As Construction Booms, Philadelphia Seeks to Preserve Its Past<br />The resulting demand for space is putting pressure on older properties like the demolished Chestnut Street rowhouses, which were built in the early 1870s<br />and were functioning apartment buildings in good condition, said Paul Steinke, executive director of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, a nonprofit organization that advocates the protection of historic buildings.<br />And Mayor Jim Kenney has set up a task force on historic preservation to recommend ways to foster economic growth without sweeping away the past, aided<br />by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which this year listed Philadelphia’s historic neighborhoods as among its “national treasures.”<br />The measures, though in their early stages, offer hope to Philadelphia’s preservationists, who struggled for years to defend historic buildings from the decay<br />that resulted from a stagnating economy and are now trying to counteract a threat to older buildings from a suddenly vigorous property market.<br />Among the buildings that Mr. Steinke fears could be demolished is a former chocolate factory built in 1865 on Washington Avenue in South Philadelphia, a few blocks from Lincoln Square, a development being built by Alterra Property Group<br />that includes 322 apartments and 100,000 square feet of retail space.
