New CDC Says ‘It’s Time for Change, Reinvigoration’ for Germantown

by Kristen Mosbrucker

A crowd of over 200 people packed into the Germantown Friends School in late February for what some community organizers call a “reinvigoration” of the neighborhood. Why? Because it's time for change in Germantown, says Germantown United Community Development Corporation a newly formed 501c3 corporation in the neighborhood.

Panelists at the event ranged from executive directors of fellow neighborhood CDC's like Sandy Saltzman of the New Kensington CDC, to local organizations like Econsult founder Steve Mullin. The attendees offered advice for the neighborhood based on their own experiences and encouraged revitalization efforts.

Hailing from Kensington in eastern north Philadelphia, the New Kensington Community Development Corporation was founded in 1985. Since then the neighborhood has slowly come back to life. Executive director Sandy Saltzman says the key is not to overhaul the entire neighborhood too quickly. “I think the hardest thing to do is try to do everything, it is human nature to want to fix it all, but when you are starting out and even after you have been around for awhile, you need to realize that you can’t do it all,” she reflected in a recent email.

But she says that based on her experiences at the discussion, there is a strong interest in a more sustainable community in Germantown.

“I think the fact that so many people came to the meeting shows that they can succeed.  When I first started at NKCDC, Germantown had one of the best CDC’s in the City; it can happen again,” she continued.

Germantown United president John Churchville, also founder of the Germantown Business Association, called the event a public debut for the fledging group. 

“That was our coming out party,” he said in a recent interview. Churchville says he looks forward to focused revitalization of the Chelten Avenue commercial corridor but also wants to work on a plan for all of Germantown. He added that he isn't interested in a “turf war” in the neighborhood.

Issues like gentrification he says is something Germantown will have to deal with sooner or later and a frank discussion needs to happen.

“If you're trying to upgrade the neighborhood, that means you want people with a little bit more money, you can either grow up or grow out,” he said. Churchville explained that the discussion can be peaceful and that organizers are aware that when property values rise, the poorest individuals often are priced out of a neighborhood.

“There are conversations that we need to have that shouldn't be negatively charged. Nobody wants to get pushed out but we want a better shopping experience,” he added, explaining that the two ideas are not mutually exclusive.

Even historic sites were represented at the discussion as Barbara Hogue of Historic Germantown talked about challenges in the past and hopes for the future being rooted in history tourism.

Before the event, Hogue says organizers led the invited experts on a guided tour of Germantown's treasures. “We took them on a tour of the Johnson house, and Grumblethorpe, since they are all part of the Germantown story,” said Hogue.

Hogue says that she was excited to participate in the event and hopes to build more partnerships across the neighborhood.

“One of the issues is that there's been a lot of neighborhood organizations working in isolation,” she said, and admitted that until funding started to dry up for historical sites nationally the local museums even fell into that pattern. Since then various historic sites have been collaborating to create a Germantown-wide tour.

And since the packed event, Hogue says her phone has been ringing off the hook.

“I’ve been getting a lot of calls out of the blue from people who want to help,” she says, hopeful that the spark of volunteerism is a new dawn in the neighborhood.

Looking for a Board

As efforts to seek grant funding ramp up, the new development corporation is looking for a board of directors to guide the organization. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis but positions are available for this upcoming May. To date, a steering committee has been helping form a board in its place.

As a measure of starting clean from the ground up, organizers say they’ve elected an impartial volunteer, long-time resident Sandra Weckesser, to take board submissions to stop what they see as cronyism in previous organizations rather than a board with the proper expertise and experience to run it professionally.

Transparency is also a value the group says they want to emulate moving forward after the failure of what they say has been lacking, like the now defunct Germantown Settlement.

“We’ve been trying to keep everything we do transparent,” he said, noting that even the full meeting minutes of the board are available of the Germantown United website for the public.

So far, Churchville says that nine of the board slots are filled out of the planned 21-member board and that despite the protests surrounding Chelten Plaza, there are openings on the board for those in the business community.

“We’ve got spaces open for developers,” he said. Which is good news for the commerce department of Philadelphia, whose role is to make neighborhoods business friendly. The department has begun meeting with Germantown United about future plans.

“They are a new organization so we’ve had some very good conversations with them,” says Kevin Dow, chief operating officer of the Commerce Department, about the new non-profit.

 Dow says that keeping the commercial corridor clean, planning initiatives, and addressing retail vacancies are key issues. The Commerce Department says they have a group of twenty stakeholders, basically representatives of community organizations, civic, business and community development corps they coordinate with in the 19144 zip code.

In their experience, community development corporations are geared toward the commercial aspect of the neighborhood whereas civic organizations cater to more individual needs of homeowners.

“One way that CDCs help us revitalize neighborhoods is through focused efforts on subsidized housing,” added Associate Commerce Department Director Rubi Pacheco-Rivera. But Dow warned that collaboration is key, something that's been lacking in Germantown, but there's hope.

“But I’ve seen a change in the neighborhoods to move in a different direction in the past few months - historically there has been a lot of mistrust with new organizations. Before they wouldn't necessarily even be in the same room,” he said.

 The commerce department facilitates money from the federal government usually in the form of community block grants and distributes them to community organizations across the city for revitalization initiatives. Over the past fiscal year, which runs July through June, they’ve awarded over $1 million in grant money. But for this upcoming year they say, don't expect an increase in support.

In fact, the federal congress voted to slash funding for the program so the budget will be reduced by 16 percent.

Still, Dow says he’s optimistic, especially with the opening of Citi-bank, a mortgage-lending in the Chelten Plaza at the corner of West Chelten Avenue and Pulaski.

“There has not been a new financial center in Germantown in over 20 years. It’s a milestone,” he said.

 Despite the rooted protest that sprang up with the development of Chelten Plaza, including the formation of Germantown United - organizers for the group say that their picketing days are over.

 “The plaza is up, we're not protesting the plaza, there are some nice stores there, the Sav-A-Lot is well stocked,” said Churchville, who even recently attended the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Citibank.

The new CDC expects to hold its next public meeting soon and say to watch their website for announcements, www.germantownunitedcdc.org.