The Historical Commission has created a historic district in Spruce Hill decades after designation was first proposed

The Spruce Hill neighborhood is one of the most intact Victorian neighborhoods in the country. And now, almost four decades after residents and preservationists first nominated the West Philadelphia neighborhood for historic designation, the area has its first historic district.

The Philadelphia Historical Commission voted unanimously Friday to create the Southeast Spruce Hill Historic District, a collection of 572 mostly residential and commercial properties. The district roughly is bounded by Spruce Street to the north, 39th Street to the east, Baltimore and Woodland Avenues to the south, and 43rd Street to the west.

About a third of the properties — 193 — already are designated as historic by the city. And properties within the district also are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a designation that does not come with demolition protections.

Owners of properties that are included in Philadelphia historic districts need the Historical Commission’s approval to make changes to the outside of buildings, and properties are shielded from demolition. Student housing companies that own many of the area’s architecturally notable townhouses have derailed past efforts to designate the neighborhood as historic and opposed the district’s creation.

Community efforts to historically designate the Spruce Hill neighborhood date back to 1987. A few years ago, a local civic organization renewed the stalled preservation campaign in an effort to protect the neighborhood’s Victorian homes from demolition.

» READ MORE: Spruce Hill Historic District is facing opposition from student housing companies

“Our research and collective knowledge indicates that this is the very best of West Philadelphia,” said Sharon Fleming, a historic preservation consultant and coauthor of the historic district nomination on behalf of the Spruce Hill Community Association.

The nomination said the district “exemplifies the cultural, political, economic, social, or historical heritage of the community, as an exemplary representation of West Philadelphia’s development as a streetcar suburb.”

“There’s an extraordinary degree of integrity to this district,” Fleming said at Friday’s Historical Commission meeting. She pointed out that 94% of the properties in the district are considered significant or contributing. The rest are considered noncontributing and subject to less review by the commission.

“I believe there’s no question that this is a historic district worth designating,” Fleming said.

Mark Brack, a professor emeritus at Drexel University who taught architectural history for decades, said the district is “remarkably intact.”

“I’m so glad that it’s moving forward, because there’s been a tendency in Philadelphia to concentrate so much upon our Colonial and early heritage once we achieved independence,” he said. “But let’s remember, we were the workshop of the world. And these buildings reflect that incredible history as well.”

Mary McGettigan has been a homeowner in the Spruce Hill neighborhood for 40 years and lives outside of the new district’s boundaries. Before the Historical Commission’s vote, she said she urged commissioners “to approve this worthy nomination and end our 37-year wait in this neighborhood.”

She said the victory is “somewhat bittersweet,” because during the last four decades, historically significant buildings have been demolished, “and the neighborhood has suffered an irreversible harm.”

“I eagerly await your future designation of my portion of the wonderful Spruce Hill section of Philadelphia,” she said.

The Spruce Hill Community Association had asked the Historical Commission to designate the “southeast quadrant” of an area that it wants to become a larger Spruce Hill Historic District. It plans to submit several nominations for different areas of the neighborhood that together would form the larger district.

Owners of student housing in the area — David Adelman’s Campus Apartments LLC and Michael Karp’s University City Housing — own more than 50 properties within the newly created district and objected to the civic organization’s piecemeal designation approach.

At Friday’s Historical Commission meeting, Michael V. Phillips, a zoning and land use attorney who is representing the property owners, argued that the Historical Commission should consider the entire neighborhood district at the same time.

The community association said it was dividing the neighborhood for the approval process to ease the burden on the Historical Commission. Almost 2,000 properties would be included in the larger district.

» READ MORE: Inga Saffron: Yes, Philly needs more affordable housing. Historic districts aren’t the problem.

On Friday, the commission changed the name of the proposed district from “Spruce Hill Historic District, Southeast Quadrant” to the Southeast Spruce Hill Historic District because of objections from the student housing owners.

Phillips argued that the nomination and originally proposed name suggested that if the commission historically designated this first area, it would be more likely to designate additional sections proposed later, because they would be part of the same district. Commission members pushed back on that argument, saying proposals are considered based on their individual merits.

Commissioners said the nomination for what is now the Southeast Spruce Hill Historic District stood on its own and was ready for review. But they decided to change language in the nomination to clarify.

Phillips said his clients opposed creation of the district on procedural grounds, because going into the meeting, they did not know whether debate would be focused on review of the proposed district on its own or evaluations of the merits of a larger district of which this district was one part.

“Campus Apartments and University City Housing did not take a position on the merits and did not analyze the merits” of the district, because they needed that clarity, which they got once commissioners decided to change language in the nomination, Phillips said.

He said his clients wanted a chance to examine their properties in the context of that decision.

Phillips earlier had asked the Historical Commission to delay consideration of the district for 90 days while it hired an expert to look at individual properties to assess whether they should be considered contributing or noncontributing and whether the district’s boundaries are appropriate.

The commission denied that request Friday and decided to move ahead with its vote.