Apartment tower lacks heat on cold nights | Real Estate Newsletter
Plus a holiday home tour.
Season’s greetings, newsletter readers! Michaelle is taking a holiday break so I’ll be your emcee this week. I’m Michaelle’s editor and an avid reader of this newsletter each Thursday.
Each winter, I try to wait as long as possible to turn on the heat. Once I made it until December! But we’ve got a new family member, so I cranked it up early this year. A recent story reminded me to be grateful I have the option to control my home’s temperature.
Keep scrolling for that story and more in this week’s edition:
A Delco man, who wants to build a mega-mansion, offered to shovel snow to earn neighbors’ support. See how they responded.
From private farm to a public park? Learn why an Acme heir sold his estate to Westtown Township for $100,000 an acre.
A home tour with holiday spirit: Peek inside a twin in Burlington that’s ready to celebrate.
📮 Do you decorate for winter holidays? Send me a photo of your favorite holiday home decor for a chance to be featured in this newsletter.
— Erica Palan
If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here.
No heat on cold nights
Some tenants of the 15-story Embassy Apartments on Walnut Street recently told my colleague Nate File that they were not getting heat this winter, or weak heating at best. One Embassy renter said that a thermometer showed the temperature inside her apartment at 49 degrees as the outdoor temperatures dipped into the 20s. Brrr!
PMC Property Group, which manages the building, blamed dysfunctional boilers. (You might remember a recent story from another colleague, Jake Blumgart, on another PMC property with temperature-control problems.) Nate tells me that in the days since his story published, some renters report improvements, but others are still waiting for warmth. The boiler repair is scheduled for the first week of January.
L&I is on the case, so fingers crossed the Embassy renters are feeling toasty soon. Read more about their chilly nights — and learn heating and cooling rules for landlords.
Resurrecting Rite Aid zombies
There’s a Rite Aid about two blocks from my house, but I never go there. The shelves are often empty of basic drugstore items. (Once I couldn’t find Band-Aids and Tylenol!) Turns out, it’s not just my frustration.
Since 2022, Rite Aid has closed more than 70 stores in the Philly area, and some of the remaining locations are ghost towns. My colleagues Erin McCarthy and Ariana Perez-Castells took a deep dive into what’s happened to the buildings of now-shuttered Rite Aids and found some new businesses, ranging from grocery stores and urgent cares to a plasma donation center and a Spirit Halloween.
It’s a fascinating look at the next chapter for some prominent commercial real estate in our area.
Do you have a vacant, transformed, or surviving Rite Aid in your neighborhood? Send an email to emccarthy@inquirer.com or aperezcastells@inquirer.com with a description and contact information if you’re interested in potentially being included in a future story.
The latest news to pay attention to
An heir to the Acme fortune sold his Crebilly Farm estate for $20.8 million. The farm will become a park.
An trend to watch in 2025: downsizing. Nearly five years after the pandemic, the region’s office landscape is smaller than it was and may shrink further.
Speaking of the pandemic ... In Delco, officials have hit homeowners with a 23% property tax increase as COVID-19 relief dollars run out.
Tenants of Barrington Mews apartments had an unhappy surprise when they learned their affordable homes may soon have a new owner — and higher rent.
The owner of Delco Steaks told neighbors he’d shovel snow and jump car batteries, if they’d support his plan to build a mega-home. Many are complaining.
The proposed Sixers arena cleared a major legislative hurdle last week, but a study says it could be bad news for Jefferson Station.
Thousands properties are improperly receiving tax relief and could cost the city and its school district $11.4 million each year, the City Controller’s Office reports.
House of the week: A four-bedroom stone-front Cape Cod near Doylestown for $650,000 makes it feel like you live in the woods.
Home tour: A holiday house fit for touring
You think you’ve seen one home decorated for Christmas, you’ve seen ‘em all, right? Wrong. This week’s home tour features a home so decked out for the holidays that it includes a decorated bathroom and a collection of festive rolling pins in the kitchen.
The brick twin in Burlington belongs to Mary Wirth, who chairs the Burlington City Holiday House Tour, an annual event that raises funds to beautify the city of Burlington’s business district. She adds a little holiday flair to everything, including her backyard shed.
Check out her holiday haven in this week’s home tour.
For even more holiday eye candy, take a peek at last week’s home tour, which includes a proposal story worthy of a Hallmark movie.
🧠 Trivia time
The Center City home of a famed Philly architect — known for curved walls and unusual window shapes — recently hit the market for $3.5 million. Do you know which one?
A) Frank Furness
B) Frank Weise
C) Robert Venturi
D) Louis Kahn
This story has the answer.
📷 Photo quiz
Do you know the location this photo shows? It’s one of my faves to visit during the holiday season. I have fond memories of going with my grandmom every December.
📮 If you think you know, email me back. You and your memories of visiting this spot might be featured in the newsletter.
P.S.: We’re taking next Thursday off for the holidays but will return to your inbox on Jan. 2 with two weeks’ worth of real estate news. I’m hoping to catch some holiday light displays between now and then. Here’s a list of some fun ones around the region.
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