They don’t make them like the Conkling-Armstrong House anymore. They never really did — except this once.
Located at 2224-26 W. Tioga St., each of the two roughly 5,000-square-foot houses in this twin mansion are encrusted with terra-cotta flourishes that set them apart from their neighbors and from pretty much any other building in the city.
That’s because this almost 130-year-old mansion in North Philadelphia was built as a towering advertisement for what the Conkling-Armstrong Terra Cotta Co. could offer late-19th-century developers and architects.
They studded it with beautiful decorations and elaborate details to demonstrate what their products could look like on future buildings.
When this one-of-a-kind house was built in 1898, the company’s factory stood mere blocks away. Now it is gone, demolished in 2011, and the house itself hasn’t been occupied in even longer.
That period of vacancy will end soon, if local affordable housing developer Brian Wise gets his way. He’s already invested almost $1 million in bringing the Conkling-Armstrong house back from the brink of demolition.
“When we first had the property, we could not even walk through it,” said Wise, managing partner of Wise Holding Group LLC. “There was so much deterioration from the roof all the way down to the basement.”
Wise plans to build 12 apartments in the twin buildings and another 12 in two additions behind the twins, each over 4,000 square feet. They will extend into the vacant lot behind the Conkling-Armstrong house, fronting on Estaugh Street.
The plan is to lease most of the units to tenants who use rent vouchers from the Philadelphia Housing Authority.
“It’s a pretty ambitious job to do and something that will be a challenge, but sometimes we like challenges,” Wise said. “We’ll do everything we can to keep the building stabilized and bring it back to its original form, especially the exterior.”
Earlier this month, the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment gave Wise the go-ahead to begin the project.
“This is one of these projects that you’ll remember over the course of your career,” Wise’s attorney, Alan Nochumson, said in his pitch to board members to preserve the building.
Wise needed permission to build beyond the allowable density on the site, arguing that the rents from additional units were the only way to make the project economically feasible.
The Conkling-Armstrong house on the 2200 block of West Tioga Street in 2018.
His case was supported by two local community groups, the Allegheny West Civic Association and the Swampoodle Neighborhood Parcels Association.
Wise anticipates an 18-month to two-year timeline, given the final Historical Commission approvals he needs.
Wise originally came to this block of West Tioga Street to try to buy one of the other venerable, if less ornamented, stone twin houses on the block.
He decided against that purchase, but while he was in the neighborhood, he noticed the intricate design and decoration of the Conkling-Armstrong House, as well as its dilapidated state.
After acquiring the building, Wise considered demolishing it. But the Conkling-Armstrong House is on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, which makes razing it a challenge. Instead, the developer decided to embark on his first adaptive reuse proposal. He needs a final Historical Commission approval to begin construction.
“My first impression, obviously, was that the architectural nature of the property was unique,” Wise said. “It was something that we weren’t used to seeing … so instead of knocking it down, we said let’s try to bring this building back to life.”
At the zoning board, Wise faced questions from commissioners who wanted him to add a porch to the new addition facing Estaugh Street, which he promised to do.
The new buildings behind the Conkling-Armstrong house will be more modest, with a design that echoes other houses in the neighborhood.
“We decided that trying to match all of these ornate features of the front building is not a tenable solution,” said Matt Masterpasqua of the Mass Architecture Studio, which is designing the project.
“So we tried to take context from the rear street, as well as some of the more modest neighboring buildings to inspire our new design,” Masterpasqua said. “It’s a little more feasible for us to construct.”
He anticipates the redevelopment of the Conkling-Armstrong Terra Cotta Co.’s house-and-showroom will cost at least $3 million, but he could be aided by federal Historic Preservation Tax Credits.
The Witherspoon building, ornamented by the Conkling-Armstrong Terra Cotta Co.
The company’s historical legacy in Philadelphia includes ornamenting such structures as the Witherspoon building and the former Curtis publishing house. Like many historically protected gems, those buildings are in Center City, not residential North Philadelphia.
