The owner of the beleaguered Bistro at Cherry Hill, a longtime mall fixture that closed this summer amid bankruptcy proceedings, has been indicted on charges of tax fraud.
The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office announced the indictment against Andrew Cosenza Jr. on Tuesday, saying an investigation found that he had failed to send the state more than $270,000 in sales tax paid by Bistro customers in 2021 and 2022.
The 57-year-old Cherry Hill resident was indicted Oct. 29 on several charges, including tax fraud.
“Everyone is required to pay their fair share of taxes,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin said in the statement. “This form of tax fraud will not be tolerated.”
Cosenza did not return a request for comment on Tuesday. No defense attorney was listed on court documents as of Tuesday, and an attorney representing Cosenza in a new Chapter 11 bankruptcy case did not return requests for comment.
Cosenza had owned the Bistro at Cherry Hill for more than 25 years. The beloved restaurant operated out of a 12,000-square-foot kiosk in the middle of the Cherry Hill Mall. This summer, it closed abruptly, saddening loyal customers.
In July, Cosenza told The Inquirer that the sudden closure was the result of a communication “breakdown” regarding a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition that he filed in May. It was the restaurant’s second bankruptcy filing since 2017.
While Cosenza was incapacitated by medical issues over the summer, he said the Bistro’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition had been converted to a Chapter 7, which involves the liquidation of assets, without his consent. Cosenza said his brother showed up to open the Bistro on July 10 and found the doors locked.
The Cherry Hill Mall, where the Bistro at Cherry Hill operated for 27 years, is shown in January.
“This is not a case of mismanagement or inability to meet financial obligations,” Cosenza said in a July interview. He said that the bankruptcy was the result of lingering pandemic-related issues and that he had a plan for repaying his debts.
In early October, the Bistro’s bankruptcy case was dismissed. Cosenza told The Inquirer on Oct. 10, two weeks before the indictment, that he planned to keep fighting to reopen the Bistro. On Oct. 15, he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a small-business debtor.
The charges against Cosenza stem from a 2023 joint investigation by the New Jersey Division of Taxation’s Office of Criminal Investigation and the Division of Criminal Justice. Investigators said they found discrepancies between the gross sales tax amounts that Cosenza reported on his business tax returns and the amounts turned over to the state.
If found guilty of the charges, Cosenza could face five years or more in state prison and fines of more than $150,000, according to the prosecutor’s office.
A Main Line developer’s plan to turn a shuttered steel mill into a 2-million-square-foot AI data center on the outskirts of Conshohocken was stymied Monday when he was forced to withdraw his application over legal issues.
At the Plymouth Township zoning hearing board meeting, Brian O’Neill’s team had been set to make their case for an exception that would allow a data center to be built at 900 Conshohocken Rd.
The plan has faced neighborhood pushback, and hundreds of people packed the meeting room on Monday night. O’Neill did not appear to be among them.
Edmund J. Campbell Jr., an attorney for O’Neill, said they wished to move the hearing to the township’s December meeting. Then an attorney for Cleveland-Cliffs, the property owner, said the prospective buyer did not have legal standing to do so.
An agreement of sale had not been approved prior to the meeting, said Heather Fine, the attorney for Cleveland-Cliffs.
Heather Fine, an attorney for Cleveland-Cliffs, addresses the Plymouth Township zoning hearing board on Monday.
Campbell later asked Fine and then the board for permission to withdraw the application. Both declined to provide additional comment.
Residents who had spent more than a month organizing in opposition to the project said they had mixed emotions.
“It is the smallest of small wins, because we’re making it harder for something bad to happen to our community,” said Nick Liermann, an attorney who lives in a neighborhood near the former steel mill. “But we will be back in this room in a few months.”
“Communities can be effective,” said Patti Smith, a neighbor of Liermann who has spearheaded the local data-center opposition efforts. “We have to stand up for ourselves.”
With the withdrawal, the data center proposal is officially off the docket in Plymouth Township, zoning officer Joel Rowe said, but the applicant can resubmit a plan at any time, restarting the process.
What the data center proposal entailed
The now-closed Cleveland-Cliffs plant near Conshohocken is shown in this 2023 file photo. A data center has been proposed for the site.
This latest development in the Conshohocken-area data center saga occurs amid broader controversy about such facilities, which handle cloud-computing and storage for Big Tech companies.
The construction of data centers has been fast-tracked to meet the growing demands of power-hungry AI tools like ChatGPT. Politicians on both sides of the aisle, including President Donald Trump and Gov. Josh Shapiro, have pushed for more centers, while some neighbors near proposed sites have mounted fierce pushback.
In the Philadelphia area, Amazon is building a 2-million-square-foot data center on a former steel mill in Falls Township, Bucks County. And a 1.3-million-square-foot data center has been proposed at the former Pennhurst State School and Hospital in East Vincent Township, Chester County.
In Plymouth Township, O’Neill had not revealed the potential tenant for his proposed data center, but indicated it would be related to the life sciences.
The data center is proposed for a 66-acre property along the Schuylkill in the Connaughtown section of the township. The site is less than a mile from downtown Conshohocken. Its neighbors include the Proving Grounds sports complex, Tee’s Golf Center, and dozens of homes.
A crowd of people leave the Plymouth Township zoning hearing board meeting on Monday.
Some Connaughtown residents, along with other data center opponents from across the Philadelphia region, have rallied against the proposal. As of Tuesday, more than 1,000 people had signed an online petition urging township officials not to grant a zoning exception for the data center, citing concerns about light, noise, and air pollution; water usage; and electricity costs.
