9-acre site to the Zahav Group, which plans an adaptive reuse for the structure, creating five or six market-rate rental units and two community rooms. If the zoning board eventually approves the variance – allowing multi-family use of a structure now zoned as a single-family rowhouse – the city could sell the. The city has been trying to dispose of the partnership’s holdings ever since and is eager to see properties like the mansion returned to its tax rolls. It was acquired in 2015 by the Housing Partnership, a quasi-governmental nonprofit that became insolvent in 2019. The building has not had permanent residents for more than 30 years. She invited representatives of the development group to present their plans to the community at a civic association meeting on May 24.ĭelaware Public Media Crumbling stucco and broken downspouts are among the issues with the Brown House The Zoning Board of Adjustment, however, deferred making its decision after Dorrene Robinson, president of the Browntown Civic Association, said neighborhood residents had not been kept informed of plans to preserve and rehabilitate the mansion. The city’s Design Review and Preservation Commission deferred action on the city’s demolition request after a coalition of preservationists and neighborhood residents demonstrated that requirements to approve a demolition had not been met.Ī lull of two years preceded last week’s hearing on the variance, the next legal step in a complex process that could result in the Wilmington Housing Partnership transferring title for the property to a development group that would preserve the building by turning it into a multi-family residence. The structure faced demolition in early 2021, when a developer was negotiating with the city to build a complex of about 40 townhouses on the site of the mansion and an adjacent parcel. Shattered, boarded windows, crumbling stucco and dangling downspouts are now among its most noticeable features. The mansion, also known as The Anchorage, sits atop a hill on Seventh Avenue in the Browntown community, which derives its name from the building’s most prominent owner. Brown House new life as an apartment building and the Browntown Civic Association asked for more information about the project. Efforts to preserve an iconic Wilmington landmark continued this month as the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment considered a variance to give the 200-year-old Dr.
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