BTMFBA + programs to lease the properties to local businesses | Philadelphia

This isn't exactly a new point.  The first BTMFBA entry referenced the Paris SEMAEST program, which is a community development corporation charged with owning and renting properties and leasing them to local businesses, and less than prevailing rates, as well as supporting new business development.

The series presents entries exploring this, expanding on it, or examples that offer new wrinkles.

-- "BTMFBA: the best way to ward off artist or retail displacement is to buy the building," 2016

-- "From BTMFBA to "community right to buy"," 2024
-- "BTMFBA: maintaining arts spaces in the face of rising real estate values | Seattle, New York City," 2024
-- "New form of BTMFBA in San Francisco," 2023
-- "A wrinkle on BTMFBA: let the city/county own the cultural facility, while you operate it (San Francisco and the Fillmore Heritage Center)," 2021
-- "BTMFBA: Baltimore and the Area 405 Studio," 2021
-- "Revisiting stories: cultural planning and the need for arts-based community development corporations as real estate operators," 2018
-- "BMFBTA revisited: nonprofits and facilities planning and acquisition," 2016
-- "BTMFBA: artists and Los Angeles," 2017
-- "BTMFBA Chronicles: Seattle coffee shop raises money to buy its building," 2018
-- "Dateline Los Angeles: BTMFBA & Transformational Projects Action Planning & arts-related community development corporation as an implementation mechanism to own property," 2018

There is an article in Philadelphia Magazine, "How One Store Became Ground Zero For West Philly’s Gentrification War," about the continued failure of the commercial district of Baltimore Avenue to revive.  This is a problem throughout Philadelphia.  

Many districts were built when suburban shopping malls didn't exist, and local department stores were often anchors in local districts--long before most legacy regionally-based department store groups were merged into and branded as Macy's ("Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia is finally improving").

The article addresses various tensions in the community wrt the improvement of Baltimore Avenue, which is in the University City District BID interest area.  

It's a surprise that they've had problems moving forward, given the various successful UCD initiatives in other areas.  

Dollar Stroll event, 2022.

And it's not like UCD isn't putting energy into the district, which is also served by trolley transit.

Tensions include:

• discount stores ("The Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll is back, turning the West Philly corridor into a rolling block party with $1 deals," BillyPenn) versus more upscale retail
• is more upscale retail gentrification?
• new businesses versus old
• carry outs versus sit down restaurant
• supporting local districts versus chains
• rents are too high--some landlords are asking $55/s.f. in a less successful area.

In discussing the situation, the author contrasts with two other commercial districts in the city, Passyunk, and Kensington.  Both have locally focused revitalization organizations, which buy, rehabilitate, hold, and rent to local businesses, with rent incentives and other technical assistance. From the article:

By contrast, in South Philly the transformation of East Passyunk Avenue was underwritten by the Passyunk Avenue Revitalization Corporation, which started purchasing buildings up and down the avenue in the early 2000s, fixed them up, and rented them out at competitive rates. To this day, many of East Passyunk’s hottest properties are still owned by PARC, including the buildings that house restaurants Supérette, Mish Mish, Ember & Ash, and River Twice.

The Waxery was the Kensington Corridor Trust's first commercial tenant. 

(Photo by Melissa Simpson)

... But there are other models. The Kensing­ton Corridor Trust acquires properties in Kensington and stewards them according to a neighborhood trust model, keeping rents low and giving residents a say in what kinds of businesses open. According to their criteria: “Businesses should have a purpose that does not further denigrate or diminish the neighborhood (such as private developers, alcohol and tobacco sales or smoke shops, check casher businesses, pawn shops, cash for gold shops, smoke/hookah shops, and other extractive businesses that are predatory to the community).”

H Street NE, DC.  Interestingly, the discussion of new entrants being discount stores on Baltimore Avenue reminds me of my experience with the revitalization of H Street back c. 2002.  The first new store that entered the district after the new revitalization plan was a Family Dollar.  Most of us were extremely disappointed.

The building has housed a "variety store" for decades.  Before the company went out of business, it was a G.C. Murphy.

It took the focused investment of the Joe Englert restaurant group to shift the trajectory towards a more nightlife positioning, with the addition of multiple restaurants and taverns in a relatively short period of time ("Joe Englert, DC nightlife impresario, dies | Lessons about nightlife-based revitalization," 2020) although unbeknownst to us, in part this was subsidized by venture capital funded low cost ride hailing, since H Street could have better transit service (it's got great bus service, a streetcar, at least for awhile, and is close to Union Station's Red Line Metrorail service) ("H Street NE nightlife district, failing?,"2023).

