that large-scale mixed-use development projects are somehow a modern invasion? Swarthmore’s oldest building is a large four-and-a-half-story mixed-use building with approximately one hundred housing units and tens of thousands of square feet of office space. You probably know it is Parish Hall.
You clarified the "YIMBY" or market urbanism stance on housing almost verbatim, which must be valuable in some cases. Its serious shortcoming is that it treats all communities and housing markets as the same, and provides a broad solution that fails to take into account the different market dynamics of different communities—but insists on the doctrine of unconditional increase in supply.
The key here is that the project will cause the six affordable units currently occupied to be destroyed and replaced by luxury units. Over the years, the increase in supply may slightly ease the housing market in the area-but it is unclear whether this will offset the loss of affordable units, which may replace tenants in the community.
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