City Seeks to Compel Repair of Historic Girard Warehouses
By Stephan Salisbury, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Oct. 11–In an effort to prevent potentially catastrophic deterioration of the Girard Warehouses at Front and Market Streets, the city has gone to court seeking to compel the owners to stabilize the six teetering historic buildings.
In papers filed Friday in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, the city outlined a history of code violations, lapsed building permits, and failed enforcement efforts.
A hearing was scheduled for today, and city officials said they would seek substantial fines to back up enforcement efforts.
Rear-wall sections of two Girard buildings collapsed in May; structurally important window and door supports have been removed, apparently without permits; and openings throughout the complex have been left unsealed, according to court documents.
The Girard Warehouses were built by either Stephen Girard or his estate in the late 1820s; they are one of the last remaining fragments of the city’s commercial sailing past. And with the demolition of 19th-century buildings at Front and Chestnut Streets this year, they constitute a rare intact historic block near the Delaware River.
The buildings are owned by 20-30 North Front Street L.L.C., a private partnership. BRP Development, a New York City developer that has served as the public face of the partnership, obtained approvals to convert the long-vacant buildings into luxury condominiums in 2006.
Geoff Flournoy, a BRP cofounder, said yesterday that his firm and partners had every intention of stabilizing, shoring up, sealing and protecting the buildings. He pointed out that the partnership had owned the warehouses only since 2005; for about 40 years before that, the vacant buildings were owned by the city Board of Trusts.
“We’re proceeding with the development as planned,” Flournoy said. After the rear-wall collapse, he said, the firm brought in a structural-engineering firm and identified “about six or seven things to do” to stabilize the structures.
“We completed about half of the things on the list, but the balance of things involved some very heavy, heavy lifting,” Flournoy said. They included reconstructing the rear walls, repairing windows and doors, and performing extensive brickwork.
“That work is scheduled to proceed shortly,” he said.
City officials said the Philadelphia Historical Commission and the Department of Licenses and Inspections had continuously monitored work on the structures. The Girard buildings are certified locally, listed as significant structures in the Old City Historic District, and listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings.
Within a day or two of the spring’s wall collapse, L&I inspectors cited the owners for a variety of code violations and ordered repairs, according to court papers. Last month, citations and repair orders were issued again.
City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. said yesterday that the city went to court only when it believed there had been an “apparent stoppage of the work” on the site. This led to concerns “about the potential for abandonment or further damage.”
Diaz also said the demolition of historic buildings at Front and Chestnut Streets during the summer — after an L&I inspector declared them unsafe — added to the concern over the Girard Warehouses.
“The recent [demolition] experience is one we don’t want to see repeated,” Diaz said. “Also, even if we hadn’t had the recent experience, there is an enforceable responsibility of the landowner to protect historic property. That’s just the way the law operates. . . . This is a valuable resource to the community, and it’s the responsibility of the landowner to protect it.”
Contact culture writer Stephan Salisbury at 215-854-5594 or ssalisbury@phillynews.com.
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