Homeowners across the Philadelphia region want to build garage apartments, in-law suites, and backyard cottages on their properties.
Mario Mascioli, owner of Acorn Built Homes, said he gets hundreds of inquiries per month for these accessory dwelling units (ADUs), which have made up the bulk of Mascioli’s business since his company opened in late 2024.
“The demand is real,” said Mascioli, who works across southeastern Pennsylvania and in Princeton. And builders like him are ready to create ADUs. But municipalities’ varying and often restrictive land-use rules often make that difficult.
Pennsylvania lawmakers are currently considering legislation that would allow homeowners to create ADUs in places that are zoned for single-family houses without having to get special permission. The bill passed the state House earlier this month and is now before a state Senate committee.
Mascioli has testified before state lawmakers to advocate for the loosening of restrictions for ADUs.
“It would mean that homeowners that want these — which are plenty of them — would be able to get it done quickly, more economically, favorably,“ he said. ”It would be fantastic.”
The Inquirer talked to Mascioli about the ADU landscape.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Mario Mascioli, owner of Acorn Built Homes, testifies about accessory dwelling units at a policy committee hearing of Pennsylvania legislators on May 21, 2026.Acorn Built Homes
Why do people want ADUs?
The three drivers for why people want them are: aging-in-place elderly parents; adult children that can’t afford rent or can’t afford to buy a home; and third, people want rental income.
What types of ADUs do you offer?
We build studios as small as 240 square feet. [But] most people want a space that has at least 500 square feet. Most opt for one or two bedrooms.
We [also] do additions. We do garage conversions. We do conversions of basements.
In many cases, we have to attach an ADU as an addition to a house because of the township requirements. And in many cases, we’re limited as to the features we can put into it, because of those requirements.
What’s something that clients have asked for that they weren’t able to get because of local land-use rules?
I’ll give you a real-time example. We start every project with what we call our “feasibility and scoping” phase. That takes about four or so weeks to dial in on what’s buildable from a structural, construction, architectural, and also an approvable perspective.
We have a customer we’re in the final phase of that study with. They have a beautiful property, plenty of land. They wanted a detached ADU for the couple’s mother, who’s going to be moving up from Florida to take care of their newborn, [who is due] in December. In this case, we can’t do a detached unit without going through a variance.
We also uncovered through our feasibility process that … if we were to extend the garage and build on top of it, that would require a variance.
Third thing is there’s a floodplain that runs through the property. And any modification to the footprint of the property would also be a variance.
Those are three separate variance processes, each of which would require attorneys and fees and zoning hearing boards.
So what we’re left building[without zoning approvals] is to raise up the loft on the second floor of the garage, put some dormers in it to make it more spacious, and create a one-bedroom living space there — butwithout a full kitchen with built-in cooking facilities. We can only put a kitchenette in.
That is very typical. That’s 90% of what we deal with as it relates to ADUs.
What’s different about building an ADU vs. a typical single-family home?
Basically, the red tape impedes or kills [ADU] projects before they start. And that is because there’s over 2,500 municipalities in Pennsylvania. Each with different zoning rules as it relates to ADUs.
In some townships, you can build one with no issues. But if you step, you know, a mile over the line in any direction, it’s either banned entirely or there are so many restrictions and other requirements that it takes [a] very long [time], if at all, to get through zoning hearing boards.
Permitting and the expense of the red tape can make many projects impractical.
Why did you decide to go into the ADU business in Pennsylvania with the challenges you’ve described?
If you look at things from a national perspective, 20 states have passed legislation like Pennsylvania currently has in its legislature.
People want them. That’s about affordable housing. I thought and still believe that it would be inevitable that ultimately Pennsylvania would pass such legislation. And if we were here in advance of that, establishing ourselves in the market, we would benefit from that legislation being passed.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has declared a public safety emergency at Bartram Village, a vacant Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) complex in Southwest Philadelphia, after squatters moved in and caused extensive damage.
This declaration clears regulatory hurdles that had delayed PHA’s plans to rapidly demolish the 45-building complex, where the last tenant moved out in 2025.
“For too long, these vacant buildings have posed serious safety risks to surrounding residents and the broader community,” Parker said in a statement Thursday. “This action clears the way to remove those hazards and replace them with new housing, new opportunity, and new investment.”
Bartram Village dates to World War II, when it was built to host defense workers during the wartime industrial boom. The site was later transitioned to the traditional public housing program, providing affordable housing for up to 500 households.
PHA has been planning a probable demolition for a major redevelopment since at least 2018, when it was estimated the buildings required repairs reaching almost $200 million in today’s dollars. Former residents would have a right to one of the 688 new units planned for the site.
But after tenants were moved out, the 22-acre property attracted squatters despite PHA’s security patrols in the area. Beyond occupying the space, squatters tore copper wiring from the buildings and damaged the popular neighboring park and historic site of Bartram’s Garden.
