Lancaster Mews (photo from Lancastermewsapts.com).
Neighbors and all interested parties are invited this evening to learn more about the proposed demolition of Lancaster Mews, the redbrick apartment buildings and storefronts on the 3600 block of Lancaster Avenue, and discuss the future development of the block. This is a great opportunity to share your concerns about the proposed development. The meeting is hosted by Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell and will take place starting at 6 p.m. at Community Education Center’s Meeting House Theatre (3500 Lancaster Ave).
In addition to apartments, Lancaster Mews also houses several businesses and a day care center. According to an article by The Philadelphia Inquirer published earlier this month, the block-long row of houses built in the late 1870’s may be demolished and replaced by apartment buildings aimed mostly at students.
May 20th, 2015 at 2:30 pm
This is an extremely important meeting. If you want to see the irreplaceable historic urban fabric of West Philadelphia preserved, attend this meeting and show your support. Also West Philly Local, why the decision to publish this article about this meeting with such short notice? How many people might have wanted to attend yet had no idea it was happened until the following day or two afterward?
May 20th, 2015 at 2:49 pm
Unfortunately we didn’t know about the meeting until last night. Many thanks to our reader Marina Krikorian for letting us know.
May 20th, 2015 at 2:46 pm
this would be a tragedy if it were allowed to happen
May 20th, 2015 at 4:39 pm
If you want someone to be mad at, Jannie Blackwell, the host of the event, has yet to put notice of this meeting up on her Facebook page.
May 20th, 2015 at 5:02 pm
If you want to blame someone blame Jannie Blackwell who sat on historic preservation years ago designed to protect buildings just like these! I’m sure she just wants her tithe.
May 20th, 2015 at 5:15 pm
I apologize for calling out west Philly local about the lateness of the posting. If I had known that they themselves did not know until the last minute,I never would have.
Also yes I agree that Jannie Blackwell is to blame. Her decision to not to make a decision one way or the other on the Spruce Hill Historic District designation left that area vulnerable to demolition by developers as well as slumlords who can’t be bothered to make repairs that are sensitive to their historic properties.
May 20th, 2015 at 11:28 pm
Can we start working on voting Blackwell out next time around. Someone should have run against her this cycle, but now there’s Plenty of time for someone to run next cycle. Any ideas on who good candidates would be? There is no reason she should have this seat by right.
May 21st, 2015 at 9:09 am
Figures.What else can we do for those poor students!!! Why don’t they just take all the little league baseball fields why their at it.
May 21st, 2015 at 9:35 am
matthewgoodro:
I took unusually high pleasure in writing in “other” for district 3. I’d never did write in before and was surprised how simple it is. I posted earlier about a person contesting Blackwell. To do so, one needs 1,000 signatures. He got well over this – just under 1,500 I think, and the Blackwell people challenged enough signatures to get him tossed from the ballot. This isn’t the first time that’s happened to him. I don’t typically wish ill of people, but she seems to be about 100 years old and under investigation, so maybe we’ll just get lucky. She runs a pretty formidable machine, and getting a replacement is more than just finding a good person – it would take a good number of well organized people devoting a lot of time and it would take money.
May 21st, 2015 at 10:07 am
It didn’t even occur to me to vote “Other,” so I just didn’t vote in that race. There is plenty of time to find a credible challenger for next election.
May 21st, 2015 at 11:06 am
I just looked at the election results and Blackwell only won 93% of the vote, despite being unopposed. It may not seem like much, but all of the other unopposed candidates won more than 99%. Roughly one out of everyone 15 people who voted in the race voted for someone else (write/not sure what the other option is; the City Commissioner website says 1108 people voted for the line that was disqualified from the ballot, not sure how that works in practice), and that doesn’t take into account people like myself who just didn’t vote in the race because Blackwell was unopposed. The next election is a long way off, but Blackwell certainly looks vulnerable at the moment.
May 21st, 2015 at 11:08 am
Does anyone have anything to report from the meeting?