“It was a showcase for the capabilities of their company, but it’s also just really an incredible building,” Masterpasqua said. “It’s really great to be part of something that’s going to be able to salvage the neighborhood and this piece of architecture.”
Philadelphia’s ports ranked as the fastest in North America for the third year in a row, according to the latest annual Container Port Performance Index, sponsored by the World Bank and Standard & Poor’s as a way to encourage improvements to terminals that handle global trade and pack goods moving from the ocean to road and rail for delivery.
The survey gave Philadelphia the highest ranking of more than 50 ports in the United States, Canada, and Central America.
Boston and Jacksonville, Fla., ranked second and third. Philadelphia’s nearest neighbors — the New York area and Baltimore ports — ranked far behind. The list measures the time ships spend at port berths, the time from a ship docks until it is unloaded, crane availability, ship size, and other measures.
No North America port ranked among the 20 fastest of more than 200 surveyed worldwide. That list was dominated by ports in China and other parts of East Asia, in Arab and North African countries, plus Algeciras, Spain, and Posorja, Ecuador.
“This sometimes looks like chaos, but it’s organized chaos. It’s about teamwork,” said Boise Butler, president of Local 1291 of the International Longshoreman’s Association.
ILA is the main East Coast port labor union group, claiming more than 1,400 members on the Philadelphia docks, plus more in New Jersey and Delaware.
Butler said Philadelphia had long ago expanded its hours to attract shippers who were concerned that the terminals far up the Delaware estuary were more vulnerable to any delays.
Lazer credited “our very skilled labor” for handling large loads efficiently with minimum damage reports, according to commodity and container shippers.
Richard Lazer, CEO of PhilaPort, near cargo cranes at the PhilaPort terminals. Lazer credits “our very skilled labor” for handling large loads efficiently with minimum damage reports.
It is premium work. The Longshoremen’s contract currently pays experienced workers $50 an hour, rising to $54 in October, with overtime pay after five hours, Butler said. “If they’re not making $200,000 after five or six years, something’s wrong.”
But the ranking is “not just about labor,” Butler said. “It starts with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, what they have built, and their vision for this port.”
Leo Holt, whose family-owned shipping company operates on the Packer Avenue docks and at its own Gloucester City port terminals, said the latest high score is “credit to all parties.”
“It’s a partnership between labor and management that has taken a long time to refine,” Holt said, referring to last year’s report, which also put Philly at the top of North American ports. “We work hard at it.”
Butler said the port needs to expand beyond the recent record hauls of nearly 1 million containers a year if it is to challenge ports like Savannah, Ga., which he said shipped five times as many containers.
“We need more warehouses,” Butler said.
The state built or helped finance many of the port’s improvements and has pledged to lead expansion into part of the former Philadelphia Naval Base and the Norfolk Southern freight yard in South Philadelphia. Four cranes larger than any currently on the area dock and two new 1,000-foot berths are planned, Lazer said.
Philadelphia cargoes through the Tioga Marine Terminal near the Betsy Ross Bridge include wood pulp and cocoa beans moved and, recently, ship propellers and sheet and structural steel imported by Korean industrial giant Hanwha for transfer by barge back down the Delaware to Hanwha Philly Shipyard.
Besides containers, the South Philadelphia port that once handled iron and coal now ships fertilizer and cement. Korean cars from Hyundai and Kia also land in the port.
South American fruit, which once formed a significant part of the Philadelphia and Wilmington port totals, now goes mostly to ports in New Jersey, Butler said.
In an effort to reduce air pollution and modernize U.S. ports, the Biden administration in 2024 announced $3 billion in grants for zero-emission equipment — including tens of millions earmarked for Philadelphia’s port to buy two new electric cranes to help unload ships.
Ports have embraced the clean energy push, but some have run into a problem. U.S. law requires federally funded infrastructure projects to use American-made products. But according to industry groups, no U.S. firm makes the giant ship-to-shore gantry cranes like the ones Philly is hoping to buy.
Those rules — included in a 2021 law that had bipartisan support in Congress — reflect a push under both Republican and Democratic administrations to revive American manufacturing, especially in industries such as semiconductor production and shipbuilding, where continued U.S. deference to China is seen as a potential security risk.