“We boarded it up, it was secured, and almost immediately we realized that folks were penetrating those areas in the back and coming in through Bartram’s Garden,” said Kelvin Jeremiah, president of the housing authority. “But because of the size … it became a real issue. The more we removed people, the more they came in.”
Councilmember Jamie Gauthier’s office began raising alarms in February about the state of Bartram Village.
“I warned that failing to act quickly would [exacerbate] safety issues and cost taxpayers’ money,” Gauthier said. “The buildings became hot spots for squatters and provided cover for inflicting over half a million dollars of damage to Bartram’s Garden.”
An abandoned Bartram Village apartment, which will soon be demolished.Jake Blumgart
Jeremiah said the housing authority couldn’t move to demolish the buildings immediately because Bartram Village is eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. The mayor’s emergency declaration allows the agency to bypass a lengthy federal review process. The buildings are not protected by local preservation regulations.
Following Parker’s actions Thursday, “we are now prepared to move forward on an expedited basis to have the site demolished,” Jeremiah said.
PHA plans nine apartment buildings and over 150 townhouses for the Bartram Village site, supported in part by a $50 million grant from the federal government.
It is a major part of Jeremiah’s aggressive plan to renovate all of the authority’s existing holdings while building 3,000 new units and buying at least 4,000 units from the private sector.
The redevelopment has been years in the making because of tenant relocations and the federally mandated delay in demolition.
“Southwest Philadelphians have waited far too long for promised improvements at Bartram Village,” said Gauthier, who represents the area.
“I’m glad that Mayor Parker took the important step today of signing a public safety declaration giving PHA permission to demolish existing structures because they have been causing unsafe conditions to the community for a very long time,” Gauthier said in a statement.
Brian and Robyn Emmons can’t sell their 12-year-old, $900,000 rowhouse in Northern Liberties in its current state.
Fissures have spread across some of the walls in their home — which was built in 2014 — and cracks radiate from many doors and windows.
Three of their neighbors on Brown Street face similar issues. They say their homes were damaged by an apartment building constructed in 2023 that’s so close to the rear of their house they can almost touch it.
One family moved out after the city Department of Licenses and Inspections declared their home unsafe in 2024.
The Emmonses want to move to South Jersey, closer to family. Instead, as they wait for their second child to be born, they feel trapped.
“The fact that my neighbor was issued an order not to occupy the house, and it’s attached to our house, it’s just really scary,” said Brian Emmons, who has been a real estate developer in Philadelphia for almost 20 years. “We are stuck.”
Along with two neighbors, the Emmonses are suing the developer of the apartment building: Brian Zoubek, president and CEO of Zoubek Properties, who has built 250 houses in Philadelphia over his roughly decade-long career.
Since graduating from Duke University in 2010, where he played basketball for the Blue Devils, including on the national champion team that year, Zoubek tried his hand at a few occupations before settling on development. He has expanded his business to the Jersey Shore, recently debuting 10 almost million-dollar townhouses at a news conference with New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill.
“I’m extremely proud of what we’ve built in Philadelphia,” Zoubek said in an email. “I put my own name on my work because I stand behind every project we build.”
Zoubek faces lawsuits from the owners of three properties, all alleging that he damaged their Brown Street homes. An Inquirer review of court records found that Zoubek’s companies were similarly taken to court over allegations of sloppy construction practices by their contractors in at least three prior development projects.
The eastern end of Brown Street with rowhouses (gray), the new apartment building Zoubek built next door (white), and the former school he transformed into apartments (red brick). Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
The Northern Liberties rowhouses
Emmons and his neighbors sued last year alleging that the damage to their homes is the direct result of Zoubek’s redevelopment of the Mifflin School, built in 1825, just to the north of their homes.
In mid-2021, Zoubek purchased the property — the oldest surviving public school building in Philadelphia — and carved it into 15 apartments with 14 more wedged into a four-story addition on a small lot between the Brown Street homes and the historic structure.
The recent lawsuits contend that the developer dug too deep while excavating the basement of the new building and damaged their adjacent foundations. Within the three homes — which The Inquirer toured with Emmons — cracks grow in walls, floors slant, the shared garage leaks, and residents have struggled to open some windows and doorways.
The other two homeowners declined to speak on the record, citing the ongoing lawsuits. The residents of a fourth house have resolved their case against Zoubek.
“We are aware of the pending litigation and are actively defending these claims,” Zoubek said in an email. “Given the involvement of multiple parties, we are engaged in ongoing discovery and investigation and are confident the process will bear out the facts.”
Zoubek was named in two earlier lawsuits that accused his construction crews of slapdash work that damaged neighboring properties. A third suit alleged that his company’s work triggered a floor collapse that injured two deliverymen.
Zoubek said in a statement that all prior suits have been resolved.