May 21st, 2015 at 11:10 am
Our report is coming soon. Stay tuned.
May 21st, 2015 at 11:25 am
Anon:
1000 of the 1100+ were for “removed from ballot.” Unless there was more than one, that would be Tony Dphax King. If you go to his page, his last effort was instructing people how to do the write in and asking them to vote for him.
May 21st, 2015 at 12:24 pm
BRT search: This property is not listed in the BRT. The BRT records are usually updated pretty fast. There is no public record for the BRT.
L&I: The L&I records also do not show the records of lot consolidation (which is usually updated within a few days in my experience). It appears to be the old records when 3600 was a separate lot with the daycare use.
If this were a subdivision/ re-consolidation of lots then this must have gone in front of the planning commission at some point? Is there any record available of that meeting to see what was discussed?
May 21st, 2015 at 12:36 pm
The president of Drexel is known for previously developing UPenn up to what it is today. Perhaps this pressure is coming from the offices of the president of Drexel?
May 21st, 2015 at 12:51 pm
Yes, it is listed you just don’t know how to search properly.
http://property.phila.gov/#account/881111200
May 21st, 2015 at 12:52 pm
Being that the lot at 3600 lancaster shares a lot line with RSA residential lots, any building over 25,000 SF gross floor area will require civic design review. In order to get the civic design review the local RCO will need to be notified and a meeting scheduled. I believe the local RCO in this case is the Powelton Village
May 21st, 2015 at 1:03 pm
oh sorry about the BRT and searching properly. I still could not find when they consolidated the lots. Maybe it was always consolidated? My mistake. This would have needed special approval and would have been a good time for the community to weigh in. If this has already been done then too late.
Anyway, I do not know of any ordinance that would limit a property owner’s right to demolish a building, unless its a historic building. Is there any chance that Lancaster avenue is a historic district?
May 22nd, 2015 at 11:12 am
Jannie Blackwell can be impeached if enough people sign the petition and show just cause.
For example MCIC rick Young and Saboor Muhamed with South West developement and well lets see her corruption with Christmas the Junior Black Mafia Mr. Youngblood, who has been in repeated, highly publicized scrapes with police, homeless advocates and other staffers, hadn’t disclosed his drug-dealing convictions, was using an alias and was ”inappropriate for a sensitive position.” or her affiliation with a known and convicted felon Imam Shamsud-din Ali Blackwell said that she had known Ali for almost 20 years and that she respects him and believes he is an honorable man. A prominent Muslim leader on Tuesday was convicted of using his political connections to obtain dubious loans, donations and city contracts _ the latest in a string of wins for federal prosecutors who have attacked the so-called “pay to play” culture in Philadelphia’s city government.
The investigation has led to the convictions and guilty pleas for more than a dozen people, including a former city treasurer, two bank executives and several business owners seeking city contracts.
The probe became public when police discovered an FBI bug in Mayor John F. Street’s office. The mayor has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged.
Shamsud-din Ali, the leader of a West Philadelphia mosque, was charged with 34 counts, chief among them a racketeering charge. After six days of deliberations, jurors found him guilty of 22 of those counts, including the racketeering charge. They found him not guilty of four counts and couldn’t reach a verdict in eight counts.
And Yet JANNIE BLACKWELL goes unscathed
May 22nd, 2015 at 11:14 am
Oh and the Hit and Run she committed in 2011
May 26th, 2015 at 2:06 pm
To be clear Drexel is not doing this demolition and does not support it. Its a private developer trying to knock down a historic mixed use stretch to cram as many student apartments as it can onto the lot instead of buying and improving one of the wider neighborhood’s empty lots.
Blackwell for all her faults is a politician and therefore not immune to the winds of public opinion. The point is to make her feel a hurricane.
May 7th, 2021 at 12:21 am
It’s so beautiful ❤️ to see that folks saw my website and a few actually followed my “write-in” instructions during my battle with Blackwell. I’ve moved on to a bigger and better fight now: State Senate! And you will love what I’m fighting for! Stay tuned….