O’Neill, meanwhile, had argued that a data center should be permitted in the “heavy industrial” zone due its to similarity to a warehouse and laboratory, which are both permitted uses under township code. He had also touted the center’s potential economic benefits, saying it could bring in $21 million in annual tax revenue and attract other companies to the area.
“Industry hasn’t come and gone. It’s simply changed,” O’Neill said at last month’s planning board meeting. “What I’m proposing is to put 21st-century industry into an industrial building.”
Why the data center plan was withdrawn
The Plymouth Township zoning hearing board had been set to hear Brian O’Neill’s proposal for an AI data center outside Conshohocken on Monday.
At the start of Monday’s standing-room-only meeting, Plymouth Township officials were expecting a long and potentially tense night.
Solicitor Dave Sander began by warning the crowd that they must maintain decorum, and said he would cut off the proceedings at 10 p.m. Police officers stood outside the room.
Quickly, however, it became clear that Campbell, O’Neill’s attorney, had other plans, requesting a continuance to the Dec. 15 meeting. If granted, it would have marked the hearing’s second continuance: The proposal was initially supposed to be discussed at an October meeting.
“My client would like an additional opportunity to review with [community members] the project,” Campbell said. “When we proceed, if we have had a more robust dialogue with those participants, this hearing on the 15th would be significantly more efficient.”
Neighbors, some of whom had already attended a private meeting with O’Neill last month, objected to the last-minute request, saying that it was unlikely their minds would be changed if no significant changes had been made to the plan.
“Is the proposal significantly different than what was displayed to community members at the Oct. 8 meeting?” asked Smith, who organized neighborhood opposition.
Patti Smith, resident and organizer of anti-data center movement in the neighborhood, addresses the Plymouth Township zoning hearing board at Monday’s meeting.
“No,” Campbell responded, later adding that they wanted more residents to be able to attend the meeting and hear from their experts who could speak to concerns, including about noise and emissions.
Before the zoning hearing board could vote on the continuance request, Fine, the attorney for property owner Cleveland-Cliffs, took to the podium.
“There is no standing for the prospective buyer to proceed with the application this evening,” Fine said. “That authority was not extended to the prospective buyer from the owner. There is no LOI [letter of intent] in place.”
“My client delivered a signed agreement of sale to the owner this evening,” Campbell said. “Based on that, we have standing. … We made our application with the express consent of the owner.”
Sander turned to Fine, asking if that was true.
“It’s not entirely true, no,” Fine said. “The signed agreement that was transmitted to my colleague at 5:51 p.m. this evening had redline changes. Those have not been accepted by my client.”
She did not elaborate on what those changes entailed.
The zoning hearing board recessed before returning to accept Campbell’s motion to withdraw the application.
As a neighbor to the site, Liermann said the unexpected turn of events left him with a more sour taste in his mouth about the developer: “The last-minute request in an attempt to obstruct the process and dissuade the public from participating, and then this ‘confusion’ over whether or not an LOI was actually signed between the developer and the owner, is incredibly disturbing.”
For the Nowell family, the outlets are an annual tradition.
Every Veterans Day, a dozen relatives venture to Limerick Township in Montgomery County, where they kick off their holiday shopping at the Philadelphia Premium Outlets.
Even this year, as bitter winds whipped through the outdoor plaza, the family was undeterred.
After a morning of shopping, the multigenerational group, which included two veterans, warmed up with their yearly food-court lunch, courtesy of matriarch Geri Nowell, 77, of Telford. Then, the men returned to the cars and dropped off dozens of shopping bags, which they’d been carting around in a wagon. The women walked on, hunting for their next find among the more than 130 shops.
The Nowell family poses in front of a holiday backdrop during their annual outing to the Philadelphia Premium Outlets.
“It’s super fun,” said Ann Blaney, 47, of Drexel Hill.
“We get great deals,” added Kim Woodman, 55, of Hatboro.
The tradition is an experience they say can’t be replicated online. The fact that the complex is open-air and contained in a 550,000-square-foot plaza somehow adds to the fun, they said.
As Kathy Nelson, 48, of Broomall, browsed the outlets with her friends, she said she also shops at the nearly 3 million-square-foot King of Prussia Mall, less than 20 miles away. But otherwise, she said, “there aren’t many indoor malls left” with the variety of stores she prefers.
Outlets have always accounted for a fraction of the in-person retail market, which is partly why there have been few headlines about dying outlet malls. But some of the country’s roughly 200 outlet malls seem to be downright thriving, with full parking lots on weekends, few vacant stores, and relatively strong revenue.
Shoppers walk by the tree at the Philadelphia Premium Outlets on Nov. 11.
The Philadelphia region’s two major outlet malls — the Philadelphia Premium Outlets in Limerick Township and the Gloucester Premium Outlets, both owned by Simon Property Group — are more than 92% occupied, according to a count by The Inquirer during visits to each location this month. Both outlets have found success despite being less than 20 miles from thriving indoor malls in King of Prussia and Cherry Hill.
Tanger Outlets, which has locations in Atlantic City and Lancaster, recently reported more than 97% occupancy across its 39 open-air centers and an increase in average tenant sales per square foot.
“Outlets do good in good times and great in bad times,” said Lisa Wagner, a longtime consultant for outlets, repeating a common refrain in the industry.
The centers have evolved amid the broader push toward more experiential retail and most now have a mix of discount stores and full-price retailers. But they have done so while embracing their reputation as the go-to destination for snagging deals, said Wagner, a principal at the Outlet Resource Group.