For Emmons, the experience on Brown Street has an irony to it. Ten years ago, he was the face of development in Philadelphia as president of the Building Industry Association (BIA) — a real estate advocacy group — and vice president of a development firm Toll Brothers runs in the city.
Usually in the position of advocating for new development, Emmons counseled his neighbors when the project was announced that it was allowed by the property’s zoning and not worth resisting. But he did ask his fellow developer about his plans for the new apartment addition to the Mifflin School.
A gaping crack in a first-floor wall in a home at 301B Brown St. in Philadelphia.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
“He clearly was doing things the wrong way,” Emmons said. “And I know that because I’m in the construction industry.”
Zoubek contests Emmons’ assertion. He argues that many of his 30 building projects in Philadelphia involve basement excavation next to existing properties and that the Mifflin School project was fully permitted and supervised by skilled professionals.
“That experience, combined with the engineering oversight on this project, reflects how seriously we take this work,” Zoubek said in an email. “After concerns were raised, the project was reviewed by L&I, which did not issue violations or take enforcement action.”
A trail of lawsuits
Zoubek has been building in the Philadelphia area for more than 10 years, mostly developing small apartment buildings or a handful of rowhouses in the city’s booming river ward neighborhoods.
Zoubek, at 7-foot-1-inch, was a basketball star at Haddonfield Memorial High School and got into real estate after a stint running a cream puffery and, later, as a real estate agent for Cushman Wakefield.
He started his own firm, Zoubek Properties, in 2014 and a related construction management company called Z Builds. He also cofounded another company, Catalyst City Development, with childhood friend Tyler McNeil.
As his construction business grew, his enterprises were drawn into complex litigation alleging property damage or injury caused during construction.
Brian Zoubek in his now defunct cream puff shop Dream Puffz, a pre-development venture, in 2012.ELISE WRABETZ / Staff Photographer
According to one lawsuit, Catalyst, the company Zoubek cofounded, and Manayunk-based Grit Construction worked together on a small development on Hope Street in Northern Liberties in 2019. During construction, Grit ruptured a lateral pipe connecting a sewer main to a strip of nearby businessesfacing an adjacent block of Front Street.
Exhibits from that lawsuit show Zoubek proactively contacted the neighboring property owner, reassuring him that his crews had quickly rerouted the noxious flow by splicing in PVC piping until a more permanent fix could be made.
“Broke some sort of line,” Zoubek texted to the adjacent property owner, along with a photo of the messy scene. “So we put in a temp one.”
But a week later, business owners next door were complaining about chronic plumbing issues. The temporary line had become clogged with rubble and other debris from the ongoing construction.
According to the suit, in June, the toilets and sinks at a packing business on Front Street erupted as sewage backed up and flooded into the commercial unit. The next day, a barbershop next door was inundated with filth.
A plumber came out to snake out the line but discovered that Zoubek’s crews had capped the severed line. Eventually, tenants fled.
“Our tenants cannot continue with sewage backed up into their space,” a property manager for the commercial units next door wrote to Zoubek, in a 2020 email.
Zoubek said that the case had settled but offered few other details: “The matter was ultimately resolved between the parties.”
Zoubek Properties had also hired Grit and contractor All-State Services to demolish a building under the El in Fishtown in 2019 and build several new apartments.
In 2021, the owner of a neighboring apartment complex sued, saying that during teardown crews punched holes in the side of the adjacent building, damaging its roof, framing, and supports.
According to that complaint, tenants told a property manager about “a big noise and shaking in the building” during the demolition process.
After arriving on the scene a short time later, the manager “observed All-State Services employees drinking alcohol while on the job and stumbling down off of heavy equipment,” the complaint said.
Zoubek said that his contractor eventually repaired the wall and that a claim for further damages was handled by the two insurance carriers.
“The matter is fully resolved,” he said.
The new luxury townhouses on Kentucky Avenue known as the Residences at Orange Loop in Atlantic City, which Zoubek revealed with New Jersey politicians earlier this year. Thomas E. Briglia / For The Inquirer
As that suit unfolded, Zoubek had another project underway in Old City, again for a small apartment complex on the 100 block of North Third Street.
In 2021, two deliverymen bringing in elevator counterweights for the construction project were told to use a rear entrance to deposit their cargo, according to a personal injury lawsuit filed the next year.
The suit contends that both the delivery company and the workers quizzed Zoubek’s crews about whether the rear entrance of the partially constructed building was structurally sound enough to handle the extreme weight of their load. They were assured that it had been inspected and was safe.
Instead, the floor collapsed, sending the men and their equipment crashing into the basement, injuring both delivery workers.
The suit was later settled for $6.5 million default judgment against the subcontractor.
“That matter was resolved through the appropriate legal and insurance processes,” Zoubek said.
Construction damages 50 rowhouses a year
Lawsuits and claims of construction damage are endemic to the real estate industry. And building in the tight confines of Philadelphia’s dense rowhouse neighborhoods can be especially contentious.
