Philadelphia gets its biggest historic district in decades in Washington Square West

Philadelphia’s Historical Commission voted Friday to create the city’s largest historic district in decades.

Washington Square West’s new historic district includes 1,441 properties across roughly 26 city blocks. The designation is the culmination of a yearslong effort by preservationists and the Washington Square West Civic Association. And it comes over the objections of some residents who don’t want restrictions on their properties and urbanists who argued the designation would hinder development.

A large portion of Washington Square West will now be protected from demolition, and property owners within the historic district’s boundaries need the Historical Commission’s approval to make certain changes to the outside of buildings.

The district stretches about half a square mile in an area between South Broad and Eighth Streets and Sansom and South Streets. It sits between the Society Hill district to the east and the Rittenhouse-Fitler district to the west.

» READ MORE: A historic district designation could be coming to Washington Square West

The local civic association and the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia nominated the district together, saying the area is culturally significant to Black, immigrant, Jewish, and LGBTQ communities. And the Preservation Alliance said the district shows Philadelphia’s development westward and highlights the neighborhood’s architectural styles and major development trends.

“We believe the ensemble of these different architectural types and the rich variety of Philadelphia’s cultural life this reflects is nowhere better preserved than in Wash West,” Hanna Stark, director of policy and communications at the Preservation Alliance, said during the Historical Commission’s meeting Friday.

Until Friday, Powelton Village’s historic district, designated in 2022, was the largest the city had created in decades. That West Philadelphia district includes 935 properties.

“This day has been long in coming,” said Paul Steinke, executive director of the Preservation Alliance.

The alliance was a cosponsor of the original historic district nomination for Washington Square West that was submitted in 2009 but did not advance. The organization returned to the cause in 2020 and partnered with the Washington Square West Civic Association in 2021. A member of the Historical Commission, Emily Cooperman, is one of the authors of the latest nomination and recused herself from Friday’s vote.

In an interview after the vote, Steinke said the Preservation Alliance was “thrilled” by the outcome.

“We have long believed that the neighborhood deserves historic district recognition,” he said, “and we are glad to see that oversight finally corrected.”

More than half of the properties in the district already were listed on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places. Much of the new district is on the National Register of Historic Places, but that status does not protect the area’s buildings from demolition.

Some Washington Square West residents who oppose the regulations and the potential for increased maintenance costs that come with designation said the historic nomination was too broad and included too many properties.

The nomination’s highlighted period of significance for the district stretches from 1740 to 1985. About 20 parking and vacant lots are among the properties included in the district.

Staff at the Historical Commission reexamined the archaeological arguments that were made for those lots and found deficiencies. As a result, the commission reclassified all but two lots from “contributing” to “noncontributing,” which means they are subject to less review.

Robert Thomas, chair of the Historical Commission, noted at Friday’s meeting that someone could present more research in the future to change properties’ classifications. Before the vote, owners of other properties had asked that the Historical Commission look into reclassifying theirs.

Lynn Landes is one of the property owners in the new district who opposed its creation and called the nomination “so overreaching and vague as to apply to most neighborhoods in Philadelphia.”

“It’s not like I’m against the designation of specific properties,” she said Friday. “But it should be done a la carte, not carte blanche. And that’s what is happening here.”

5th Square, an urbanist advocacy group, also pushed for individual designation of properties in a petition it circulated. The group argued that designation of the district as a whole would restrict development and increase housing costs.

Drew Moyer, a board member of the Washington Square West Civic Association, said, “We believe the fabric of the neighborhood is not defined, nor is it preserved, by individual properties.” The Historical Commission agreed.

Before the Historical Commission voted Friday, it denied a request by some property owners to further delay consideration of the Washington Square West proposal.

The commission’s committee on historic designation had recommended in May that the city create a historic district in the neighborhood. At the commission’s monthly meeting in June, it did not have enough commissioners present to take any action. In July, the commission granted property owners’ request to delay consideration until its monthly meeting in September.

» READ MORE: Historical Commission further delays a decision on whether to create a historic district in Washington Square West

Property owners and advocates who spoke Friday in favor of creating Washington Square West’s district highlighted the unique character of the neighborhood and the need to preserve that.

“That [the designation] did not happen long ago is an embarrassment,” said David Traub, cofounder of the preservation group Save Our Sites.

He said the neighborhood “is at the very heart of the city, at the very center of Center City.”

Oscar Beisert, an architectural historian with the Keeping Society of Philadelphia, called the neighborhood “a remarkably special area.”

“It is, in some ways, like Old City and maybe Chinatown,” Beisert said. “One of the more diverse neighborhoods in architecture and building stock. It really represents what Philadelphia was historically.”