Pioneering COMMUNITY REVITALIZATION AND REDEVELOPMENT

---

In  1999 and 2000, the SGCDC launched two pioneering revitalization projects that had been in the planning stages for some years. It undertook a complete historic façade restoration and interior rehab of some 97 units of PHA affordable housing, in partnership with PHA, in the more developed section of the Spring neighborhood west of 18th Street. See the Section on Affordable Housing. 

The SGCDC also built 8 single-family market rate homes on vacant land on two derelict blocks east of of 19th Street, then a mostly blighted section of the community. 

In 2002, SGCDC demolished two vacant derelict warehouses east of 17th Street and built 19 single family market rate houses in a blighted and heavily drug-infested part of the community. The  19-home project was followed by 13 additional SGCDC market rate single-family homes on abutting vacant land. During this time, the SGCDC also renovated 2 derelict shells.

The  projects transformed the blocks on which they were located, and the entire surrounding area, and created a feeding frenzy of development in a part of the City once thought to be a crime-ridden backwater. No residents were displaced by the development.

In 2009, the SGCDC again partnered with PHA to historically restore and rehab PHA properties east of 18th Street, and construct vibrant new buildings,, for an additional 58 affordable units. The project included units for the hearing-challenged, a 6-unit accessible building constructed on vacant land owned by the SGCDC, and  management and social services offices. A rehab is also being planned for the remaining scattered site PHA properties.

In the ensuing years, the SGCDC partnered with various developers for additional pioneering residential and mixed-use development of properties the SGCDC owned on Fairmount Ave. and in the eastern end of the neighborhood, to continue the dramatic revitalization and transformation of the community and the abutting  Commercial Corridors. A successful North Broad Street developer once commented that he would never have embarked on his own pioneering projects without the SGCDC’s pioneering redevelopment in the adjacent sections of Spring Garden.