In the case of Brown Street, a spokesperson for Zoubek pointed The Inquirer to the website of Fortis Construction & Design, which built the five rowhouses there in 2014 and is now suspended by the city for “unpermitted, potentially dangerous underpinning and excavation.”
Cracks on the exterior of a home at 303A Brown St. in Philadelphia (left) on June 9. Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Emmons, however, argues that the fault lies with Zoubek: The extensive damage to the Brown Street homes appeared only after the basement was dug out for the expansion of the Mifflin in 2023.
“He can point the finger all he wants, but I hope he lies awake at night praying nobody gets injured or killed,” Emmons said in an email.
Villanova is one of a record 242 places in the country where the average starter home is valued at $1 million or more, according to Zillow.
The community is the only such place both in Pennsylvania and in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, according to an analysis by Zillow based on April home values. Zillow calls properties starter homes if they are in a market’s bottom third of home values.
Million-dollar starter homes are rare. The typical starter home in the United States is worth a little less than $200,000. But home values keep rising as demand for homes has outpaced supply, especially over the last few years.
“The pandemic reset the cost of buying a home, spreading million-dollar starter homes from a handful of coastal states to more than two dozen states across the country,” Kara Ng, senior economist at Zillow, said in a statement.
Since early 2020, the number of communities in the United States where the average entry-level home is worth at least $1 million has tripled, from 80 to 242. And the number of states has jumped from nine to 26.
Unsurprisingly, expensive California is the state with the most communities where the average starter home is valued at $1 million or more — 105. But the numbers in New York and New Jersey are rising the fastest.
“Million-dollar starter homes are popping up in more Northeast cities because the housing shortage there hasn’t been solved,” Ng said. In the Northeast, home construction hasn’t kept up with demand.
In early 2020, Pennsylvania didn’t have any communities where the average starter home was valued at $1 million or more, and New Jersey had one: Alpine in North Jersey.
The Garden State now has 26, up from 21 last year. Most are either in North Jersey or the Jersey Shore.
Theseinclude Avalon, Stone Harbor, Strathmere, Cape May Point, and five of Long Beach Island’s six towns: Harvey Cedars, Barnegat Light, Long Beach Township, Surf City, and Beach Haven.
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A Long Island-based developer is planning a six-story, 100-unit apartment building — with a rooftop pool — at 639-53 N. Broad St.
The property is owned by the Bill Wolf Petroleum Corp., which has expanded into retail and residential properties from its original focus on gas stations and other fuel-related real estate.
The company has already redeveloped smaller buildings in Philadelphia at Fifth and South Streets and 12th and Walnut.
The company acquired the Broad Street property in late 2021 for $6.9 million, according to city records. This week, Bill Wolf Petroleum obtained demolition permits for the existing auto-oriented and light industrial structures on the lot.
The architect for the project is Stuart Rosenberg of SgRA Architects, who has worked with Bill Wolf Petroleum on its other Center City buildings.
“They are looking for dense, urban, Center City development opportunities. They did not want to be on the outskirts like Northern Liberties or Port Richmond,” Rosenberg said. “They like Philadelphia. At the end of the day, you can build stuff here, so that’s why they’re investing in Philadelphia.”
Documents posted on the Department of Licenses and Inspections website show a 72-foot-tall project, which includes the potential for over 4,500 square feet of bi-level commercial space fronting on North Broad Street.
A parking garage is planned in the rear of the property with space for 33 vehicles as well as bike parking. It also sits directly above SEPTA’s Broad Street Line Fairmount Station.
The property has some of the most flexible zoning in Philadelphia, allowing Bill Wolf Petroleum to move forward easily.
The unit mixture will mostly be one- and two-bedrooms, with a few studio apartments. On the top floor will be between eight and 12 bi-level apartments.
For the exterior, Rosenberg is planning designs in keeping with the surroundings on North Broad Street.
“It’s going to be a classic, industrial type of vibe,” Rosenberg said. “It’s the aesthetic you’d see in a lot of New York or Philadelphia.”
The acclaimed interior design firm Stokes Architecture & Design, which has worked on properties such as Parc and La Colombe’s Fishtown flagship, is being retained as well.
The entrance to both the front lobby and garage will be on Wallace Street on the north side of the site. Retail will front on North Broad Street. In addition to the roof deck with a pool, there will be private balconies for the bi-level units on the top floor and a U-shaped courtyard on the second floor featuring additional outdoor space.
Bill Wolf Petroleum’s project is just the latest in a burst of apartment developments proposed on North Broad Street.
In the last eight months, 1,221 units have been permitted between City Hall and the southern border of Temple University’s campus. Much of the activity is clustered around the former Hahnemann University Hospital.
“This part of the city [North Broad Street] is just really dynamic right now,” Rosenberg said.
Some of the projects, however, are unlikely to break ground any time soon. Property owners like Brandywine Realty Trust obtained zoning permits after Councilmember Jeffery Young proposed a housing ban around the former Hahnemann campus.
