Real estate mogul Allan Domb wants to buy UArts’ building for $6.5 million
Nine buildings owned by the shuttered University of the Arts, now in bankruptcy, are up for sale through bankruptcy court.
Real estate mogul Allan Domb has submitted a bid to buy one of the former University of the Arts’ buildings for $6.5 million, according to documents filed in bankruptcy court Wednesday.
If approved by the court, Domb, a former Philadelphia City Council member and mayoral candidate who already is one of the biggest property owners in Center City, would own the Art Alliance Building at 251 S. 18th St., which includes a theater and arts gallery.
“I haven’t really decided what I plan to do there, but number one is to fix it up,” said Domb, who owns the parking lot behind the building. “It’s a gorgeous building, a tremendous asset for the area, and I’ve always admired it.”
But the process is far from over, and others could outbid Domb, though they would have to meet certain requirements — for example, bidding at least 6% more ($6.89 million) — according to court documents.
» READ MORE: Bids are sought on nine UArts properties
If that happens, the sale would go to an auction.
The Art Alliance is one of nine buildings for sale following the abrupt closure of the arts college last June with only one week’s notice to students, faculty, and staff. The school filed for bankruptcy in September, launching the process to sell its Center City buildings and use the proceeds to pay off bond debt of around $46 million and other liabilities.
The Lantern Theater Company, a professional, not-for-profit theater company that has been operating in Philadelphia since 1994, bid $1.7 million for the Arts Bank Building at 601 S. Broad St. The company has been performing its work at St. Stephen’s Theater at 923 Ludlow St. since 1994.
Temple University and developer Carl Dranoff, who has built residential buildings on South Broad Street, are among others expected to submit bids.
“There is at least one building that we would have a significant interest in,” Temple University president John A. Fry said in November. He declined to name the building.
Other bids are likely to be filed in court over the next few days.
Domb says he has been interested in acquiring the 18th Street building for decades and expressed interest in purchasing it from the Art Alliance as far back as 2000. He said the building requires substantial renovations, although he did not inspect it before bidding.
“I just did a gut inspection of it,” Domb said. “I just love taking these old historical buildings and maintaining them and bringing them back to life.”
» READ MORE: UArts has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy to liquidate its assets
The property was aggressively marketed, according to court documents. JLL, a real estate services company hired to sell the property, has distributed more than 27,000 emails to potential buyers and conducted 40 property tours, court documents show.
“The nine-property campus provides the opportunity to reshape the heart of Philadelphia’s Central Business District,” JLL said in an announcement when the properties were put up for sale. “The campus can be redeveloped for a range of uses including multifamily, office, retail, hospitality, health care, classroom, and entertainment.”
Collectively, the buildings, some of which have historic designations and offer financial incentives in tax credits for future owners, total 760,000 square feet. In addition to the Art Alliance, they are: Arts Bank, 601 S. Broad St.; Anderson Hall, 329-333 S. Broad St.; Hamilton Hall, 320 S. Broad St.; Furness Hall, 1499 Pine St./320R S. Broad St.; Juniper Hall, 311 S. Juniper St.; Gershman Hall, 401 S. Broad St.; Spruce Hall, 1228 Spruce St.; and Terra Hall, 201-211 S. Broad St., which is the biggest at 274,000 square feet.
They housed offices, classrooms, libraries, residence halls, performance spaces, and galleries. Most of them are on South Broad Street between City Hall and South Street.
Many of the buildings are outfitted with infrastructure that the local arts industry is loath to lose. Anderson Hall, for example, includes woodshops, jewelry-making facilities, textile-dyeing vats, and papermaking studios.
In November, Fry said Temple had carefully evaluated the buildings to determine the amount of deferred maintenance and investment needed. That evaluation actually began when Temple was in talks about a possible acquisition of UArts. But those talks fell apart after the Hamilton Family Charitable Trust, which says it has contributed about half of UArts’ $63 million endowment, said it did not favor having the endowment go to Temple as part of the deal.
UArts subsequently asked a Philadelphia judge in Orphans’ Court to approve the distribution of the endowment to a dozen colleges, including Temple, that enrolled its students. The case is ongoing.
Fry noted that Temple already leases a Center City site but said the school would like to have a more visible presence and is looking to add at least one of the UArts buildings as a possible home for Temple University Center City.
UArts’ closure stunned the local higher education community, leading to lawsuits and protests. The sale of its buildings would lead to the end of UArts’ physical presence in Philadelphia.
Lindsey Scannapieco, managing partner of Scout, a company best known for renovating the hugely successful Bok building in South Philadelphia, fears that few of the bidders plan to continue using the buildings for arts purposes. There are some exceptions, such as the Arts Bank building, which is being bid on by a local arts group.
“These buildings were made for the arts, and I think the impact of these buildings going a different direction is really substantial to the city of Philadelphia,” she said.
Scannapieco said she is bidding on several of the UArts properties (she declined to say which ones) and, if successful, intends to keep them for arts industry use. She fears that the loss of arts infrastructure would detract from the city’s status as a cultural hub.
The closure of UArts and the recent loss of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts’ degree programs have eroded programs and physical infrastructure that sustained and attracted young artists and other cultural programming to the city.
“These are pipelines for new people, creative young talent, to come to the city of Philadelphia to learn,” Scannapieco said. “The social, the economic, the physical impact [of losing 800,000 square feet of arts space] just cannot be overemphasized.”
Staff writer Harold Brubaker contributed to this article.