In the case of the cranes, PhilaPort says that even if it could procure them in the U.S., it would still face risks because of a lack of “a reliable domestic supply chain for spare parts and service.”
The Environmental Protection Agency said it is reviewing PhilaPort’s application.It might not be a slam dunk: President Donald Trump’s administration has slashed billions of dollars in funding for Biden-era clean energy initiatives — and early last year, PhilaPort’s grant appeared to be briefly suspended.
Yet Trump has also expressed support for union dockworkers like the ones who would operate new cranes at Tioga Marine Terminal in Port Richmond. The International Longshoremen’s Association has celebrated the initiative, known as the Clean Ports Program, saying it protects jobs against automation.
If the EPA doessign off on the request, the port authority will have to navigate a geopolitical minefield.
Grant recipients are prohibited from using the funds to buy equipment made in China, whose state-owned Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. (ZPMC) produces 70% of the world’s ship-to-shore cranes, including the vast majority in use at U.S. ports.
American reliance on Chinese-made critical port infrastructure has raised national security concerns, magnified by the FBI’s 2021 discovery of “intelligence gathering equipment” onboard a ship that was delivering ZPMC cranes to Baltimore’s port, according to a congressional investigation.
Only three companies outside China, two in Europe and one in Japan, make ship-to-shore cranes available for international buyers, according to the American Association of Port Authorities. Each firm’s cranes would likely be subject to tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.
Another wrinkle: As PhilaPort has sought support for the waiver from Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation, some lawmakers have expressed reservations that even cranes made by a non-Chinese manufacturer might include parts made in China. Limiting that exposure could be challenging, given China’s dominance in these intermediate goods.
It remains to be seen whether lawmakers will ultimately back the request. Labor unions such as United Steelworkers have broadly opposed exemptions from domestic production requirements. A spokesperson for United Steelworkers said the union is “still reviewing the specifics of this case.”
U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D., Pa.) said he “fought hard” to include the Build America Buy America provision in the 2021 law. “So I’m naturally quite concerned any time an entity is attempting to circumvent these important provisions that protect American jobs and industries,” he said in a statement.
“PhilaPort’s management needs to do a much better job explaining why a waiver in this case is absolutely necessary,” said Boyle, whose district includes the Tioga terminal.
Spokespeople for U.S. Sens. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) and Dave McCormick (R., Pa.) did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Those restrictionswill likely increase the cost. Of the $80 million awarded to PhilaPort by the EPA, the port authority had budgeted $47 million for two cranes at Tioga Marine Terminal.
Now, “it’s unclear if we can do two [cranes] for that price,” said Ryan Mulvey, the port authority’s director of government and public affairs.
Replacing diesel-powered cranes
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden presented an opportunity for PhilaPort’s Tioga Marine Terminal, which was built in the 1960s and until recently was still using two diesel-powered cranes that had been installed in the late ‘60s and early ’70s.
The cranes reached the end of their useful life and were recently dismantled, and the port authority has installed electrical infrastructure to support zero-emission equipment at Tioga, which handles cargoes such as forest products, containers, and steel.
President Joe Biden speaks at PhilaPort’s Tioga Marine Terminal in Philadelphia on Oct. 13, 2023.
Cranes can lift two 20-ton cargo containers off a ship at a time. Without them, “it really restricts the amount of cargo you can put through the terminal,” said Andrew Sentyz, president of operator Delaware River Stevedores, which leases the terminal from the port authority.
About 100 to 200 union longshoremen work at the site, depending on cargo volumes, he said.
When PhilaPort started reaching out to vendors, at least three — Konecranes of Finland, Phoenix-based Stafford Crane Group, and Swiss-German firm Liebherr’s U.S. affiliate — indicated they were working toward making ship-to-shore cranes that would meet domestic content requirements under the Build America, Buy America Act, a provision of Biden’s 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. (Stafford is a new entrant in the STS crane market.)