142-44 N. Broad St. is another property slated for apartment development. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Although that bill was put on hold in the face of opposition from most stakeholders in the area — no one outside Young’s office ever publicly spoke in favor of it — the legislation prompted a rush to secure 824 apartment permits before it was shelved.
Bill Wolf Petroleum’s project, which is outside Young’s proposed ban area, stands out because it is one of the only efforts that would not involve redeveloping an existing medical, industrial, or office building for residential use.
The current interest in the North Broad Street corridor comes after an earlier boom, which saw developers like Alterra Property Group, Eric Blumenfeld, and Bart Blatstein scooping up struggling properties and vacant lots after the Great Recession.
Some of those projects came to fruition, such as Alterra’s 410-unit Tower Place at Broad and Spring Garden Streets. Others had a more circuitous fate.
North Broad organizations are watching the new developments with wary optimism.
“I’ve learned to not get excited until there are shovels in the ground,” said Shalimar Thomas, executive director at North Broad Renaissance.
But “it’s the main thoroughfare; it’s a great transportation hub, easy walkable,” Thomas said. “The potential and the bones and the structure are there. Maybe now more developers are starting to see that.”
After first-time homebuyer Brendan McCreath settled into his Bella Vista rowhouse last spring, his first priority was contacting Mural Arts Philadelphia.
During the closing process, he had learned that the previous owner had agreed to let an artist paint a mural on the house, butwithdrew her support. McCreath wanted to revive the plan.
“I love that Philly is just loaded with murals,” he said. “It’s beautiful.”
In a city internationally known for murals, roughly 1,000 are on private homes through partnerships with Mural Arts. Homeowners don’t have to go through the organization to put a mural on their house. But if they do, Mural Arts covers the costs of preparing the wall, installing the piece, and maintaining the mural.
“We appreciate homeowners so much who really hold art in esteem and are thinking not just about their house but about the communal effect the art will have on the city,” said Jane Golden, founder and executive director of Mural Arts. “Murals become part of our collective identity.”
Homeowner Brendan McCreath captured photos of artist Michelle Angela Ortiz’s mural as it was installed last year.Brendan McCreath
Artists plan murals in collaboration with homeowners and neighbors. Some paint directly onto walls, but most now paint on large sections of cloth and piece them together later on surfaces, Golden said.
She estimates the wait list for artwork through Mural Arts is close to a thousand strong. In Philadelphia, “people 100% absolutely love public art,” she said.
The city gets about a hundred new works per year through Mural Arts. Pitches come from the wait list as well as artists, Mural Arts staff, city officials, and funders.
But the city also loses murals to development and demolitions. Mural Arts tries to stay away from vulnerable sites, including those next to vacant lots.
Lack of funding is usually what prevents Mural Arts from doing more work, Golden said. But sometimes, artists just need walls. The organization has an official “wall hunter” who scouts potential locations. The job has gotten harder, as more properties are owned by limited liability companies (LLCs), and tracking down humans who can give permission for murals is difficult.
Bella Vista homeowner John Del Rossi gave an immediate “yes” when Mural Arts approached him.
“I can’t imagine anybody saying, ‘No, don’t put this beautiful mural on my wall. Leave it blank and ugly,’” he said.
The Inquirer asked six homeowners why they wanted their properties to join Philadelphia’s rich tapestry of murals.
Brendan McCreath looks at the mural painted on the side of his rowhouse.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer
Sometimes, McCreath will spot people gazing at the mural and stop to gaze with them. Then he’ll take out his keys and walk through the door behind it.
“There’s many people who will stop dead in their tracks and take a photo of the side of my house,” he said. “It’s such an open wall out to Ninth Street. It truly feels like the perfect placement for a mural.”
Creator Michelle Angela Ortiz makes art nationally and internationally, and turned to other projects when the mural fell through. But she was disappointed. She was born and raised on this block of League Street, and her parents still live there. Ortiz had wanted to paint a mural “at home” in her neighborhood.
So when McCreath revived plans for the mural, she was ecstatic.
Brendan McCreath poses for a portrait outside his home.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer
The work is part of the Our Market Project that Ortiz created six years ago to broaden the narrative of what has become known as the Italian Market and honor the people from different backgrounds who make the market on South Ninth Street what it is.
“What we do in the market is not just sell things. We take care of one another,” Ortiz said. “We raise our families. We bring our culture. We bring our values and our spirit to the market.”
In the mural, which she painted directly onto McCreath’s wall, she highlights stories of neighbors with ties to the market. The center image is of a Mexican immigrant named Gabriel who works at Tran’s Produce, owned by Vietnamese immigrants. The mural includes a poem by Alice Harrison, a longtime market worker and the daughter of Holocaust survivors, who also lives on League Street.
