A year after bankruptcy, sudden interest in a building’s fate

Mayor Street tours Women’s Y with Germantown nonprofit

by MICHAEL J. MISHAK

A nonprofit group with deep ties to City Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller courted Mayor Street last month in connection with its effort to purchase the home of the Germantown Women’s Y, an historic institution that filed for bankruptcy last August.

Officials from Germantown Settlement, a human services agency that offers a variety of community-based programs and runs a charter school, met with the mayor in mid-July to discuss their preliminary plans, according to Miller, who brokered the meeting.

Miller sat on Germantown Settlement’s board of directors for more than two decades before resigning in 1996 after being elected to Council.

Last week, Street followed up with a walkthrough of the Y’s main building at 5820 Germantown Ave. The event, which was not listed on the mayor’s public schedule, drew about 30 people, most of whom were part of Street’s entourage. They included Eva Gladstein, director of the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, Joyce Wilkerson, the mayor’s chief of staff, and representatives of Germantown Settlement.

Street toured the entire building, taking in “the nuts and bolts” of every room, but shared few thoughts, said John O’Connell, a real estate agent with Weichert, Realtors/McCarthy Associates who is showing the property.

The asking price for the 50,000 sq. ft. main building is $1.65 million, he said. Another property at 1240 E. Chelten Ave., which currently houses the Y’s daycare center, is also for sale. It lists for $275,000, he said. Both properties were placed on the real estate block earlier this year when a bankruptcy court ordered the Y to examine liquidating its assets to satisfy a debt of about $600,000. 

Germantown Settlement is one of a handful of area nonprofits that have expressed interest in purchasing the Y, O’Connell said. Three groups are now involved in preliminary due diligence, sending architects and engineers to evaluate the main building, he said.

“Any nonprofit that takes on a building like that would be looking for assistance,” O’Connell, who is also the 9th Ward Democratic leader, said. “It’s only natural that a mayor of a big city would come out to look at the situation.”

Characterizing the walkthrough as “exploratory and informational,” Joe Grace, a spokesman for Mayor Street, said that, after learning of the situation from Councilwoman Miller, among others, the mayor wanted to personally inspect the condition of the building and explore possible uses.

But, Grace insisted, the event “doesn’t signal any particular intention on [the city’s] part.”

Grace added, “We’re nowhere near ready to make a decision yet on what, if any, additional steps the city could take with regard to the building. I’m sure there will be further discussions, we’ll see some more information and hear from some more people about what, if any, role the city would play in the future with regard to the building.”

The Y is among several Germantown facilities, including a mini-City Hall, whose closure impacts both the city and the neighborhood, Grace said. “We want to see how different facilities up there might be utilized. And the mayor wanted to see for himself.”

“Nothing has been ruled in and nothing has been ruled out” in terms of city involvement, Grace said.

While the interest among several potential buyers may breathe new life into the historic institution, which was forced to close its doors in February in the face of soaring heating bills, costly insurance premiums and long-deferred maintenance, the sudden political attention has left some Y volunteers feeling spurned, particularly as the organization approaches the one-year anniversary of its bankruptcy filing.

For months, the board of the Germantown Women’s Y petitioned city, state and federal lawmakers for help. The response from elected officials, members said, was lukewarm at best.

In recent months there has been some progress. Through the direction of state Rep. John Meyers (D., Phila.), the Y joined the African-American Chamber of Commerce, which in turn enabled the board to switch insurance providers. The group also receives federal grant updates through U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum.

Still, the board’s cries for emergency funding have fallen on deaf ears. Now, while some remain optimistic, there seems to be little hope for a debt-saddled institution whose sole exit strategy is the liquidation of its assets.

“We’re not in a position where we want to be,” said Heike Rass-Paulmier, vice president of the Y’s board. She called the recent moves by both Miller and Street “a slap to the people in this community,” especially after being told the city coffers were empty.

When asked for help, state legislators referred Y board members back to Miller, who the lawmakers said had the most political muscle to leverage financial assistance, Rass-Paulmier said. “We reached out to [Miller] many times,” Rass-Paulmier said. Still, after faxing a number of letters about the Y’s fiscal crisis to Miller’s office, Rass-Paulmier said the council representative was not responsive. “Donna Miller’s door is always closed.”

For Rass-Paulmier, the city’s political leadership is too little, too late.

“We reached out as much as we could,” Rass-Paulmier said. “Even if we didn’t call every week, [Miller] still has a responsibility to find out the problems in her community.”

“We tried with the limited resources we had to turn the situation around, and the political muscle seemed to work against us.”

Responding to the criticism, Miller said that she first learned of the Y’s fiscal crisis earlier this year when board president Jennifer Levy contacted her in February, shortly before the institution shuttered its main building. “I was shocked,” Miller said. “I thought they were doing well.”

Miller said she inquired about city funds for the organization but came up short. “When the Y called me, the city was in its own fiscal crunch,” she said.

According to Miller, Levy later informed her that the Y planned to place its assets on the market and asked if she knew of any interested buyers. In an interview Levy said she did notify Miller of the impending sale but did not ask about potential buyers.

Miller said she then contacted “a few” nonprofit groups in the area, one of which was Germantown Settlement. At the request of Emanuel Freeman, the group’s president and chief executive officer, Miller said she arranged the meeting with Mayor Street. Absent from that mid-July meeting, the councilwoman said she could not speak to what was discussed. Asked if Germantown Settlement was seeking city funds to aid their purchase of the building, Miller said, “I have no idea if the city has money to help anyone acquire the Y.”

Once a member of the historic institution, Miller said she was saddened by the Y’s collapse but maintained that its facilities, in the hands of another nonprofit, could continue to benefit the community. “We don’t want to see a big empty building sitting on Germantown Avenue,” she said.

Timing and a cash-strapped city tied her hands, Miller said. “I don’t want this to sound like I’m willing to help the Settlement but I wasn’t willing to help the Y,” she said. “There’s nothing hidden here.”

In an interview last Friday, Freeman confirmed his group’s interest in the Germantown Women’s Y. Under a preliminary plan, Germantown Settlement would relocate some of its current programs, including ones aimed at youth services, housing development and job training to the Y, he said.

Asked about his group’s meeting with the mayor, Freeman said, “I can’t elaborate on those discussions.” Pressed on the issue, and asked by a Local reporter if Germantown Settlement was seeking city funding, Freeman declined comment.

Still, when asked if Germantown Settlement was in a financial position to transact a $1.65 million real estate deal, Freeman said, “We would need to seek some assistance to accomplish that goal.”

But according to Geneva Vargas, a Y board member who heads the organization’s childcare center, Freeman was less guarded at a recent meeting with Y officials. “He said [Germantown Settlement] was seeking city funding and that the mayor had to do the walkthrough to give his assessment,” said Vargas, who attended the meeting.

Vargas hopes the Y can continue its programming under another nonprofit with a “parallel mission,” but said she was disappointed by the late arrival of city officials. “I had hoped there was money for the Y as a nonprofit in the community,” she said. “I would have liked to be in the running for city money if there is city money.”

Levy, the board president, echoed the sentiment. “There’s still good that can come from this,” she said. “But it would have been great if it had been a year ago.”