Remaking Sharswood: Council approves eminent domain of seven properties in Sharswood

City Council unanimously approved an ordinance Thursday authorizing the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) to seize seven properties in Sharswood by eminent domain.

This will be PHA’s second round of condemnation in Sharswood, part of an ambitious project to transform the neighborhood by demolishing almost all of the Norman Blumberg Apartments, a 1960s public housing complex, and replacing that housing and much of the surrounding area with 1,200 units of mixed-income housing.  

Last year, City Council approved the condemnation of more than 1,300 properties in Sharswood. This smaller round aims to catch some of the properties PHA intended to condemn before, but was unable to due to issues like address discrepancies in public records. From Office of Property Assessment records and Google Streetview, all of the seven properties appear to be vacant, and all but one are empty lots.

Out of the original condemnation, 500 were already publicly owned and more than 1,100 were vacant lots. But 73 properties were occupied.

The properties newly authorized for condemnation by eminent domain are:

• 1537 Beechwood Street
• 2013 Ridge Avenue
• 2348 Harlan Street
• 2125 Ridge Avenue
• 2347 Oxford Street
• 2235-51 Stewart Street
• 2050 Redner Street 

For more, check out the stories in our series Remaking Sharswood.