“Honestly no one knew what was going to happen after COVID, but [the outlets] came out incredibly strong,” she said. More recently, the retail industry has been rattled by tariffs and economic uncertainty. The outlets have not been immune to those challenges, but they have held strong despite them.
“People want value right now,” Wagner said. “They need it.”
The Philadelphia Premium Outlets has more than 130 stores in its 500,000-square-foot complex.
Outlet malls become one-stop shops
On a rainy, early November Sunday, hundreds of people descended on the Gloucester Premium Outlets.
Shoppers pulled up hoods and huddled under umbrellas as they made their way from store to store. Many balanced several large bags bearing brand names like Columbia and Kate Spade, Rally House and Hey Dude shoes. Some munched on Auntie Anne’s pretzels or sipped Starbucks from holiday cups. An acoustic version of Jingle Bells played over the speakers.
For some, the dreary, drizzly weather was even more reason to spend their afternoon at the 86-store complex in Blackwood, Camden County, about 15 miles outside Philadelphia.
With two young children in tow, Jessica Bonsu, 30, of Sicklerville, was on a mission.
“We came out to go to the indoor playground,” called Stay & Play, Bonsu said, pointing to her rambunctious kids. “Just to get some energy out.”
“And then we can also get some shopping done,” added her cousin, Taneisha Laume, 30, who was visiting from D.C. She needed a gift for her uncle. “Kill two birds with one stone.”
Shoppers peruse the stores at the Gloucester Premium Outlets in this 2019 file photo.
These kind of multipurpose visits are buoying outlet malls, which are increasingly becoming mixed-use destinations for dining, drinking, entertainment, and shopping.
“You’re coming for a little bit of everything,” said Gerilyn Davis, director of marketing and business development at Philadelphia Premium Outlets.
The Limerick Township complex recently welcomed a slate of new tenants, including Marc Jacobs’ first Pennsylvania outlet store, a BOSS outlet, an Ulta Beauty, and an outpost of central Pennsylvania’s Nissley Vineyards, which has an outdoor seating area.
Shoppers walk by the Nissley Vineyards store at the Philadelphia Premium Outlets.
New Balance, whose shoes are trendy again, is also opening stores in both the Philadelphia and Gloucester outlets.
Justin Stein, Tanger’s executive vice president of leasing, said the North-Carolina-based company is focused on adding more food, beverage, and entertainment options.
While overall occupancy at its Atlantic City center is lower than others, the complex has a Dave & Buster’s and a Ruth’s Chris steakhouse. The Simpson, a Caribbean restaurant and bar, is also set to open there in early 2026.
In Lancaster, Tanger is looking to add food and beverage options, Stein said. But that center is still performing well, with a 97% occupancy rate, according to an online map, and only two vacancies.
When there are places to eat and drink at the outlets, “people stay longer,” Stein said, “and when they stay longer, they spend more.”
Philadelphia Premium Outlets had a steady crowd on a bitter cold Veterans Day.
From ‘no frills’ to outlets of the future
Today’s outlet malls look vastly different from what Wagner calls the “no frills” complexes of the 1990s.
At the time, an outlet mall served as “a release valve for excess goods,” Wagner said. “There were some stores that had really broken merchandise.”
To comply with branding rules and avoid competition with department stores, outlet malls were often located along highways between two major metro areas, she said.
“What became clear is that customers loved it,” Wagner said. Soon, brands started overproducing to supply these outlet stores with products in an array of a sizes and colors.
This effort to bulk up outlet offerings was “a roaring success,” she said, with companies finding that more than a third of outlet customers went on to buy their products at full price at other locations.
Philadelphia Premium Outlets, which opened in 2007, has very few vacant storefronts.
As their popularity rose, more outlet malls were built across the country.
As the centers look to the future, their executives are continuing to hone their identity as “not just a discount-and-clearance center,” said Deanna Pascucci, director of marketing and business development at Gloucester Premium Outlets.
Center leaders are bringing in food trucks, leaning into rewards programs, and promoting community events, such as Gloucester’s holiday tree lighting,which took place Saturday. Starting Black Friday, the Philadelphia Premium Outlets will offer Santa photos after a successful pilot program last year.
And the complexes are finding new ways to attract and retain shoppers, online and in real life.
Tanger recently announced an advertising partnership with Unrivaled Sports, which operates youth sports complexes, including the Ripken Baseball Experience in Aberdeen, Md., an hour drive from its Lancaster outlets. Stein said the company hopes to attract families looking to pass the time between tournament games.
Tanger is also using AI and data analytics to email specific deals to customers based on where they’ve previously shopped, Stein said.
“We want you to start your experience online and end it in the store,” Stein said.
Shoppers walk by a new Ulta store at the Philadelphia Premium Outlets.
At Simon outlets, customers can search a store’s inventory online before they make the trip, Davis said.
“Online shopping at this point, it’s a complement,” Davis said. “It’s not viewed as competition.”
Wagner, the outlet consultant, said she thinks even more centers will be built in the coming years, with a focus on urban and close-in suburban locations that are accessible by public transit.
As for existing centers, she sees them thriving for the foreseeable future.
“As long as outlets continue to emphasize a value message and use their loyalty programs to reward customers,” Wagner said, “I think they will hold their own.”
Another experiential retail concept is coming to the region. This time it’s a live social-gaming venue at the King of Prussia Mall.
Massachusetts-based Level99 announced this week that it plans to bring its next “sprawling adult playground” to the Montgomery County shopping destination in 2027. The move marks the company’s first foray into the Philadelphia market.
The 46,000-square-foot venue will include 50 “life-size mini games” geared toward adults, according to a news release, and a full-service restaurant and bar serving local craft beer.
