Philadelphia building trades unions will loan $50M to help redevelop the dilapidated Brith Sholom House

A coalition of building trades unions will loan the Philadelphia Housing Authority $50 million out of its pension fund to help finance the redevelopment of Brith Sholom House, a dilapidated senior apartment complex in West Philadelphia.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and her longtime political ally, Ryan N. Boyer, the business manager of the Philadelphia Building & Construction Trades Council, announced the arrangement Tuesday and framed it as a first-of-its-kind approach to expanding the city’s affordable housing stock.

Under the terms of the deal, PHA will repay the building trades over 15 years at a 4.5% interest rate. PHA President and CEO Kelvin Jeremiah said it’s a good deal for taxpayers as banks and traditional financing institutions are lending at higher rates.

The city is guaranteeing the loan. Parker said the outcome will be 336 units of affordable housing for seniors on fixed incomes. Members of the building trades unions will perform the work at the site.

“This isn’t an investment for the building trades,” Boyer said. “It’s a down payment on our city’s future.”

Boyer, one of the most powerful non-elected political figures in the state, has been a longtime ally to Parker and much of City Council. The trades unions poured millions into Parker’s run for mayor in 2023, and have remained largely in lockstep with her. Boyer led the mayor’s transition team and has been a key voice on her signature housing plan, which stands to generate thousands of construction jobs.

The trades’ $50 million investment comes in addition to the $99.6 million that the housing authority is spending on a gut rehabilitation of the Wynnefield apartment complex, bringing the total cost of the project to a staggering $150 million.

Jeremiah said he has been “shocked and dismayed” by the conditions at Brith Sholom, which was so neglected under its previous owners that tenants were forced to move out.

Work will begin late this year and is expected to take about 20 months to complete, Jeremiah said, meaning tenants may not be able to move back in until 2028. He had previously estimated a timeline that would have allowed residents to return this year.

Brith Sholom fell into disrepair under its previous owners, the New Jersey-based Puretz family. A 2024 Inquirer investigation found that members of the family became one of the nation’s largest affordable housing purveyors by buying up old buildings, saddling them with debt, and then defaulting on loans.

At Brith Sholom, the Puretz family profited while defaulting on a $36 million mortgage and amassing dozens of code violations. Residents — who organized to save their homes — complained of deteriorating infrastructure, threats of utility shut-offs, squatters, and severe pest infestations.

In a bid to preserve the building and reutilize it in part as subsidized housing, PHA acquired Brith Sholom House in August of 2024 for $24 million.

In addition to the price of the acquisition, in 2024 Jeremiah estimated that the cost of rehabilitating the building would be an additional $30 to $40 million. PHA then said that the remaining 111 elderly residents in the 360-unit building would be able to remain in place.

Three months later, Jeremiah informed the tenants that Brith Sholom was in such ragged shape that they would have to be moved out in order to repair the building. Some units were so badly damaged that PHA could not repair them.

Following the acquisition of Brith Sholom, PHA has embarked on an ambitious $6.3 billion, 10-year plan that includes the purchase of 4,000 other privately held apartments. In the face of a glut of market-rate multifamily properties, many developers have struggled to charge the rents they need to pay back their loans — and the housing authority has been able to purchase buildings from such companies across the city.

Parker also said the investment at Brith Sholom is part of her signature housing initiative, called Housing Opportunities Made Easy, or H.O.M.E. The mayor — who has promised to build, redevelop, and preserve more than 30,000 units of housing — is in the midst of continued negotiations with City Council over H.O.M.E.’s first-year budget.

Council in December advanced its own spending plan, which set income eligibility thresholds for two housing programs funded by H.O.M.E.’s bond proceeds. Parker wanted a higher threshold so middle-class residents could access the programs, while Council’s version aims to prioritize poorer Philadelphians.

» READ MORE: Philly Council votes against Mayor Parker’s vision for her signature housing plan, signaling a win for progressives

Council could vote on the spending plan as early as Thursday, when lawmakers return to session following their winter break.

Throughout the contentious process, Parker has said her administration is committed to affordable housing for lower-income Philadelphians. The collaboration with PHA to remake Brith Sholom, she said, is part of that effort.

“It’s not just for one particular constituency,” Parker said on Tuesday about her overarching housing plan. “I’m personally on a mission to save Philly rowhomes. We’re trying to address our housing crisis and doing it for Philadelphians from all walks of life.”

Parker was joined at the news conference Tuesday by Council President Kenyatta Johnson, despite the two being at odds over the H.O.M.E. legislation in recent months. Johnson praised the mayor’s leadership and said the financing arrangement for Brith Sholom is remedying a “miscarriage of justice.”

“This is the type of work that helps those most in need,” Johnson said, “which is our seniors, who deserve to live out the twilight of their lives in dignity.”