Ortiz said her Our Market Project is “my love letter to my community, but also a way to pay homage and honor to my mother, who is an immigrant from Colombia and work[ed] at Giordano’s for 25 years.”
This mural by Phillip Adams pays tribute to Baldwin Locomotive Works and the Lenape.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
If you stare at the mural of a train on North 20th Street and think you hear a faint whistle, you’re not imagining things. Homeowner Susan Freeland likes to blow a train whistle when she sees the mural getting attention.
“Many people remark that it actually looks like the train is coming toward you, because it looks larger than life,” she said.
Freeland and her husband owned their house for a few years before she called Mural Arts about their “ugly, empty” wall. It was visibly lumpy from when the neighboring house was torn down.
“You would never know that to see the mural on it,” she said.
About six months after Freeland’s call, Mural Arts called back. That led to meetings with nearby neighbors and artist Phillip Adams. The mural stalled when neighbors said they didn’t like Adams’ first idea for a still-life painting.
His second idea, Freeland said, “really spoke more to explaining what used to be in the area right where we live.” It pays tribute to Baldwin Locomotive Works, once the world’s most successful builder of steam locomotives, and the Lenape, who once lived on the land.
For Freeland and her husband, having the mural on the house “makes us feel very special indeed.”
Homeowners Sara and Clark DeLeon (left) and their granddaughter Lucy Metzker (right) pose in front of their mural with artist Sammy Kovnat (center).Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Sara DeLeon was persistent. She kept calling to check on her 2016 application for a mural through Mural Arts. For years, she stayed on the wait list.
“My husband and I, we just kept believing that one day, the right mural would be up on our wall, and the right artist would choose our wall,” she said.
In 2024, Sara and her husband, Clark, finally got the call they’d been hoping for. Artist Sammy Kovnat needed a wall after another one fell through when a neighbor refused to make space for the installation process.
“We feel very lucky that she chose us,” DeLeon said.
Three renters in the neighboring building enthusiastically gave up their spots in the parking lot for a month so the mural could be installed.
The DeLeons were thrilled with the design, and so were their neighbors.
Artist Sammy Kovnat (left) talks with homeowners Sara and Clark DeLeon in front of their mural.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
“It’s the block’s mural, not just ours,” DeLeon said. “It’s become just a wonderful focal point.”
The DeLeons also discovered a surprising personal connection when they saw the artist’s plans that made the mural feel “like fate.” They had inherited a set of dishes from Clark’s mother with an almost identical design to the one on the large plate featured on the mural.
Kovnat makes mosaics using broken dishes, and painted the plate in shards as part of her work exploring healing after trauma. The background of the mural is an homage to her grandfather, the Philadelphia-based founder of a national wallpaper hangers union.
Whenever the DeLeons see people they don’t recognize looking at the mural, they always stop to talk and answer questions.
Shirley Wardlaw stands in front of the mural featuring poet and recording artist Ursula Rucker on her property, which includes a poem she wrote with her husband and daughter.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
In 2019, a North Philadelphia mural of poet and recording artist Ursula Rucker was covered when a developer constructed a mixed-use building next to it. So Mural Arts invited artist Chip Thomas, aka Jetsonorama, to create another. The organization asked Shirley Wardlaw whether a mural of the Germantown native could go on her mixed-use building in Germantown.
Wardlaw operates a nursery school out of the building, and for a few years lived in the apartment above with her husband, Eckloff, and daughter, Sanayah. When the Wardlaws bought the property, the side wall had a partly sketched-out mural that had languished since Shirley was in high school. The wall was cracking, and it “looked pretty bad,” she said.
So Wardlaw applied to Mural Arts. And in came Jetsonorama.
Shirley Wardlaw worked with Mural Arts to get a mural on the side of her building, where she operates a nursery school.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
“I was really attracted to his real-life art and the black and white photos,” Wardlaw said.
The mural features an image of Rucker holding a megaphone that amplifies a poem celebrating the community. Another poem was written by the Wardlaw family. Young people in the neighborhood also contributed poetry.
The mural “brought back life” to the area and is “a big attraction” for visitors, Wardlaw said.
“It’s a beautiful, colorful space at the end of our block,” she said.
Wardlaw thinks the mural helps draw families to her nursery school, and she has pitched murals to other neighborhood businesses as a way to attract customers.
Christopher and Shannon Wink stand in front of the “Berks Shad” mural on their Fishtown home.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Berks Shad
The plain brick wall on Shannon and Christopher Wink’s Fishtown property was “screaming for a mural,” Shannon said.
The year after they moved in, it got one.
The Winks had known Philadelphia artist Sean Martorana for years and liked his style. So they asked him to paint the exterior wall of a structure that had been a cold storage room decades earlier. It was Martorana’s first outdoor mural.
“We knew we wanted something Fishtown,” Shannon Wink said. “It can easily get a little over-the-top, but it’s so nice to have a neighborhood that has its own visual identity.”