“Level99 goes beyond your conventional entertainment venue — it’s a place to play, explore, and actively connect,” Matthew DuPlessie, founder and CEO of Level99, said in a statement.
The venue is moving into the ground floor of the former JCPenney, which closed in 2017.
It will be across the mall from the 100,000-square-foot Netflix House. The immersive experience for fans of the streaming service’s shows is set to open Nov. 12 in the former Lord & Taylor department store.
Level99 customers race through the venue’s signature “Axe Run” game, one of 50 mini-challenges set to be part of King of Prussia’s location when it opens in 2027.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Level99 to King of Prussia, further elevating our commitment to delivering dynamic, experience-driven destinations,” Mark Silvestri, president of development for mall owner Simon Property Group, said in a statement. ”This innovative concept brings a new layer of interactive entertainment to King of Prussia and is a perfect complement to our growing lineup of immersive offerings.”
In the Philadelphia region, Cherry Hill Mall is set to open a Dick’s House of Sport next year. The 120,000-square-foot space will include a climbing wall, golf simulators, a running track, and batting and soccer cages.
And along with the forthcoming Netflix House, the King of Prussia Mall recently opened the Philadelphia area’s first Eataly, a 21,000-square-food Italian-centric marketplace and wine shop.
At Level99 venues, customers can choose from 50 mini-games that test mental and physical skills.
At existing Level99 locations, pricing starts at $29.99 per person for two hours of play, according to its website. Prices increase on weekends and holidays, and if a customer wants more time.
Level99 is supported by Act III Holdings, a $1.5 billion private-equity investment firm led by Panera Bread cofounder and Cava chairman Ron Shaich. Last month, Act III executives announced a $50 million commitment to the chain’s expansion into new markets, including Philadelphia.
South Philadelphia is set to get a new supermarket in early 2026.
New York-based Met Fresh is on track to open its first Philly location in January inside the former Walgreens at Broad and Snyder Streets, said owner Omar Hamdan.
The 13,000-square-foot supermarket will include a pharmacy, a fresh-cut produce department, and a deli counter, Hamdan said, and will offer free grocery and prescription delivery to area seniors. It is also applying for a license to sell beer and wine.
The former Walgreens at 2014 S. Broad St., where Met Fresh’s first Philly location is set to open in early 2026, photographed on Wednesday.
“We try to bring the human factor back into the market,” Hamdan said, adding that the company’s philosophy hearkens back to a simpler time: “That store owner who had the apron and was sweeping outside of his store, who said ‘good morning’ to everyone? That is what we do.”
Met Foods, a family-owned company, has been operating markets in New York City for 15 years, Hamdan said. It currently has locations in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and northern New Jersey.
When the South Philly grocer opens, it will mark Met Fresh’s first location outside the New York City area, Hamdan said.
Since then, Hamdan said they continued to look for potential Philadelphia locations. The store at 2014 S. Broad Street seemed like “a perfect fit,” he said, due to the area’s walkability, dense population, and a demand for more grocery stores and pharmacies.
The “pharmacy” lettering is seen on a former Walgreens on South Broad Street, where Met Fresh plans to open a supermarket in early 2026 after “extensive” renovations, its owner said.
From the Broad Street store, the nearest supermarket is seven-tenths of a mile away. As for chain pharmacies, the Walgreens closed last year, and a Rite Aid across the street shuttered this summer as the Philly-based company went out of business. So the nearest large drugstore is a CVS off Passyunk Avenue, also seven-tenths of a mile away.
The Met Fresh will soon start hiring in South Philly, with Hamdan noting that his stores typically need 30 to 40 part- and full-time employees from the surrounding communities. The new location will open after “extensive” renovations, Hamdan said, and once the team gets ahold of refrigeration equipment, which has been impacted by tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Hamdan said he’s excited for Philly consumers to be introduced to Met Fresh, calling the Broad Street spot “a test pilot to see how we do in the Philly market.”
Three large stand-alone parking garages have been proposed in Philadelphia this year, unusual projectsin a city where parking operators have long complained that high taxation makes it difficult to run a business.
The latest is a 372-unit garage near Fishtown and Northern Liberties at 53-67 E. Laurel St. near the Fillmore concert hall and the Rivers Casino.
“There’s been about 2,500 units that have come online within a 5- to 10-minute walk” of the planned garage, said Aris Kufasimes, director of operations with developer Bridge One Management. “When you’re building those on 7-1 [apartments to parking spaces] ratios, that leaves a massive hole. Where is everybody going to put their vehicles?”
Despite central Philadelphia’s walkability and high levels of transit access, two other developers have made similar calculations this year.
In the spring, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) revealed plans for a 1,005-space parking garage in Grays Ferry along with a shuttle service to spirit employees to the main campus a mile away.
In August, University Place Associates unveiled plans for a 495-unit garage. About a fourth of it will be reserved for the use of the city’s new forensic lab, but the rest will be open to the public.
All three projects have baffled environmentalists and urbanists, who thought Philadelphia was moving away from car-centric patterns of late 20th-century development.
It’s also surprised parking operators in the city, who say national construction cost trends and high local taxation make it difficult to turn a profit.
Legacy parking companies in Philadelphia like E-Z Park and Parkway Corp. have been selling garages and surface lots for redevelopment as anything other than parking. They say the city has lost 10,000 publicly available spaces in the last 15 years, bringing the total to about 40,000 in Center City.
“I don’t think I’ll ever build another stand-alone parking facility,” said Robert Zuritsky, president of Parkway Corp. and board chair of the National Parking Association. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Zuritsky and other parking companies have long noted that operators in Philadelphia, who often have unionized workforces, get hit with parking, wage, property, and the Use and Occupancy Tax.
