Open space over senior homes in NJ town | Real Estate Newsletter
And a developer takes over a city block.
What does the closing of the Cherry Hill Diner have to do with the fight against a plan to build a senior living community on a beloved farm site?
Township residents don’t want to lose another local landmark.
And they might not have to.
This summer, Cherry Hill officials rejected the proposal for homes for seniors. Now they’re in talks to buy and preserve the 23-acre Holly Ravine farm property.
Keep scrolling for that story and to read about a developer taking over a West Philly block, learn how much you could save by shopping around for a mortgage rate, peek into a rowhouse designed by a legendary architect, and see which features your fellow readers would put in a custom-built house.
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Concerns about traffic helped kill both a plan for a 175-unit senior living community and an earlier plan to build 26 single-family homes on a farm property in Cherry Hill.
In the township, farmland gave way to strip malls long ago. So some residents like the idea of preserving the 23 acres that is the last remaining piece of the Holly Ravine farm.
Township officials announced this week that they have reached an “agreement in principle” to buy the farmland from the family that has owned it for almost a century.
A former land-use attorney who helped lead the fight against the plan for senior housing said residents elsewhere should pay attention to what’s happening in Cherry Hill.
“This is an example of what other communities in South Jersey can do to prevent the sort of redevelopment we have been made to feel is inevitable,” he said.
Read more about residents’ issues with the rejected senior living community and what needs to happen for Cherry Hill to buy the farm.
Margaret T. Strothers and her husband, James, bought their West Philly rowhouse in 1957 with a $9,000 mortgage. After James died 30 years ago, Margaret Strothers stayed in the home, using a rental apartment upstairs and her teacher’s pension to fund her retirement.
She had no plans to leave.
“I wanted to age in place and, if I left, it would be feet first going out the door,” the 93-year-old Strothers said.
But she did end up leaving in 2018 after a developer demolished the rowhouses attached to hers on either side to build apartments for college students. She felt her home was no longer structurally sound.
Among the issues:
Walls are cracked, and paint is peeling.
Some doors no longer fit in their frames.
The house stinks of mold.
The party walls that used to be shared with the rowhouses next door are exposed to the elements and pests.
The apartments’ developer started buying duplexes up and down Strothers’ block in the early 1990s, and he began tearing them down to build new about 15 years ago.
Across Philadelphia, construction or demolition next door make 50 or more rowhouses unsafe each year, my colleagues found.
Read on for more from Strothers, her neighbors, and the developer about the struggle for this West Philly block.
The latest news to pay attention to
Philly’s parking garages and lots are some of the most expensive in the country.
Not all Philly renters can access the city’s Eviction Diversion Program.
Part of a historic office building in Center City could become 265 apartments and amenity space.
A Cherry Hill shopping center that residents fought to keep from turning into a super Wawa has been sold.
Prominent University of Pennsylvania scientists and engineers are moving into 115,000 square feet of new lab space.
A devastating fire in Chester County left about 40 people without homes.
House of the week: For $315,000 in Port Richmond, a three-bedroom home on a large lot.
Mortgage interest rates haven’t been this high in more than 20 years. So what’s someone looking for a home now supposed to do?
Shop around.
That’s what you do for a house, so why not for the loan to make what’s probably the biggest purchase of your life? You could save a lot of money.
Like shopping for a car, shopping for a mortgage means comparing offers from different places and choosing the best one for you. Different lenders offer different loan programs and can give you different mortgage rates.
Variations in rates alone can mean paying thousands of dollars less or more.
In the Philly area, homes buyers who shop around could save about $2,600 a year and $78,000 over the life of the most popular, 30-year loan, according to a report by the online lending marketplace LendingTree.
Read on for some of the factors that go into calculating your mortgage rate and how shopping around can save you money.
The legendary architect I.M. Pei designed the Society Hill Towers, well-known Philly landmarks. But he also designed nearby rowhouses that I used to pass by on walks around the neighborhood without any clue.
One of those rowhouses is a 2,900-square-foot home owned by Christina Antonopoulos and her husband, George Charalambides.
They bought their three-bedroom, five-bath house in 2020. Renovations started that March, and well, you know what happened next. But the redesign eventually was completed the following spring.
They kept the brick exterior and winding central staircase that reaches up from the basement to the top floor. But they changed almost everything else.
The interior had been completely altered by previous owners, and the couple wanted to return it closer to Pei’s original concept — “its original glory,” Charalambides said.
Peek into the family’s home and read about the extensive renovations.
🧠 Trivia time 🧠
The Red Lion Diner, an iconic restaurant on the Route 70/206 circle in Burlington County, was sold. It’s the latest in a long list of South Jersey diners that have closed.
Question: What does a developer plan to build on the property where the Red Lion Diner currently sits?
A) a car wash
B) an apartment complex
C) a marijuana dispensary
D) a super Wawa
This story has the answer.
📷 Photo quiz 📷
Do you know the Philly location this photo shows?
📮 If you think you do, email me back. (You’ll read more about this area’s redevelopment next week.)
La, La, La, Laaaa! Last week’s photo showed East Passyunk’s Singing Fountain and the restaurant Mish Mish across the street. Shout out to readers John B., John M., and Deborah S. for getting that right.
🏡 Your (dream) real estate experience 🏡
Last week, I asked what features you’d get in a custom-built home if you didn’t have to worry about a dream-killer like money.
Ted A. in Ardmore told me: “I’d want built-in bookshelves, an actual library-like space, and a small patio off of that space that was conducive to reading.”
He said he’d seen something similar once at the Rockefeller estate in New York State. I’m with you, Ted. That sounds amazing.
One of my colleagues, who is 6-foot-1, told me that in a custom-build house, she’d raise the height of all sinks and counters, so she didn’t have to hunch over. I’m a cool 5-foot-2 so ... can’t relate.
She’d also want a kitchen window by the sink to look out at a garden and a skylight above her shower or bathtub.
Adding these to my list for when I win the lottery (that I don’t play).
Enjoy the rest of your week. I’m about to leave for a vacation, so I know I will. 😎