A developer with financial backing from state and city looks to reshape a long-declining shopping center in Seaford.
The Nylon Capital Shopping Center saw its apex five decades ago, when it was a lively community gathering place for residents of west Seaford — the neighborhood that many in Seaford then expected to be a center of the city's growth. But as business shifted to Route 13 and Dupont’s manufacturing operations in Seaford disappeared, the shopping center emptied. Today, its acres of parking lot sit mostly empty, with only a few businesses holding between boarded-up storefronts.
Now, a Wilmington-based developer is acquiring the more than 21-acre site, with plans to rework it into a walkable commercial and community hub with a healthcare provider, coworking space and facilities for higher education.
Developer Rob Herrera says the Nylon Capital Shopping Center and others like it across Delaware are facing obsolescence, but the properties are ripe for repurposing as developers and local governments search for ways to densify and maximize the use of centrally located properties.
“The more we develop and understand it, the more we realize humans like spaces built for humans, not cars," he said. "I think these shopping centers all over America are going to fall on hard times, so they need to be repositioned.”
Herrera says that while his plans for the site are still rough, he anticipates roughly 200,000 square feet of new construction — much of it between two and three stories, rather than the current one-story commercial spaces — which will require the demolition of multiple buildings. His team will meet with the remaining businesses at the shopping center, including an Italian restaurant and a dollar store, on a case-by-case basis to determine who will remain in the future development.
Meanwhile, Herrera says, he will continue to engage with Seaford's city council on planning questions, including whether he can adjust the parking requirements for newly constructed buildings to make better use of the existing and largely unused parking lots.
The $60 million project will receive $5.1 million in subsidies, with $2 million coming from the state's coffers — via the most recent bond bill — and $3.1 million from Seaford itself. Mayor David Genshaw says the city’s contribution will come directly from Seaford’s reserves.
“This is something we have never done at this level - it’s a stretch for the city," he said. "But again, to ride by this and see what was here – it’s an anchor to our past, and a past that probably isn’t coming back in that way .”
Herrera also hopes to receive American Rescue Plan Act funding to build spaces for some tenants, including the potential health care provider.