When combined with the soaring cost of building new spaces across the nation, it’s difficult to turn a profit in Philadelphia.
A rendering of the Fishtown garage, looking towards the Delaware River.
Zuritsky says it costs $60,000-$70,000 a space to build an aboveground lot in today’s environment and $100,000 to $150,000 below ground.
“It’s like building a house for a car,” he said.
Depending on hyperlocal peculiarities, Zuritsky says that taxation in Center City can eat up to 60% of the money they bring in and that to profit from new construction, an operator would have to charge $3,000 per space a month.
“I wish people luck, the ones that are moving in,” said Harvey Spear, president of E-Z Park. “Between taxes, insurance, and labor, it comes to, like, 70-some percent of what we take in. We have more equipment now that does away with a lot of labor; we’re trying to compensate with that.”
Urbanist and environmental advocates, meanwhile, have condemned the new garage projects, arguing that they will add to carbon emissions, air pollution, and traffic congestion.
“A massive parking garage less than half a mile from the El [in Fishtown] is the wrong direction for any city that claims to take climate action seriously,” said Ashlei Tracy, deputy executive director with the Pennsylvania Bipartisan Climate Initiative. “SEPTA is already working to get more people out of cars and onto transit, but projects like this one and the one from CHOP only make that harder.”
Here are the parking projects in the pipeline.
Fishtown: 372 spaces
The garage, with architecture by Philadelphia-based Designblendz, doesn’t just contain parking. It includes close to 14,000 square feet of commercial space on the first floor, which the developer hopes to rent to a restaurant — or two — on the edges of one of Philadelphia’s hottest culinary scenes.
Another over 16,000-square-foot restaurant space is planned for the top floor, with views of the skyline and river. Both the top and bottom floors also could be used as event spaces.
Kufasimes says that this aspect of the project could partly offset the kinds of costs that parking veterans warn of.
“Our due diligence team went through those numbers and vetted them pretty thoroughly: The returns are what they needed to be,” Kufasimes said. “It’s got a multifunction of income streams, so we think that that really will help play a larger role.”
Kufasimes also said a parking garage made sense in an area that’s seen more development than almost any other corner of Philadelphia. When investors purchased the land at 53-67 E. Laurel St. and approached his company for ideas, they met with other stakeholders in the neighborhood and determined parking would be appreciated.
“It wasn’t necessarily all about the profit,” Kufasimes said. “A lot of people this day and age, that is their number-one goal. If this is a slightly lower return in the long run but can be better accepted by the community as a whole, we think that actually raises the value of the asset.”
An overhead-perspective rendering of the Fishtown garage.
At an October meeting of the Fishtown Neighbors Association, that argumentappeared to pay off. Unlike most community meetings where a large new development is proposed, there were no adamant opponents of the project. The project also includes a 20,000-square-foot outdoor space, a green roof, and a to-be-decided public art component. All of that helped, too.
“It’s nice seeing a parking garage, of all things, be as pedestrian-friendly and thoughtful as this,” one speaker said during the Zoom meeting.
Dubbed University Place 5.0, it largely exists because of a major expansion of the municipal bureaucracy west of the Schuylkill.
For years the city has sought a new location for its criminal forensics laboratory. The debate became heated in City Hall, with numerous Council members making the case for locations within their districts.
Councilmember Jamie Gauthier pushed for its location in University City Place 3.0, a newly built, state-of-the-art life sciences building that was coming online just as its intended industry was slowing down in the face of higher interest rates.
To get the crime lab, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration said the police department would need ample parking. That’s where the new garage comes in.
In June, Gauthier passed a zoning overlay that cleared away the regulatory hurdles to the project. Six weeks later, the developers revealed University City Place 5.0, which has 29 parking spaces on the ground floor reserved for official use by forensics vehicles and 100 spaces reserved for city employees.
A rendering of the proposed University City parking garage as seen from 42nd and Filbert Streets.
Designed by Philadelphia-based ISA Architects, the garage is also meant to serve University Place Associate’s other large developments in the area. Akin to the Fishtown garage, they have also sought to make the development pedestrian friendly, with a dog park, green space, and public art.
The local community group, West Powelton Saunders Park RCO, also embraced the proposal.
“The community met regarding this project back in August, and … they were all in support of this project,” Pamela Andrews, president of the West Powelton Saunders Park RCO, said at the city’s September Civic Design Review meeting. “We have a tremendous problem with parking, and the community members felt this was a much needed and welcome addition.”
Grays Ferry: 1,005 parking spaces
CHOP’s thousand-car parking garage by far has been the most controversial of the proposals. But it also makes the most economic sense for the owner. Unlike the other garages — or those owned by Parkway and E-Z Park — it will be owned by a nonprofit and exempted from many of the taxes that make it so expensive to own parking in Philadelphia.
A rendering of the new parking garage CHOP plans for Grays Ferry.
The hospital purchased the property at 3000 Grays Ferry Ave., next to the Donald Finnegan Playground, for almost $25 million last year.
The seven-story development, which, plans show, would have far fewer amenities than its University City and Fishtown counterparts, is meant to serve CHOP’s new research facilities in Fitler Square and the new patient tower set to open in 2028.
“We recently secured permits and have begun construction on the new parking garage at 3000 Grays Ferry Ave.,” a CHOP spokesperson said. “The full construction is expected to go through the fall of 2026. CHOP continues to engage with the community by providing support, timely updates and addressing feedback during construction.”