But when the port authority proceeded to bid for the project last spring, four potential bidders said they were not able to deliver cranes meeting PhilaPort’s technical specifications within its schedule or budget, according to the application it filed with the EPA in September.
One firm said Buy America rules would increase the cost of the project as much as threefold. It would take three to five years to build the manufacturing facilities needed to comply with the law and a further 36 months to complete production. By comparison, cranes that are not subject to those rules can be completed within 28 months, the vendor said.
“In the absence of continuing federal incentives toward onshore crane manufacturing, the vendor advised there is not sufficient market demand to continue to scale up its domestic manufacturing of cranes,” PhilaPort’s application says.
Another vendor told the port authority that “the low volume of current demand for BABA-compliant cranes makes domestic manufacturing currently uneconomical.”
To comply with Buy America regulations, more than 55% of the totalcost of components in a manufactured product must be from U.S.-made parts.
The EPA has acknowledged the limited domestic production of zero-emission port equipment and in 2024 temporarily lowered that requirement to 25% for certain items. But to take advantage of that reduced threshold, installation of the STS cranes would have to begin by the end of the year — a timeline PhilaPort says is not realistic.
‘Nonexistent for decades’
PhilaPort’s findings were consistent with broader industry research.
Barriers to reviving domestic industry include a shortage of welders and the fact that “American steel is significantly more expensive than European or Asian alternatives,” Davis said.
Holt Logistics Corp. cranes lift containers off vessels docked at the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in South Philadelphia.
Likewise, the National Association of Waterfront Employers told the Biden administration in 2024 that domestic crane manufacturing is years, “if not decades, away from being a reality.”
The EPA is aware of the industry input, and as part of its review of PhilaPort’s application, the agency is now conducting its own market research to assess the availability of American-made cranes, a spokesperson said.
There have been signs of some incremental progress toward diversifying supply chains. In September, California-based PACECO Corp., a subsidiary of Japanese firm Mitsui E&S, said it had secured a contract to supply two ship-to-shore cranes to a terminal at the Port of Long Beach in California. The cranes will be built in Japan, the companies said, and include “American-made components supplied by U.S. companies.”
“This order underscores the shift now underway in the U.S. container handling market,” Troy Collard, general manager of sales at PACECO, said in a news release announcing the order. He said the order shows there are “reliable alternatives” to Chinese manufacturers “that both meet the needs of U.S. ports and support broader national security and supply chain resilience goals.”
Scrutiny of China
The focus on domestic production comes as Congress and federal law enforcement have in recent years stepped up scrutiny of potential security risks associated with Chinese equipment at U.S. ports.
China’s ZPMC built about 80% of the ship-to-shore cranes in use at U.S. ports — including several bought by PhilaPort for the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in South Philadelphia. The firm has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party, according to two Republican-led House committees that investigated the company.
ZPMC cranes were installed at Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in 2018.
In 2024, three years after the FBI’s discovery in Baltimore, the committees said their investigation found that ZPMC had installed communication devices on crane components and other maritime infrastructure at two U.S. seaports. These cellular modems, not included in contracts with U.S. ports, were “intended for the collection of usage data on certain equipment,” constituting “a significant backdoor security vulnerability that undermines the integrity of port operations,” the investigation found.
But under Beijing’s “highly acquisitive data governance regime and comparatively high levels of control over PRC firms,” Chinese-made equipment and software in port systems enable surveillance and “may cause delay or disruption to the critical operations of U.S. maritime transport systems,” Isaac Kardon, senior fellow for China Studies at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Congress last year.
It is not easy to completely remove China from the supply chain, however. In response to a request from lawmakers, PhilaPort asked prospective bidders if they could produce the cranes without Chinese parts, Mulvey said. Only one firm said it could source “100% without Chinese components,” he said.
PhilaPort noted in the waiver application that it is considered by the Pentagon as one of 14 “strategic military seaports.” During the Iraq War, that enabled the port to handle Army shipments.
“These cranes enable the efficient handling of heavy, oversized, and mission-critical military cargo, directly supporting the Department of Defense’s logistical and deployment capabilities,” the application says.
