Developer wants to demolish 3 historic Rittenhouse properties

Rittenhouse Coffee Shop is one of the three properties the owner would like to demolish.

The new owner of three historic properties located on the 1900 block of Sansom Street wants to knock the buildings down due to the poor conditions that "pose significant safety concerns."

Southern Land Co. filed an economic hardship application with the city's Historical Commission last month, requesting approval to demolish the Rittenhouse Coffee Shop, the Warwick Apartment House and the Oliver H. Bair Funeral Home, Hidden City Philadelphia reports.

Each property is listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, meaning they are protected from demolition unless the owner can prove the three buildings cannot be used, or adapted, for any practical purpose, and sale of the properties can is impractical.

To support its hardship claim, the company cites an environmental report by the engineering firm Pennoni Associates, which states that the cost of remediation for the three buildings (removing asbestos-contaminated material, lead based paint, pigeon guano, and mold blooms) would require an estimated total cost of $1,610,000 (Rittenhouse Coffee Shop: $49,030, Warwick: $1,455,470, Baird Funeral Home: $105,500).

Solomon Cordwell Buenz Architects, which performed reuse scenarios for the properties, concluded that redevelopment of the properties did not create enough value to justify costs. Scenarios for the reuse of the coffee shop and funeral home as retail space, single-family dwellings, and offices hovered around a $3.5 million loss. The report alleges that redeveloping the Warwick for apartments, condos, offices, or a hotel would incur $17.8 million in lost revenue. It isn’t clear if “lost revenue” is an opportunity cost for not developing a cleared site or an actual cash loss on investment.

The Historical Commission has granted similar approvals for other developers in the past, although none of their projects ever got off the ground.

Meanwhile the Tennessee company has already made its mark in Philadelphia with the mixed-use property, 3601 Market, part of the University City Science Center. It also has plans to turn a long-vacant Rittenhouse Square lot, which was purchased for about $30 million earlier this year, into a residential tower.

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal