Allan Domb grew a real estate empire from nothing. Can one of the city’s biggest landlords be its mayor? | Meet the candidates

Allan Domb owns some of the most spacious and expensive luxury condos in Philadelphia, but he wants voters to know about the 800 square feet where he started out.

“I grew up in a very modest apartment building, two bedroom, one bath, the rent was $100 a month,” Domb told a crowd in Northeast Philadelphia, where he opened a campaign office last month.

The mega-successful realtor has worked since he was 5, shining shoes with his brother for five cents a pair, later delivering newspapers along two routes, and then in high school cleaning an office building after wrestling practice. It’s a work ethic he wants to bring to the city’s top job.

Domb, one of the biggest property owners in the city, now has his sights on the second-floor office at 1400 JFK Blvd. After nearly two terms on City Council, Domb is pitching his business background as a way to improve the city’s fiscal health, his managerial style as a way to bring leaders together to tackle gun violence, and his entrepreneurial upbringing as a roadmap for bettering schools and lowering unemployment. The 68-year-old mild-mannered pragmatist has poured more than $7 million into his campaign, self-funding his run as a centrist who he says will look out for businesses but also tackle poverty in the city that gave him his big break.

The question is whether the man known as the Condo King can relate to residents in the poorest big city in America and handle ethical entanglements that could come with electing one of the city’s biggest landlords as mayor.

“People are struggling,” said Erika Almirón, a City Council candidate who has criticized Domb. “They’re being priced out and I don’t think Allan Domb has demonstrated that those people are his top concern because he doesn’t have the experience to even understand what those people are going through.”

Domb says he understands the challenges lower-income people face because he lived them during his working-class childhood in Fort Lee, N.J. He talks on the campaign trail about his family’s water getting cut off and his mom calling the mayor, who yelled at her for bothering him on a Sunday. Two weeks later they were evicted — along with the only two other Jewish families in the building.

He came to Philadelphia for a $15,000-a-year job managing a Phelps Time Lock Service franchise in Center City. He got into real estate in 1979, just a few years out of college, after hearing a radio ad for Temple University’s real estate program.

Domb opened his own firm in 1983, renting and selling mostly studios and one-bedrooms in Center City and, later, honing in on the luxury condo market.

“I had a cookie-cutter formula of buying properties,” Domb said. “I would set a goal: Can I buy at least one property a year? Then could I buy two, then three. And I put them on a 15-year fixed rate loan, which caused me to have bigger payments but I was paying down principal. It’s conservative.”

It paid off, big time. By 1987, Domb, then 33, had completed nearly 300 real estate transactions — valued at close to $100 million in today’s dollars — and was named the nation’s top residential salesperson by the National Association of Realtors.

“I invested in the city, and the city invested in me,” Domb said.

He got into development, buying and converting historic buildings like the Wanamaker and the Warwick.

“People say to me, ‘you’re a gentrifier.’ ” Domb said in an interview. “I’ve never gentrified anything. Zero. In fact, everything I’ve done is take old buildings that were shuttered and bring them back to life.”

In 2005, Domb partnered with restaurateur Stephen Starr. He is now an investor in several restaurants, including Parc, where President Biden ate pancakes late last month. He co-owns Schlesinger’s, a Jewish delicatessen that pays homage to Domb’s ancestors.

He won’t share his net worth but acknowledged previous Inquirer estimates were “close, a little high.”

The Inquirer estimated his real estate holdings at about $400 million, though it’s likely that figure is significantly more given the assessment of his portfolio was based on city property assessments, which tend to undervalue large buildings. His annual brokerage salary and abstract company earning was $530,000, not including investment income.

He’s somewhat private about his personal life. He’s twice married and twice divorced, and has a son and three grandchildren.

But Domb’s Philly-based American dream is a story he wants to share. He wants to bring financial literacy and entrepreneurship classes to high schools and open schools dedicated to the trades or law enforcement careers. If elected, he has an ambitious to-do list for his first 100 days: cleaning every vacant lot and sealing every abandoned building, tripling funding for police recruitment, and installing cameras at every high school.

For the net worth he’s amassed, Domb doesn’t necessarily project wealth and status. He lives on Rittenhouse Square in the Barclay building, which he owns, with his rescue dog (his last pup once got a $53 filet for her birthday). But he also drives a 2011 Mini Cooper and donated his annual $142,751 Council salary to community groups, education programs, and public schools without much fanfare.

“I don’t think anyone who knows him would look at him as a highfalutin guy,” said Councilmember Mark Squilla, “He’s really a regular, blue-collar type person who did well for himself. To be able to be self-made is a credit to the opportunities we have in the city … and I think he wanted to share that.”

Domb was president of the Greater Philadelphia Association of Realtors in 2014 when he was asked to assess some of the city’s shuttered schools.

Visiting the empty buildings got him thinking about ways to help the city, and he reached out to political consultant Neil Oxman for advice on running for mayor.

“I told him he was crazy,” Oxman said. “I said run for Council instead.”

Domb tells voters that story to show he put in the work to learn about government — and perhaps as a knock on the other businessman in the race, Jeff Brown, whom Domb has attacked in TV ads.

Domb has also blanketed the airwaves with ads promising he’ll crack down on crime. Terri Veracruz, whose son, Terrell Aaron White, was killed in a March 4 shooting, recognized her car in one ad that featured news footage from that night. She saw it the morning after burying him.

After Veracruz publicly shared her anguish over the spot, Domb asked to meet her. She was hesitant but agreed. They talked at her West Philadelphia home with her grandson on April 7.

“As a Christian woman, I took him as sincere,” Veracruz said. The ad is no longer running. It doesn’t change the pain caused at the time, but Veracruz said she felt heard. She’s a committeewoman in her ward who hasn’t ruled out supporting him. “For the most part I think he heard how hurt and devastated I was.”

Domb says he’ll reach out to every family impacted by a homicide if he’s mayor, and he’s met with other victims of gun violence during the campaign.

As a self-funder, Domb can focus more on meeting voters instead of raising money.

But paying your own way also buys you criticism.

“Right now we’re looking at an election where we see at least two millionaires who are self-funding or using super PACs to try to buy an election,” said Sergio Cea, political director of Reclaim Philly, which endorsed Helen Gym. “With Allan Domb, what we see is somebody who has always acted in the interests of big business and real estate.”

Domb joined Council in 2015 and brought a business background that his colleagues didn’t have. He focused on tax and procurement issues — but drew criticism for voting on legislation that could impact his real estate company.

He was known as an aggressive questioner during budget hearings, especially when it came to city property sales.

Domb sponsored a bill requiring appraisals on city-owned buildings put up for sale.

He was also instrumental in legislation that qualified 60,000 low-income households to get refunds on city wage taxes, and worked to help residents learn about federal tax rebates.

“He talked about it all the time,” said Mary Arthur, CEO of the Campaign for Working Families. “But it worked. People would come into our tax sites and ask about it.” Arthur said Domb’s drive to help surprised her. “When you see people in the successful stage of their life, you can sometimes forget where they came from.”

Domb has an independent streak on a few contentious issues. He opposed the controversial DROP program, angering municipal union workers, and he’s the only candidate who has said he’d abolish the scandal-plagued Sheriff’s Office.

During the pandemic, Domb sponsored streetery legislation to expand outdoor dining, and then later, a bill to make those setups permanent.

He quietly helped some restaurant owners, too. Jay Ho, owner of Mei Mei in Old City, said he’d never heard of Domb before he posted on Instagram about getting locked out by his landlord in March 2020. Domb arranged three meetings between Ho and the landlord and the two came to an agreement to keep the restaurant open.

“We live in a very, very selfish world and for a person who knows nothing about me — this is a guy who owns half of Philadelphia — to give up his time to help me because it was for the better for the city, I think that says something,” Ho said.

But Domb’s background angered progressives who saw him as a millionaire with a pro-business agenda as the city failed its poorest residents.

Arielle Klagsburn, a former organizer with the 215 People’s Alliance, filed a complaint with the Board of Ethics in 2019 to prevent Domb from voting on tax-abatement legislation, which benefited eight of his buildings. The board ruled Domb could vote on the bills.

“It feels like one thing when you’re one of 17 Council people. It feels like a very different thing when you’re the executive of a city,” Klagsburn said.

Domb released a plan to avoid conflicts of interest if elected. He vows to sell his business and his real estate holdings to an entity owned by his son and other investors, which would be prohibited from seeking zoning variances or applying for new construction permits.

The plan also calls for an independent ethics expert to review any interactions that the new company has with city government.

Domb isn’t the most charismatic politician. He’s soft-spoken and spouts factoids over stirring speeches. He’s an older white man trying to appeal to a Democratic electorate that includes a lot of voters who are younger, more diverse, and less wealthy than him. But his even-keeled, candid nature has some appeal among Center City centrists and middle-class voters in the Northeast, where he did well in both of his Council runs. It’s a base he’ll have to turn out in big numbers to break though in a crowded field.

“Allan Domb’s not the best politician,” said Jim Jenkins, a union stagehand from South Philly who attended the Northeast office opening. “But he’s one of the smartest businessmen I know. He doesn’t need this job, this job needs him.”

Jerry Ehrlich changed his registration from Republican to Democrat to vote for Domb and is now on staff as an adviser.

“The guys ridin’ in a freakin’ car over potholes to say, ‘hey we have a quality-of-life issue and I’m gonna tell you in 72 hours it’s gonna be fixed,’” Ehrlich said, referencing one of Domb’s TV ads. “That appeals to moderates, conservatives, independents, everybody.’”

Staff writers Sean Collins Walsh and Ryan Briggs contributed to this article.