At the time of its unveiling, CHOP argued that the massive garage was needed as SEPTA threatened to become unreliable due to a political funding crisis in Harrisburg. But detractors appeared almost immediately to denounce the hospital for worsening air quality in a lower-income neighborhood that is already a hot spot for asthma.
There are no regulatory hurdles to the development, but changes in the political or economic landscape could make it difficult to embark on a large capital project. Notably, the University of Pennsylvania proposed an 858-space garage in 2023 for the nearby Pennovation Center and has never broken ground.
An antiquated industrial building at 142-144 N. Broad St. is being converted to 99 apartments and over 4,000 square feet in restaurant space.
The seven-story building previously served as a car showroom with vehicle elevators and a factory. It has been empty for years.
“It’s gone through a couple of owners,” said Carolina Pena, principal at Parallel Architecture Studio, which is working on the project. “We’re doing an interior renovation. There are no additions proposed. We’re trying to retrofit the existing garage into apartments.”
The building’s previous owner, John Wei, has been selling off property across the Callowhill area in recent years in the face of mounting financial difficulties. He purchased 142-144 N. Broad in 2022 for $7 million.
The property sold in August for $6.2 million to a company called Penn Hall Investment LLC.
In zoning applications filed with the city earlier this month, the owners are listed as Qiaozhen Huang and Yizhou Li with their business address as 300 E. Allegheny Ave. in Kensington.
Philadelphia-based Parallel Architecture Studio, which is designing the project for the latest developers, also served as the architect for an earlier iteration of the property, when Wei sought to use it to house a 115-room hotel.
Pre-pandemic permits show a proposal for an even larger hotel from another developer and architect.
“It’s more stable financially this way,” said Pena, of Parallel Architecture. “It’s harder to get financing for hotels than to get financing for apartments.”
Pena projects a construction timeline of 18 to 24 months. The apartments will be designed for single-person households.
“We have some studios, some one-bedrooms,” Pena said. “They’ll be around 600 square feet.”
A view of 142-44 N. Broad St. (black PARK sign). Zoning permits have been pulled for a conversion of the long-vacant tower to residential and restaurant use.
The current Penn Hall project does not require any action from the zoning board because 142 N. Broad St. is in the most flexible zoning district in the city.
Bicycle parking and four automobile spaces will be available in the tower’s existing small underground parking facility.
In 2017, the city issued an “unsafe structure” violation for the building, but the owners at the time shored it up. No violation of that magnitude has been issued since.
The development along North Broad Street has been advancing at a slow but steady pace since the Great Recession.
Philadelphia developer Eric Blumenfeld’s string of popular projects along the thoroughfare, including The Met and the Divine Lorraine, started the redevelopment trend.
Other developers such as Alterra Property Group have added hundreds of new apartments to the area, and the Philadelphia Ballet’s new building is opening soon. Closer to City Hall at the shuttered Hahnemann University Hospital, Dwight City Group plans 288 apartments.
In City Council on Tuesday, St. Joe’s confirmed that the sale has closed.
In reaction, Gauthier had authored legislation that sought to require more community oversight when large institutions make significant land sales in University City, which is part of her district. She thinks this sale might not be the last, given the turbulent state of higher education.
Her original legislation was deemed legally dubious by the city’s law department and by most zoning attorneys consulted by The Inquirer.
Gauthier amended the bill and got the new version passed by City Council’s Rules Committee on Tuesday.
“It is an indisputable fact that college campuses significantly impact the communities that surround them,” Gauthier said at the hearing.
“As higher education undergoes its most significant change in our lifetime,” she continued, “we must ensure that land-use decisions are made with their communities in mind, and recent actions by multiple universities prove this will not happen without legislative action.”
The original bill sought to regulate how higher education institutions use their land, which is illegal. Zoning concerns land use generally, not only land use of specific actors.
Gauthier amended the bill so it is triggered not by a change in ownership from a university to a non-higher education buyer, but by a proposed change away from educational use on lots over 5,000 square feet.
So if a university sold land to a housing developer, the law would be triggered. It is not clear it would be triggered by what St. Joe’s did, which was selling land used for university purposes to another educational provider that claims to want to start a teaching college.
The amendments also removed clauses that would have required neighborhood residents to join the Philadelphia City Planning Commission when it reviews land-transfer proposals, as is required by this bill.
Gauthier pushed back against arguments that her bill is an overreach by noting that it simply requires a meeting with neighborhood groups, a review by the planning commission, and a demolition moratorium if there are no permits for new construction.
“This bill doesn’t cripple anyone’s property values,” Gauthier said. “It doesn’t restrict anyone’s use or density rights. It adds more eyes and more transparency to land-use decisions for major properties that change entire neighborhoods. The idea that this could ever be wrong is simply preposterous.”
The IPEX building at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia on Sept. 12.
Representatives from a host of West Philadelphia neighborhood groups testified in support of Gauthier’s bill. They detailed their anxieties about living in the shadow of large institutions with expensive real estate portfolios and their frustrations with what they felt had been duplicity by St. Joe’s during a public engagement campaign about the sale.
During neighborhood meetings earlier this year, attendees detailed their desire for a community college, health clinic, parking, or affordable housing on a post-sale St. Joe’s campus.
They said they felt that the university ignored their feedback.
“This thing about community engagement, we feel as though it was false,” said Jacquelyn Owns, a committeeperson in the 27th Ward. “It was just something to keep the community quiet while they did exactly what they wanted to do.”
St. Joe’s representatives argued that Karp’s plans for the site are in keeping with the neighborhood’s broad desires, given that his Belmont organization runs charter schools.