Martorana painted a giant shad surrounded by the Pennsylvania state flower, mountain laurel, in black and white, since the Winks didn’t want something too colorful. It all stands out next to the brick of their house.
“The way that the fish is oriented, it’s facing the river, which is something that Sean and we wanted to be really intentional about,” Wink said.
Sightseers often use their mural as a backdrop for photos. People have come in their wedding dresses.
The Winks’ two daughters were born after the mural was painted, so they’ve never known a home without it. The girls love walking around the neighborhood and seeing other decorated walls.
A neighbor of theirs, inspired by the Winks’ mural, gota similar one on their home, also painted by Martorana.
Wink encourages homeowners to get in on the city’s mural tradition.
“It’s just a really nice way to sometimes beautify, but also just create some more fun in a neighborhood,” she said.
Mural Arts asked homeowner John Del Rossi for permission to honor William and Letitia Still, Underground Railroad leaders who once lived in the home. Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
John Del Rossi bought his Bella Vista rowhouse in 2006. But he didn’t know about its historic significance until 2018, when he learned the property was nominated for designation as the William and Letitia Still House, named for the Underground Railroad leaders who once lived there.
A few years after the house joined the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, Mural Arts asked Del Rossi for permission for a mural to honor the Stills. He said hosting the artwork is an additional honor.
“The mural says a lot about what the house stood for,” he said. “It’s a visible representation of what took place in the home, and the sacrifice and the courage that people had in order to make that home what it was.”
During the design process, Del Rossi got to meet descendants of the Stills, which he called “a goose bumps type of meeting.”
“It was pretty surreal,” he said.
As the homeowner, he was invited to share his thoughts on the mural’s design, but he left the decisions to those who know more about art.
“I’m not an artist. I’m in medicine,” said Del Rossi, who works in California and rents out his home.
All mural expenses were covered, but he said he would have paid for the artwork himself if he had to in order to honor this piece of Philadelphia’s abolitionist history.
“I’m not gonna live forever,” Del Rossi said. “But hopefully, the mural will remain, and it’ll be a representation for the neighborhood and people in future generations to be able to see and understand what took place within those walls.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the name of the mural, “Pomegranates and Plate Shards.”
The tree-lined 100 block of North Mole Street seems to cast a spell on everyone who lives there.
This cluster of 30 two-story brick houses dates to the mid-19th century — some are close to 200 years old — and has long turned residents into devotees of its artsy parties and communal life.
The street standsout from the surrounding blocks of high-rise buildings and surface parking lots, a lone historical holdout in the heart of Center City, where most rowhouses have been erased. Affordable rents two blocks from City Hall have attracted a mix of artists, students, and — for some reason — airline flight attendants.
Except, now, almost all the trees have been cut down and the mid-block pocket park torn up. Many of the homes are being redeveloped, and leases are not being renewed for the motley assortment of renters who have long populated the block.
“I’m pretty close with most people on the block, and, I mean, this sucks,” said Teddy Powell, 34, a musician who has lived on this stretch of North Mole since 2020 and can reel off the names and occupations of most people on the block.
“We’re all being forced out of the houses that we love living in,” he said.
Teddy Powell is being forced off the 100 block of North Mole along with most of the rest of the tenants.Jake Blumgart
The 100 block of North Mole Street managed to stand apart for so long because it is owned by a family trust, which also dates to the 1800s, and belongs to descendants of founding father Robert Morris. The homes on Mole Street were given historic preservation protections in 1960.
It neighbors the Central Friends Meeting, which lies just to the east and dates to the 19th century as well.
Until last year, the trust owned 25 of the 30 homes. Rents were kept low: well under $2,000 for four-bedroom homes, mostly hosting roommates, a stone’s throw from City Hall. Individual renters would often pay just hundreds of dollars a month.
That’s a deal that cannot be found in most other parts of Center City, where new buildings have an average rent of over $2,600 and median household incomes are among the highest in Philadelphia.
And the group houses on this block of Mole Street tended to be tight knit, with parties spilling into the shaded street.
From the 1980s until the COVID-19 pandemic, the block hosted the Molestice Festival, with live music, food trucks, and a pop-up bar in the pocket park tucked into the block. In 2018, cheerful chalk graffiti daubed frontages with phrases like “The Mole Hole” and “We R Sky Trash Kappa Mole.”
“We had a lot of fun here; we’ve carried on the tradition,” Powell said. “It’s all over now, though, man. The party’s over.”
Last year, a developer bought eight of the North Mole Street homes for $3.1 million.
The new owner is Purity Homes Inc. Some of the zoning documents filed with the city are signed by real estate investor Armando Ahmad, with the owner’s mailing address listed in either Arlington, Texas, or a Point Breeze rowhouse that hosts seven other real estate-related LLCs.
Ahmad did not respond to a request for comment, and the architect for the project, Carey Jackson-Yonce of Canno Design, declined to comment.
