zoned industrially, but there is no industry in the immediate vicinity. That's one of our refusals
though. The zoning calls for another industrial use. It also calls for 10 parking spaces given
the number of units we'd like to develop, but we don't feel given the triangular shape of the
parcel that that's practical without going underground, which we're not willing to do
because of the history of the property and for economic reasons. So I'll just show you an aerial
photograph really quickly. This is the property with the red arrows. So it's adjacent to the
um this is the property with the red arrows so it's adjacent to the septa railroad tracks which
receptor
are elevated here um it's across the street from the temple uh football practice facility
my client actually developed um which i'll show you in one minute a building on this side of 11th
street uh which has been received very well um and also um is almost finished developing some
buy right sort of row home properties here. So there's only one other on this sort of funny
block, residential homeowner. And we've been in contact with her, actually helped her get an L&I
violation removed from her property and sort of assisted her with some repairs on her home.
Just to say that, you know, we don't feel that this project, given sort of the strange location,
is interrupting anybody's lifestyle, so to speak, and is going to enhance what's already there.
This is the letter from Senator Street that I mentioned. And this is a letter, I think we heard
opposition at the last hearing from two parties. One was a non-resident property owner from nearby
who actually didn't oppose the project, aside from the lack of parking. We also heard from
the planning commission who wanted another residential use on the property, or so they
said in that hearing. And what we had done is we contacted a commercial real estate brokerage firm
and asked them, essentially, would you market this property for non-residential use,
for commercial or industrial use.
So it was really in their interest to say yes to that
because if they let us sell it, they'd get a commission.
And basically instead they said no.
And we ended up with this letter from them
declining to market the property
for anything but residential use.
And speaking to how given the shape
and the railroad track next door,
It's just, it is not possible to build a ground up new construction industrial property that would be marketable. That's sort of the gist of this letter. And he encouraged us to allow him to sell it for residential purposes, but we don't want to do that because Philip is a residential developer.
So, you know, we're going to do this ourselves and we're excited to. And then here, just to wrap up, this is one image on the right here. This is what we're here proposing today. This is the building. That's the ground floor commercial space.
The football complex would be directly across the street.
And Philip is currently constructing this sort of series of row home buildings that I mentioned.
So if we're able to get the approval today, there would actually be a really nice courtyard between the two properties, which he gave the moniker Philicon Square.
And then finally, just to show you a finished product, this is the 11th Street, sort of much more modest project that I mentioned, but a guy stopped me on the street, I kid you not, telling me that he was so thrilled with how this came out as a neighbor and how clean the site was kept after construction.
So anyway, that's it for me. I would ask that if it's possible, Philip Michael, the made-up
panelist, because he has a couple additional slides he'd like to present.
Sure, sure. Let's get that on. Can we raise his hand so we can get him in, please?
Philip, can you use the raise hand feature on Zoom?
You said, Mr. Severin, he has slides he's going to present?
Yes. And I can put them up. Otherwise, it'd be a little easier if he can present them, though.
Okay. He's been promoted to paid list.
Thank you.
Phillip? Okay. Hello, Phillip.
Hello, Brandon. Thank you for the nice intro. Thank you, everyone, for the time.
Good afternoon, sir. Please state your name and spell it for the record.
Yes, Philip Michael, P-H-I-L-I-P, Michael, M-I-C-H-A-E-L.
You swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Yes, I do.
Proceed, can I ask you?
Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair.
So, Philip, just as a preliminary matter, what I've said so far, was that true and accurate to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief?
Absolutely.
And would you adopt it as if it were your own testimony?
Yes. And you are the principal of the property owning company and can speak for the property
owning company. Is that correct? Yes, I am. Yes, I am. Okay. Go ahead. I know you wanted to make
Yes, I am.
Okay, go ahead.
I know you wanted to make a couple remarks.
a couple of remarks.
Okay, yes.
Number one, I want to thank you guys once again for considering this.
And one of the things that I would like to show you all is, in addition to building and
developing, it is not just in the self-interest of the economic self-interest of what we
The reason what we've done, as Brandon alluded to, is that we've created a project that has
a long-term vision to, we labeled it sort of informally, hashtag reverse gentrification.
So of course, it's a traditional and historically African-American neighborhood.
Then there's the very esteemed Temple University, which is growing and has people coming in.
And these things happen.
People develop, they add value to the neighborhood, and often people get pushed out.
What we've wanted to do and what we've pledged to do, and I would love for the honor and
the privilege to show you this in a few slides, is to give people access to ownership so they can
partake in the value appreciation. That's number one. Two, being able to improve the aesthetics
and the cleanliness and everything of the neighborhood. And this is something that we
take pride in with the first phase that we built. We hire external people to come and keep it clean.
And it's a thing that we're very big on. So if it is okay with everyone to share my slides.
go ahead philip yep that's fine so let me do this here so i'm gonna go through this quickly
and i'm happy to take any questions so this was when we started uh everything that we're doing
back in in 2020 this is an interview that i gave for forbes and this is our stated mission myself
and we started as a small shop we don't have big venture capital money hedge funds family offices
behind us this is all self-funded to show other people that they could do the same thing that
we're doing. And we're doing a number of things in addition to building, in addition to giving
access that I'm going to get to in a second, to help the community and, again, elevate the value
and bring more wealth to people that haven't had access to it before. So this is, again,
the number one driver behind the wealth gap. Let's say, for instance, right now,
homeownership in minority communities is lower now than it was 50 years ago when discrimination
was legal. And there are a number of factors that caused this. But one of the things that
I'd like to focus on is a solution. How can we actually reverse that? So when we had our
groundbreaking ceremony for phase two, this is, as Brandon alluded to, we had a letter of support
from Senator Street. He came out on his birthday, as a matter of fact, three days before mine,
and helped us break ground. And these are some of the community members that co-owned the project
and also some of the team members. Here's the project in and of itself. The idea, the reason
we call it Silicon Square is similar to Silicon Valley, sort of underscored and highlighted a
renaissance, a resurgence of creativity, entrepreneurship, ownership. I can't quite
call it a valley. I don't own that much. So we call it a square to Silicon Square to sort of
bring that energy where people can create jobs, bring jobs back to the community, ownership and
showing people. They don't teach this in school. So this is one of the things that we do. So here's
where we built an app where people can own a piece of each property with as little as $100.
