The city’s Redevelopment Authority selected a local developer to rebuild the residential blocks destroyed in the 1985 MOVE bombing.

If approved by the authority’s board, Philadelphia-based builders AJR Endeavors LLC will rebuild the 36 homes hastily constructed after the bombing on the 6200 blocks of Osage Avenue and Pine Street in the Cobbs Creek section of West Philadelphia. The project will cost an estimated $3.2 million and AJR Endeavors’ bid was one of two received by the authority. The agreement will require construction to be completed within two years of its start.

The fire that destroyed more than 50 neighboring homes began after police dropped a small bomb from a helicopter on a home at 6221 Osage Ave. following a long standoff with members of the black liberation group MOVE who had barricaded themselves inside. Eleven people, including five children, were killed. 

Only about half of the residences built after the fire are occupied and the others have fallen into disrepair.

Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell welcomed the Redevelopment Authority’s decision.

“We needed a developer who is sensitive to the complexities of the project and the community dynamics,” she said in a statement. “Restoring these homes is a difficult task, but it is the right one, and the one the community wanted. We will continue to work together throughout this process.”

AJR Endeavors may be familiar to readers as the company that proposed to build on the Wiota Street Community Garden site. Although it had Blackwell’s backing, the Redevelopment Authority rejected the plan.

The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission recently approved a historical marker for the site of the bombing, according to The Philadelphia Tribune. The site was nominated by the Jubilee School, where students have been studying the attack for the past two years.