With deal for use of Market Street site, Philly officials hope to recoup $50M

The West Philly property was envisioned as new police headquarters, but plans changed after the city undertook massive renovations.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney says the deal will help the city recover some of more than $50 million it spent on renovations. (Tom MacDonald, WHYY)

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney says the deal will help the city recover some of more than $50 million it spent on renovations. (Tom MacDonald, WHYY)

The city of Philadelphia has a deal to unload a property once pegged as the new home of the Philadelphia Police Department.

Under the agreement with a private developer, the space at 4601 Market Street will become a health campus, Mayor Jim Kenney said Monday. The deal will help the city recover some of more than $50 million it spent on renovations.

“The work that was done at 4601 Market needed to be done anyway,” he said. “It needed a new roof, it needed new windows and it needed interior demolition.”

City officials changed their minds on the location, and the former Philadelphia Inquirer building on North Broad Street will become the new police headquarters.

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Once the city sells the current police headquarters — known as the “Roundhouse” — at Eighth and Race streets, Kenney said he hopes to recoup the funds spent on renovating the West Philadelphia location.

Properties that will be up for sale, he said, are “No. 1, the ‘Roundhouse,’ the Sixth Police District building and the medical examiner’s office. So, in the end, it will all come out even.”

As city officials consider consolidating those operations at the North Broad Street site, Kenney said they will seek  community input before anything moves forward.

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