At 10th & Orange Streets in downtown Wilmington, a newly renovated four-story building contains six apartments occupied by professionals, and a restaurant and dry cleaners on the ground floor. With its full occupancy and gleaming new fittings, it appears to be contributing to the city center’s rebirth as a busy place to work, live and play.
But it wasn’t always that way.
Until 2018, the century-old building was in “desperate” need of renovation, was only partially occupied, and had some tenants who had stopped paying rent, said Neill Wright, managing partner of WT Partners, a developer that bought the building that year, and has since refurbished it.
The company spent around $1.2 million on the upgrades, and when the work was done, received $157,000 from Delaware’s Downtown Development District (DDD) program, which rebates up to 20 percent of the construction costs to projects in designated downtown districts that have qualified for the state help because of their struggling economies or crumbling real estate.
Wright’s project did not qualify for the full 20 percent rebate because of unforeseen overruns in construction costs because to the pandemic, he said.
Since being signed into law by former Gov. Jack Markell in 2014, and beginning operations the following year, the program has completed 357 projects in 12 designated development districts across the state. Another three DDD areas could be designated under the law.
In fiscal 2022, ending on June 30 last year, 64 development projects qualified for $4.6 million in state funding, and leveraged $44 million in private investment, mostly by rehabilitating existing buildings, according to an annual report from the Delaware State Housing Authority, which runs the program.
The program helps with the cost of new construction as well as the renovation of historic properties. In fiscal 2022, recipients included Ninth Street Holdings LLC, which demolished a dilapidated structure in New Castle and replaced it with six new town homes, and Triple Twelve LLC which converted a 19th-century home in Middletown to a tasting room and beer garden, a project which state officials said is attracting more visitors to the town.
“We were really bringing to life a building that had fallen into deep disrepair but is on a major gateway in the City of Wilmington."Neill Wright, managing partner of WT Partners
In Wilmington’s 249-acre downtown development district, renovation of the property at 10th & Orange has helped revive a neighborhood since the construction ended in spring 2022, said Wright.
“We were really bringing to life a building that had fallen into deep disrepair but is on a major gateway in the City of Wilmington,” he said. “It really is a high-traffic intersection that now has housing that’s being developed across the street. Businesses and residences are coming to the neighborhood.”
The 6,500 square-foot building is now fully occupied with tenants in the apartments that have been fitted with new plumbing, electrical and HVAC systems as well as new floors, appliances and walls where appropriate, Wright said. Tenants pay $1,500-$1,700 a month for one-bedroom apartments of 700-750 square feet.
The developer “inherited” some paying tenants when it bought the building; one expressed an interest in continuing to live there post-renovation but did not respond when offered a lease in the rehabbed building, he said.
The building – now called The Warner after a theater that stood nearby until the 1970s -- is no longer an “eyesore”, and is now helping to revive a corner of Wilmington that was struggling economically.
“Now we have really brought that corner back to life,” Wright said. “There are more things happening in the downtown development district such as restaurants. There is a burgeoning nightlife. It has made that neighborhood more appealing.”
The program aims to spur private capital investment in commercial business districts and other neighborhoods; stimulate job growth and improve commercial vitality in the districts; build a stable community of long-term residents by building more and better housing, and help local governments build lively downtowns that attract talented people and innovative small businesses.
To be accepted, applicants must present data on the local economy such as rates of unemployment, poverty, and home ownership, as well as the prevalence of abandoned or dilapidated buildings, according to the Office of State Planning Coordination (OSPC), which begins the designation process.
Any town seeking development district designation must also describe the potential positive impacts that would result from that action, the agency said. Applications first go to the OSPC, then to a cabinet committee, and are finally evaluated by the Governor.
Other participating cities include Georgetown whose 83-acre downtown development district has seen projects such as the upgrade at 32 The Circle of five second-floor offices with electrical improvements, HVAC, carpet, drywall, and doors. At 201 East Laurel Street, another project has renovated a vacant building to create a laundry, coffee shop, and beauty salon on the ground floor and apartments upstairs.
More details on local projects can be found in a “story map” published by the state.
Laurie Jacobs, director of public relations for the Delaware State Housing Agency, said it’s hard to know whether the private investment in downtowns since the program began would have happened without the state support.
But as the program nears its 10th anniversary in 2025, she said the state is committed to supporting the revitalization efforts through the program. “That success builds on itself by creating a solid business corridor supporting continued growth and commercial and residential investments. For some of the small project investments, it may have created stability in the physical location of the investment and helped make these investments more financially feasible,” she said. The program has requested $5.5 million from the state budget for the coming fiscal year.
Recent participants in the program include Lazarus Educational Services, a nonprofit that helps formerly incarcerated people get the training they need to restart their lives after release from prison. The organization received a DDD rebate of around $70,000 after completing the renovation of 719 E. 10th Street in Wilmington, about five blocks from the city center, at a cost of some $350,000.
Executive director Rosie Tooley said she would have committed to the building renovation even if the state assistance had not been available, but now that she has received it, the money has helped meet her expenses in the approximately six months that the nonprofit has been up and running.
The neighborhood, which was previously marred by abandoned buildings, is now coming up at the same time that her own 2,200-square-foot, two-story building is enjoying a new lease on life.
“Streets have been improved and sidewalks have been refurbished and made accessible,” she said. “Utilities have been brought through, even for the houses that are vacant. There is currently a movement to get them renovated so that they can be occupied.”
“Streets have been improved and sidewalks have been refurbished and made accessible. Utilities have been brought through, even for the houses that are vacant. There is currently a movement to get them renovated so that they can be occupied.”Rosie Tooley, executive director of Lazarus Educational Services
But she warned that any DDD award won’t be made until the project is complete and a certificate of occupancy is obtained.
“Until and unless your work is all done, and you get a certificate of occupancy, they [the state authorities] are not involved, so you have to put up all the money and do all the repairs, and get everything finished. You can’t count on that to finish because you don’t get it until afterwards,” she said.
Still, there’s a new sense of community that accompanies the physical improvements that she and other owners have made to their properties. The people who clean her sidewalk also tell other members of the community what her organization does there, and that is helping to spread the word, she said.
“It’s an area of the city where there has been a blight for a long time but it is also an important corridor,” she said. “It’s better now.”
