UPDATE: New developer's gradual approach for Brandywine site
Buccini replaces O'Neill at sprawling Wilmington property
TUESDAY UPDATE: "People in Wilmington are very open to development - on an appropriate scale," says Rob Buccini, confirming his firm, Buccini/Pollin Group, has taken over the sprawling former Bancroft Mills development site, which stretches uphill from the Brandywine north of downtown Wilmington, Del., from past owner Brian O'Neill, the King of Prussia-based developer who had hoped to put 1,400 apartments in the dramatic waterfront stone, brick and cement mills where thousands worked from the late 1800s into the 1960s.
Philadelphia-area developers like O'Neill and Stoltz Bros., which hoped to redevelop DuPont Co. offices south of Greenville, have met strong local resistance to big plans in Delaware. How can Buccini win where O'Neill fell short? Compared to O'Neill's projections of a decade ago, "we're going to build a fraction of that," Buccini told me. "Maybe a little office. Maybe tiny retail. Wilmington is the kind of place where you do a little here, a little there." His firm already owns two nearby office buildings built on riverside factory foundations, and they're "98% leased. People like to be by the river," Buccini added.
MONDAY: Delaware's Buccini brothers -- partners in the Buccini/Pollin Group, the hotel-entertainment-apartment development group, whose projects stretch across Wilmington, Del., the Chester, Pa. waterfront, and the Washington, D.C. area -- have acquired control of the ghost city-on-the-Brandywine that is the former Bancroft Mills property in Wilmington, confirms King of Prussia-based developer Brian O'Neill. His past-due $14.8 million loan on the property went on sale earlier this year. He had hoped to build 1,400 homes there.
O'Neill, who renovated the north end of the riverside ex-industrial complex into housing units, expects Rob and Chris Buccini will succeed in getting city approvals to redevelop the main complex, which is picturesque and historic but lacks easy road access for the many hundreds of apartments, neighbors who challenged previous plans have warned.
"They're my good friends," O'Neill said of the Buccinis. "They're the best at what they do in the state of Delaware and I couldn't be happier for them."