The real problem for H Street ("Things to See & Do on H Street NE," Destination DC) is that DC is small and within a three mile distance, it faces competition from the Wharf, Downtown, Union Market, the Southeast Waterfront/Navy Yard, and Barracks Row/Eastern Market/Capitol Hill.  

But it's still a far cry from 2002, with a Whole Foods Supermarket, a great independent bookstore, taverns and restaurants, the Atlas Performing Arts Center, and other amenities.  

Which is another confirmation of the need for a plan and an implementation organization ("Updating the best practice elements of revitalization to include elements 7 and 8 | Transformational Projects Action Planning at a large scale," 2024).

Top down versus implementation versus lack of implementation.  The author, based on past experience, argues that what people think of as "top down" initiatives in East Passyunk ("Living in East Passyunk: A Neighborhood Guide," Philadelphia Magazine) and Kensington are somehow corporate and don't involve the community.  Which is completely opposite of the reality.

East Passyunk’s beloved Singing Fountain / Photograph by Jeff Fusco

It's a good contrast of why Baltimore Avenue is "down" despite its advantages of proximity to the University of Pennsylvania and other assets, while the East Passyunk and Kensington Corridors are on an upward trajectory ("Five Years In, Philly’s Kensington Corridor Trust Is Building Momentum," NextCity)--although the Kensington neighborhood has some of the worst drug problems in the US.

Besides investing in real estate, the Passyunk group uses lease revenues on public space improvement and maintenance, such as capturing an empty "triangle" and making it into a pocket park, with a "Singing Fountain."  The organization has spent a lot of time "curating the retail and restaurant mix" ("Out Passyunk Avenue leader previews continued revitalization," Philadelphia Gay News). 

Community boards.

The trust's largest acquisition has been this mixed-use building at the corner of Kensington and H Street, featuring 18 residential units and two commercial storefronts. (Photo by Melissa Simpson)

Both the PARC and KCT have community-led boards, although PARC is more corporate.  The KCT has an interesting history.  It was formed out of resident response to the plans by a neighborhood focused real estate firm, Shift Capital.  People wanted more involvement by the local community and the KCT was created out of that desire.  

The organization is led by a community board, something that the people concerned about Baltimore Avenue and its future could develop similarly.  From the article:

At the top of Kensington Corridor Trust’s structure is the actual neighborhood trust, also known legally as a perpetual purpose trust. Under the model, the trust is governed by a trust stewardship committee, which in this case consists of nine members elected from residents and local business owners within the trust’s catchment area. The trust entity holds the deeds to the properties in the portfolio, and the trust stewardship committee makes major strategic decisions like setting rents, determining what types of businesses to allow as tenants, or defining the catchment area — ensuring major decisions align with the trust’s overall purpose and goals. Last year the stewardship committee extended the catchment area by one more block along Kensington Avenue.

 Many community revitalization organizations have boards primarily made up of members from the "grassroots."  One example is the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative in Roxbury, Boston, written up in the book Streets of Hope: The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood.

Another is the Gateway Community Development Corporation, focused on the revitalization of the Rhode Island Avenue Corridor as it emanates from Washington, DC into Price George's County.  Years ago membership for community members was $5 and it included voting rights and the right to run for the board.  Now it's $25 but it includes other benefits.

The Neighborhood Service Districts in SF are a mix of property owners, business owners, and residents.  The Green Benefits District there has property owners, residents, and environmental advocates as members.  Etc.

Conclusion.  Baltimore Avenue's revitalization sputters because it doesn't have a focused community development group committed to buying, rehabilitating, and owning real estate, which it uses to curate and improve the commercial district.  Kensington and East Passyunk Avenue are nearby examples.

The building in East Falls where Johnny Mañana's was located (the restaurant closed in 2016).

But Philadelphia has similar examples, such as in the revitalization of the Manayunk district ("Manayunk Canal and the Schuylkill River are connected again after 85 years," Philadelphia Inquirer), East Falls ("East Falls revival may be stirring," 2008, "Town By Town: A lot is happening in East Falls,"2013, PI), Ridge Avenue in Roxborough, etc.   

I learned about East Falls at a conference in 2003, where they had just experienced the opening of a restaurant in a former check cashing outlet the year before, and they were giddy, especially in that it had patio dining.