The rowhouses holding out on the 100 block of North Mole Street in Center City are conveniently located to almost everything.John Duchneskie
But at a meeting last September of the city’s Historical Commission reviewing Purity Homes’ plans for eight of the homes, Jackson-Yonce said his client planned to acquire most of the block.
“They are heavily investing on the entire block, and I think in the end they will probably be able to acquire approximately 80% of the block,” Jackson-Yonce said. “This is just probably Phase One of what will probably be at least one more, if not two, more phases.”
Jackson-Yonce noted that the family trust that has owned North Mole Street for the better part of two centuries is selling the properties in batches, perhaps to see how the developer does with the first eight.
He assured commission members that his client was “100% committed to the faithful restoration of these homes.”
The plans displayed at that meeting centered on adding square footage to the rear of the homes, while the interiors are being gutted to create more space. The Historical Commission regulates only the exteriors that can be seen from the street. Currently several of the homes lack roofs.
The exception to the plan to supersize the block is the three homes at 1527, 1525, and 1523 Cherry St., on the south end of the block, which are being demolished.
1527 to 1523 Cherry St., three 19th-century homes slated for demolition at the end of Mole Street. This photo was taken before most of the trees were cut down. Jake Blumgart
They are not protected by historic regulations. Paul Steinke of the advocacy group Preservation Alliance says the developer wants to build an eight-unit apartment block in the place of those 19th-century rowhouses.
Purity Homes’ plans for Mole Street will necessarily entail sharp rent increases due to the amount of money being spent to acquire and redevelop the homes.
Powell and two other tenants on the block say that they were recently told their leases won’t be renewed.
“Everybody that I know over here is pretty sad and disappointed about the whole thing,” said Joshua McIntyre, a more recent resident of the 100 block of Mole.
“It’s a lot of different kinds of young people, artists, and there were several bands that practice over here, but now it’s going to be like the rest of Center City, I guess,” McIntyre said.
Canno Architects’ designs promise that the exteriors of the buildings on this stretch of Mole Street will remain — as preservationists watch closely.
“This block is really a magical one,” David Traub of the preservation group Save Our Sites said at last September’s Historical Commission meeting. “It’s really a miracle that it still exists in the context in which it is situated, immediately adjacent to the very center of the city … [it’s an] extremely important remnant of Old Philadelphia in Center City.”
St. Hedwig’s, which served Chester’s Polish Catholic community for generations, is officially no longer a church. And some of the former parish’s buildings may soon become multifamily housing.
Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez last week issued a decree approving the “relegation” of the building to “profane but not sordid use effective January 1, 2026.”
In other words, the building will “no longer be designated as a Roman Catholic church,” according to a Sunday announcement from the archdiocese.
Pérez’s decree merely capped off a process that had been in the works for years.
In the early 1990s, amid decreasing attendance, the archdiocese merged several Delaware County parishes. St. Hedwig’s became a part of Clifton Heights’ Sacred Heart Parish, which also serves the Polish community, and its building became a place of worship under the care of Sacred Heart.
That marked the official end of the parish, which was established in 1902 and was named after Hedwig of Silesia, a 13th-century duchess of Greater Poland.
But financial pressures — including an estimated $60,000 repair for a failed boiler — and pastoral challenges continued to mount, and church officials moved to unload the historic property.
“While those worshipping at Saint Hedwig’s had been contributing generously for the upkeep of their church, their donations proved insufficient for the church’s ongoing maintenance needs,” the archdiocese said Sunday. “Multiple repairs have been financed by Sacred Heart Parish, which itself faced an operating deficit in 2024.”
The final Mass was held in 2023.
“For 121 years, St. Hedwig’s has been there to serve the Polish people,” the church announced in a Facebook post at the time. “We have celebrated baptisms, communions, confirmations, marriages, and ultimately funerals. We have been forever faithful.”
A parishioner at the time lamented the demise of a church that had served the area’s Polish community for more than a century.
“We sing in Polish and pray in Polish and we still have a very tight-knit community that maintains this church,” Judy Kuchinski of Chester told 6abc.
The archdiocese in January sold a property across the street from the church that included a former school, rectory, and convent to a group of real estate investors, according to Delaware County records.
“While the sale of property adjacent to Saint Hedwig Church in January 2025 provided additional capital to Sacred Heart, this money will be needed to help offset the regular deficits that accrue in financing parish operations,” the archdiocese said Sunday.
Mario Rivello, a multifamily housing developer who has done other work in Chester, is leading the project.
“We’re very active in that city, and this may be a property that we further develop based on approval process,” Rivello said in an interview Sunday.
Rivello said the investors’ goal is to convert the buildings into multifamily housing, which he said is “our expertise.” They have no plans to demolish the buildings, he said.
“We’d rather not,” Rivello said. “The archdiocese — the bones of the buildings that they sell — usually these properties are in good condition or they’re well-built.”
The archdiocese did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
