City Councilwoman Jannie L. Blackwell has dropped her longstanding opposition to moving the city’s Youth Study Center to her West Philadelphia district in exchange for improvements in her district including a community center to be named after her late husband, two sources familiar with the agreement said yesterday.
The deal, which is expected to be announced at a press conference Thursday, ends a stalemate that had confounded the Street administration and complicated plans for the Barnes Foundation to move its prized art collection to the center’s current site adjacent to the Ben Franklin Parkway.
The powerful councilwoman had held up the study center’s move to West Philadelphia for three years, using a custom known as councilmanic “privilege” or “prerogative” that gives district council members virtual veto power over land-use in their neighborhoods.
But in recent weeks, she softened her stance and finally agreed to allow the move if the Street administration pledged improvements in the neighborhood.
The agreement with Blackwell involves various entities, including the Philadelphia Housing Authority, school district, city and state. They will pitch in to build a community center and make improvements at the Sulzberger Middle School, the sources said.
The community center would be named after Blackwell’s late husband, U.S. Rep. Lucien E. Blackwell.
Earlier, Blackwell had insisted on $11 million in public improvements to her district – that the Street administration deemed too dear. The councilwoman said she wanted to make sure her impoverished district got some benefits from hosting the detention center, which she called a “jail.”
Critics called her tactics political extortion and faulted her for delaying a project the entire city needs.
In September, the mayor announced he would move the youth study center to a temporary home at the former Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute for three years, at a cost of $8 million in renovations.
The overcrowded, run-down youth center must move to make way for a new parkway home for the famous art collection of the Barnes Foundation in Merion.
Blackwell declined to comment yesterday. Street’s spokesman Joe Grace could not be reached for comment last night.
Ralph Wynder, a Democratic ward leader in the neighborhood that includes the site of the center’s planned temporary home, said he understood that it would still have to move temporarily to East Falls under Blackwell’s new plan. Wynder and neighborhood leaders oppose that move.
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