And just for the first one, people invested at a price at about half of what it appraised at, doubling their money.
It's currently trading, so people can actually own a piece of that with $1.
So this is one of the solutions that we like to bring.
This is what we've done.
Of course, as mentioned, it was a family shop.
It was myself, my father, and my nephew.
This is my nephew who is actually in a different life and a different dimension as a soccer star.
And this is a partner of mine and other projects.
So we've got a lot of attention and traction and we've helped to date over 10,000 people of color become first time real estate owners, which is one of the things I'm more proud of, more so than returns and all this other stuff for myself, that is.
So this space here, I would like to mention one of the things that we've done in terms of community support is we hosted a financial literacy conference out of our own pocket at Temple University where Senator Street and Senator Hughes came out and hosted it with us.
And this space right here, which is in the property that we have in mind, we have a nonprofit that will give access to financial literacy tools, support, help people start investing.
I don't really care if people invest with us just as long as they start going on that financial journey.
I believe it's a net positive to the community, to society, if more people have.
so and it's one of the most of people's issues can be traced out traced back in some form of fashion
to not having enough so and i believe i believe in the sanctity and the integrity of human beings
i believe if more people have i grew up as a as a child in denmark where no one is really poor and
it had and there's the lowest rate of corruption and lowest rate of crime because i believe human
beings if if you're not hungry you don't need you can you'll you'll have you'll have better
things. So this is from the, we call it WealthCon. This is Senator Street and Senator Hughes. And
these are some of the courses that we have where people can learn about how to invest in the stock
market. Our community manager managed over 10,000 retirement portfolios for the government before
managed over 10,000 retirement portfolios for the government before she retired.
she retired. She's a black lady.
She's a Black lady. Most of it is Black-owned, although I wish it just so happened to be that
way. And that's what we really want to bring down to the community, build a better community,
allow people to take part in the value out of the community, and also giving the pathway to
the tool so they can do the same thing. And that's essentially what it is that we do,
just bringing empowerment, community empowerment, and resources back to where it is instead of
coming in, invading the neighborhood, building it, extracting wealth, and just running away.
So that is why we do it, just as much as the practical logistics of residential, I feel, and we truly believe would fit better in that area, but also what it represents.
And we've seen so many, heard so many stories about people that even if they own with $1, $100, you go from consumer to investor to owner.
It shifts your mindset completely, and it has a net positive effect.
And we see this day in and day out inside our community.
So I hope this wasn't too long-winded, but this is the why, why we're doing it.
in addition to wanting to create a better aesthetic building for the neighborhood,
but also something people can be proud of and wanting to continue.
And we hope to continue and build more affordable housing if, you know,
that's something we've discussed and I would very much like to do.
And this is a lifetime mission.
This is not just In-N-Out.
It's something I've devoted my life to for the past three and a half years.
So that's it for me, Brandon.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Phil.
Um, members of the board, um, sorry, Mr. Vice Chair, would you say on the board?
No, no, no, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
All right.
Can you hear me, Mr. Vice Chair?
Yes, I can hear you, Tom.
Okay, I have no questions.
Any questions from the virtual audience?
Yes, we have Robert.
They have been allowed to speak.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
Hi, my name is Rob Cashin.
I'm a neighbor on Susquehanna.
Can you state your name and spell it
for the court reporter, please?
Yes, it's Robert Cashin, C-A-S-H-I-O-N.
uh you swear to tell the truth and the whole truth or nothing but i do
please proceed okay uh i live on susquehanna i bought a house around five years ago
on a street that had less homes on it so that it'd be more chance for parking and quiet but i also
know that there are properties that are going to be developed and i do support them being developed
and this one certainly looks like a nice one my concern is that the consideration for not having
any parking or even a loading dock the identical property at the other end of this block triangle
has one old building and is getting a new building so the same size lot and they came to this meeting
and asked to go from 10 to zero.
They got denied and decided to go 10 to five.
So they're putting in five parking spaces.
So it seems like it would be possible
to put in parking spaces.
That's basically my concern.
I understand.
And do you support the project?
If it comes with parking, yes.
Okay, it's duly noted.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
Thank you, sir.
i see no hands planning commission this uh ron bednar city planning the city planning commission
um has no change to its original recommendation
thanks ron uh so we're going to take this and table this with the rest of the commissioners
um and we'll vote on this next week um what time will we do this hillary we'll vote on this um
next week at 2 p.m so uh the record is closed on on this case um no additional comments but we
will vote on it next week at 2 p.m thank you mr vice chairman thank you thank you ish is there
anyone in the virtual audience who's three has the case on the 330 list their case has not been
I see no hands
Thank you
Thank you everyone
Good week
Thank you Mr. Kiesha
Thank you, Mr. Kiesha.
Thank you Mr. Chairman
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you
Hold on one minute.