The industrial stretch along Lehigh Avenue is being filled up with condos.
Lehigh and Aramingo Ave.
SYDNEY SCHAEFER / BILLY PENNMax Marin reports for BillyPenn
The industrial strip along the Lehigh Avenue corridor — home to that scrapyard fire of mythological proportions last year — is one condo closer to calling it a night.
While the sale has yet to be finalized, Bruce Paul Auto Parts is the second salvage yard within a year to cash out along this stretch of open land between the suddenly-booming Kensington and Port Richmond neighborhoods. Developers scooping up the 80,000-square-foot parcel have already begun pitching their plans to community groups.
The proposed project — four apartment buildings featuring some commercial space — is still very much in the nascent stages, requiring both zoning variances and community input before it can move forward. But it’s a sign of things to come for the rapidly gentrifying borderlands where long-standing industrial beacons are giving way to the forces of market-rate housing.
Bruce Paul says the jig is up for the junkyard kings in this part of town.
“Anybody that’s working with their hands can’t afford to stay around here anymore,” Paul told Billy Penn. “I’m not gonna put up with my taxes doubling every other year. They’re forcing everybody out. Welcome to Philadelphia.”
Scrapyards, opioids and developers
It’s been a tumultuous year on the strip where Paul’s yard sits. Last summer’s massive inferno at the Philadelphia Metal & Resource Recovery brought increased scrutiny to the cluster of junkyards.
Some neighbors aired grievances about the environmental hazards of such scrapyards existing in close proximity to residential neighborhoods. The multi-million-dollar developments now going up will likely intensify those concerns.
“I work seven days,” Paul said. “They don’t want to see my cranking up the crane on a Sunday.”
The development tide is swelling in tandem with the city’s efforts to clean up the opioid-ravaged neighborhoods around the scrap strip. In January, officials shuttered the last of four homeless encampments that sprung up along the Lehigh trestle and under the bridges. Developers are now rehabbing old factory buildings that crumbled into Kensington’s drug era, which stand as bleak reminders of a neighborhood the city turned its back on for decades.
Throughout the decline, however, scrapyards have been a steadfast presence. After Paul’s closes its gates for good, three auto- and scrap-related businesses will remain along this stretch of Lehigh — including Philadelphia Metal & Resource Exchange.
Last September, a few months after the fire there, owner David Feinberg settled his outstanding code violations with the city for $125,000.
The scrap metal industry has suffered heavy blows in recent years, many tied to the global economy and less to neighborhood development. Feinberg thinks he can survive — but for how long he isn’t sure. “Who knows?” Feinberg said.
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