St. Joe’s also noted that it will still retain some property in the area affected by Gauthier’s bill and contended that the legislation would have deleterious effects on higher education institutions in University City.
“It probably would devalue our real estate holdings, which, in turn, would then devalue our balance sheet, which would then restrict our ability to offer financial aid,” said Joseph Kender, senior vice president at St. Joe’s. “It would restrict our ability to start new construction projects. It would restrict our ability to offer new academic programs.”
A lawyer for St. Joe’s, Ballard Spahr zoning attorney Matthew McClure, said that even the amended bill might still be illegal.
Despite the protests by St. Joe’s, Council’s Rules Committee passed the amended bill.
That may be the last movement on the controversial legislation for a while. At its October meeting, the planning commission requested a 45-day hold on the bill to consider its ramifications more thoroughly. That means the full City Council will not be able to consider it until late November.
Dane Jensen isn’t a developer by training or profession, but he loves old buildings and he’s got big plans for the church at 1800 Tasker St.
The 138-year-old institution is a fixture in Point Breeze, but Second Nazareth Missionary Church’s shrinking congregation hadn’t been able to keep up with repairs. In 2024, as the church sought to sell, its leadership met with Jensen, who pitched them on his vision of a continuing life for the building as a communal space, if not a sacred one.
“A lot of adaptive reuse is taking these big institutional buildings and turning them into apartments and, to me, that loses some of the intent of the space,” Jensen said. “We are trying to preserve it as something where people can still gather and feel fellowship. Even without religious intent, it can still be a place where people can connect.”
Jensen bought the property in mid-2024 for $1.75 million, and he has begun renovations. He hopes to turn the church into a family-friendly restaurant, brewery, and event space, outfitted with an indoor playground, an idea he successfully pitched to Second Nazareth’s leadership.
“It’s a little scary to put that word out there because some people hear brewery, and they hear bar. They hear place to get drunk,” he said. “We envision it as a community space. During the day you can go grab a cup of coffee and do some work. In the afternoon, you can meet up with friends and have lunch, and, yeah, maybe you can grab a beer.”
Jensen isn’t imagining a traditional brewery, with giant silos and vats. He wants a place he will feel comfortable bringing his children, who are 4 and 7. That’s also why he’s been drawing up plans for play equipment inside the space.
The church is currently zoned for single-family use, like the rowhouses that surround it. But in 2019, City Council created historic preservation incentives to make it easier to repurpose churches that are on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places.
That means Jensen can move forward, since the church was added to the register earlier this month. He won’t have to go to the Zoning Board of Adjustment or seek a legislative zoning change from Council President Kenyatta Johnson, who represents the area.
However, Jensen said he still plans to meet Johnson and arrange meetings with surrounding neighborhood groups known as Registered Community Organizations (RCOs).
“Needing to talk to your councilmember, needing to talk to your community through the RCOs, is incredibly valuable,” Jensen said. “We want to do that to make sure we’re not just coming in to extract value from the neighborhood. We really want to contribute in a real and meaningful sense. Hiring from the neighborhood feels really important.”
Jensen is applying for a sit-down restaurant and artisan industrial use permit. Other possible uses of the building include a bakery and a coffee roastery.
Whatever the final use, the historic church will require extensive renovation first. Currently, Jensen’s team is putting in steel reinforcements to brace the building. He plans to restore most of the stained glass, fix the leaky roof, and install fire safety and Americans with Disability Act infrastructure.
The church dates to 1886, when it was known as the Presbyterian Church of the Evangel. That denomination was in place for almost 100 years, but as that congregation shrank, the church sought a successor.
In 1978, the Second Nazareth Missionary Church took over the building and remained until 2024. In recent years, that congregation began facing many of the same challenges as their predecessors even as their membership was shrinking and repair costs were growing.
Jensen said he found notes from the waning days of the Presbyterian era that showed the leaking roof was a problem back then — a challenge that decades later, Second Nazareth was facing again.
The church as seen from the north side, in an image included in Dane Jensen’s nomination of the building to Philadelphia’s Register of Historic Places.
When the Historical Commission accepted Jensen’s 48-page argument for the building’s importance earlier this month, that triggered the 2019 law that made it easier to find new uses for historic “special use” properties — like churches or theaters — by granting them more flexible zoning. That means no trip to the zoning board, which can add over half a year to the development process and often more if neighborhood groups or councilmembers contest the board’s ruling in court.
“I’ve really fallen in love with the building throughout this process,” Jensen said. “I’m excited that I am in a position to try to get the building to a point that it can last another 140 years and still have people feeling togetherness in it.”
Megan Heiken recently bought a home near the former Pennhurst State School and Hospital, once a center for people with developmental disabilities that now operates as a popular haunted Halloween attraction.
A new plan to convert Pennhurst into a massive data center has outraged and mobilized local residents, as well as people in neighboring communities in an area known for rolling hills, farms, and an overall rural character.
Heiken launched an online petition urgingher Chester County neighbors and East Vincent Township officials to “work together toward a solution that preserves the Pennhurst property, honors its history, and protects the environment and quality of life for all who live, work and visit here.”
The petition had 1,825 signatures as of Friday.
“I made this move to be out in an area with more space, more nature,” Heiken said. “The fact that the owner just wants to plow it over and swap in a data center is kind of alarming.”
Her sentiments are widely shared. The board of supervisors and planning commission in East Vincent have hosted public meetings on the issue that stretched for hours as residents from Spring City to Pottstown voiced objections.
Data centers require a large-scale way of cooling computing equipment and are often dependent on water to do that. The amount of water they use can be about the same as an average large office building, although a few require substantially more, according to a recent report from Virginia, which has become a data center hub.
