Apartments for a downtown’s open space | Real Estate Newsletter
And the end of Avalon’s Monstrosity?
Swedesboro is getting its biggest downtown redevelopment project in memory. The hope is that the $23 million apartment complex under construction will breathe new life into the heart of the Gloucester County borough.
Swedesboro’s mayor has been pushing for redevelopment since 2007. He said this project “was probably our last opportunity to have some control over what happens on a huge open space downtown.”
Keep reading for details about what’s planned for the borough of 2,800 people and why developers are looking at smaller towns like Swedesboro as markets for multifamily housing.
Keep scrolling for that story and more in this week’s edition:
Losing a Monstrosity: Learn the latest development in the story of a family who hoped to sell but preserve their Avalon home.
Stringing up the lights: Take a look at the booming business of professional holiday light installation.
A unique garden: Peek inside this Delaware County property with plants that never die.
📮If you decorate the outside of your home for the holidays, do you do it yourself or do you outsource? For a chance to be featured in my newsletter, email me.
— Michaelle Bond
If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here.
On about two acres along Kings Highway, Swedesboro’s main street, the Nyckel Apartments complex is going to rise — and it’s raising residents’ hopes for new vitality downtown.
An early sign of rebirth is the location, which includes the site of a business that had been vacant for more than a decade.
The complex will include two buildings with 73 one- and two-bedroom apartments. And it’ll have 6,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space.
Downtown businesses are excited about the promise of more residents in the area. But can you guess what’s turning out to be an issue?
If you said “parking,” you’re right. (Longtime readers had a leg up on that one.)
Keep reading to see what the apartment complex could look like and for more details about the development and concerns surrounding it.
This summer, I wrote about a family who’s owned a house called the Monstrosity in Avalon for 130+ years. They were looking to sell it to someone who would agree to preserve it.
I found out about the family’s search for a sympathetic buyer through social media posts. Fast forward a couple months, and the family never found a buyer who would agree not to knock it down. When I checked in with them, I found out they signed a contract to sell the property for $5.2 million to a local developer, whom they believe will knock down the house.
It’s a trend along the Jersey Shore — knocking down older, smaller homes and building newer, bigger ones.
Bob Penrose Jr., the oldest of eight siblings who own the property and president of Avalon’s historical society, isn’t sure what’s next for the Monstrosity. But before the sale is scheduled to close next month, he’s saving every element he can.
He spent eight hours over three days carefully removing the home’s original railing. Doors (and their trims and jambs) take two to three hours each to remove. “It’s surgery,” said Penrose, a builder who spent many years working on historical homes across Avalon.
Keep reading to learn more about the upcoming sale and why Penrose says the Monstrosity may live again.
The latest news to pay attention to
Here’s what organizers say they learned from a campaign to create a statewide home repair program in Pennsylvania.
Philadelphia City Councilmember Mark Squilla wants to require certain new developments in Chinatown to include income-restricted housing.
Abington’s Hollywood neighborhood has a glittering name and a complicated past.
A big, new apartment building is coming to an unexpected part of North Philly, and residents have concerns.
Haddon Heights residents have “cautious optimism” about their new neighbor, a transitional home for men.
Here’s why mortgages are costing more, even though the Federal Reserve has cut its benchmark interest rate.
At the site of the Wonderland Pier in Ocean City, a developer is planning to build a seven-story hotel.
House of the week: For $625,000 in Old City, an industrial style, three-bedroom condo with a parking space.
Is it too early to talk about decorating for post-Thanksgiving holidays? Nope!
November is the busiest time of year for the businesses that set up outdoor holiday decorations for homeowners.
Every year, more of these companies pop up. And more landscapers, electricians, and roofers are adding the service to their existing businesses.
Philly-area homeowners spend thousands of dollars to avoid having to climb ladders themselves to string lights and spread holiday cheer in their neighborhood. These companies also take down the lights in January.
Take a peek at some local light installations and find out why the holiday-lighting business has lit up in our area.
Sandra Webberking’s garden is full of plants that don’t need sun or water and never die.
Webberking is an artist and welder who makes sculptures of flowers and other objects in her Springfield home’s workshop, built by her father and grandfather.
She makes most of her sculptures from sheet metal. To create one of her large sunflowers, she cuts out as many as 28 metal petals that she arranges around a glass marble center.
Webberking has living plants, too. This summer, her garden won first place in the intermediate category in the Penn State Master Gardens of Delaware Valley competition.
She inherited the home her grandfather built in the 1940s. One of the house’s unique features is the turret he designed on the side. It’s made of stone and glass blocks.
Peek inside her property and see how she’s transformed her home’s former garage.
🧠 Trivia time
Last week, The Inquirer took a look inside Waste Management’s new Holmesburg recycling plant, which will handle materials from Philly and parts of surrounding counties. The plant replaces an older facility nearby that could separate 120,000 tons of paper, plastic, metal, and glass a year.
Question: How many tons of materials can the new plant handle per year?
A) 130,000
B) 145,000
C) 160,000
D) 200,000
This story has the answer.
📷 Photo quiz
Do you know the location this photo shows?
📮 If you think you do, email me back. You and your memories of visiting this spot might be featured in the newsletter.
Shoutout to Lars W., Deborah S., and Bruce H. for knowing that last week’s photo was of the Lemon Hill mansion in Fairmount Park.
Enjoy the rest of your week.
By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer’s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.