Steve Hacker, of East Vincent, told the board that his well had already gone dry, as has his neighbor’s, even before a data center has been built. He’s concerned about where the data center would get its water.
State legislators and local governments are scrambling to rewrite local laws as most have no local zoning to accommodate data centers or regulate them.
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1.3 million square feet
Pennhurst‘s owner has not yet filed a formal application to develop the site, but an engineering firm has submitted a sketch of a preliminary plan to East Vincent Township to develop 125 acres for use as a data center.
The land is owned by Pennhurst Holdings LLC, whose principal is Derek Strine.
Strine deferred comment to a spokesperson, Kevin Feeley.
“Pennhurst AI is aware of the concerns expressed by the residents of East Vincent Township, and we are committed to working through the Township to address them,” Feeley wrote in an email. “What we propose is a facility that would be among the first of its kind in the United States: a state-of-the-art data center project that would address environmental concerns while also providing significant economic investment, jobs, and tax rateables as well as other benefits that would directly address the needs of the community.”
Feeley said Pennhurst AI plans to continue “working cooperatively with the Township.”
The sketch calls for five, two-story data center buildings, a sixth building, an electrical substation, and a solar field. Together, the buildings to house data operations would total more than 1.3 million square feet.
The plan states that a data center is an allowable use within the Pennhurst property because the land is zoned forindustrial, mixed-usedevelopment. Township officials have agreed a data center would be allowed under that zoning.
The grounds are bordered by Pennhurst Road to the west. The Schuylkill lies down a steep gorge to the east and north. The property is near the border of Spring City, which is just to the south.
A view of the entrance to the Halloween attraction at the former Pennhurst State School and Hospital grounds in East Vincent Township, Chester County.
What’s Pennhurst?
Pennhurst State School and Hospital, known today as Pennhurst Asylum for its Halloween attraction, has had a long and troubled history. It opened in 1908 to house individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It became severely overcrowded by the time it closed in 1987.
A 1968 documentary Suffer the Little Children highlighted abusive and neglectfulpractices, and resulted in legal actions and a landmark disability rights ruling in 1978 that declared conditions as “cruel and unusual punishment.”
The last patient left Pennhurst in 1987, and the facility sat abandoned until it was purchased in 2008 and converted into a Halloween attraction despite protests from various advocacy groups.
The Halloween attraction has continued and operators say it shows sensitivity toward those once housed at Pennhurst. Separately, visitors can take historical tours of the exteriors of 16 buildings and learn about people who lived and worked there. The site also has a small Pennhurst history museum.
A view of the vacant buildings on the former Pennhurst State School and Hospital grounds in East Vincent Township, Chester County.
Contentious meetings
In recent months, East Vincent officials have raced to draft an ordinance that would govern data centers by limiting building heights, mandating buffers, requiring lighting, noting the amount of trees that can be cut down, and other restrictions.
At two contentious meetings in September, residents and the board of supervisors argued about the draft ordinance’s specifics. Residents said the ordinance did not incorporate some community-suggested safeguards aimed at preserving the township’s rural character.
Residents asked how much water the data center would consume, how much power it would need, and how much noise it would generate.
Pennhurst’s zoning was changed in 2012 from allowing onlyresidential development to permitting industrial and mixed-use buildings. Township Solicitor Joe Clement told residents that it is difficult for the municipality to argue that a data center would not fit within that zone.
“If there’s a use that is covered by the zoning ordinance, we can’t stop that use,” board vice chairMark Brancato explained at a Sept. 18 meeting.
Officials said the draft ordinance was not specifically aimed at the Pennhurst site but was meant to broadly govern any data centers proposed in the township.
“What we’re trying to do is to come up with a set of reasonable guidelines, guardrails, and conditions in the new zoning ordinance that will … provide as much protection as we possibly can for the residents,” Brancato said. ”We are committed to protecting and preserving the rural character of the township.”
Township meetings, some of which have lasted hours, have been marked by raised voices and emotional appeals.
“Our whole community is kind of anxious about the thought of this new data center,” Gabrielle Gehron, of Spring City, said during one meeting. “I’m confused about whether we are or not doing something to prevent that from happening.”
Pa. State Rep. Paul Friel, and State Sen. Katie Muth, both Democrats from East Vincent, have spoken at meetings. Muth noted that Strine received a $10 million grant and loan package from the state in 2017 to prepare the site for “a large distribution facility” and other industrial structures, new office development, and the renovation of six existing buildings for additional commercial use, amid ample open space, according to a funding request provided by the governor’s office.
Muth fears Strine is paving a path to clear the data center for development and sell the property — after benefiting from tax dollars.
“These are not good things to live next to,” Muth said of data centers.
The board tabled the draft ordinance on Sept. 22 after receiving legal advice that they still had time to incorporate more residents’ concerns.
Beyond Pennhurst
Other municipalities in Pennsylvania face a similar issue: Most don’thave existing zoning for data centers. However, state law mandates that municipalities must provide zoning for all uses of land — just as state and federal officials are ramping up plans to embrace the centers.
Plymouth Township is dealing with pressure as Brian J. O’Neill, a Main Line developer, wants to turn the Cleveland-Cliffs steel mill into a 2 million-square-foot data center that would span 10 existing buildings. The Plymouth Township Planning Commission voted against the project given resident backlash. The plan goes to the zoning board later this month.
And Covington and Clifton Townships in Lackawanna County in the Poconos are also dealing with zoning issues and widespread opposition regarding a plan to build a data center on 1,000 acres.
