A key paragraph perhaps sums it up best, when the realtor representing track owners stated: "We've been marketing the property nationally and internationally for more than six months now. There was very little interest in reactivating the site for racing entertainment. In fact, it was almost non- existent."
Unfortunately for me, I live right down the street from the monstrosity now known as Franklin Mills Mall. Today, 27 years later, the Mall is a magnate for thieves and low-lives, and I often wish it was still a racetrack. It was built hastily and without any rhyme or reason, desecrating the land upon which thoroughbreds and standardbreds once trod.
RIP Liberty Bell Park.
Track Buyer: Off-price Is Best Bet
The owner of Liberty Bell Park yesterday agreed to sell the racetrack for $23.3 million to a Washington, D.C., development company that has tentative plans to build a shopping center on the Northeast Philadelphia site.
Liberty Bell Park Inc., the track's corporate owner, plans to sell the 288- acre property to Western Development Corp., which has preliminary plans to build a large commercial development at the track, located at Knights and Woodhaven roads. A 1-million-square-foot shopping mall, specializing in discount stores, would anchor the project.
A final sale depends upon a number of conditions, including re-zoning of the property to permit mixed-use development, said Neil Heyse of Cushman Wakefield, the real estate firm representing Liberty Bell Park Inc.
People who live near the track are likely to oppose such a zoning change, said Councilman Brian J. O'Neill. Track owners planned to meet last night with O'Neill and several neighborhood representatives to hear the residents' concerns related to the sale and the development proposal.
O'Neill said he has told the track owners to "expect a hard sell."
"The people in this community were very much hoping to get a racetrack again," he said. Nearby residents don't care about the extra city tax revenue that a big commercial project would create, he said, because they don't feel their taxes buy adequate city services. The big concern, he said, will be the impact on local traffic.
"The project is going to have to be sold on its merits, and it's going to have to be sold to a community that is already congested and doesn't want any more traffic," O'Neill said.
The track has been closed since August 1985. Liberty Bell Park Inc. tried to sell the parcel to another track operator, Heyse said, but that option died when it became apparent that reopening the track did not make financial sense. Liberty Bell has been losing more than $1 million a year for several years, he said.
"We've been marketing the property nationally and internationally for more than six months now," he said. "There was very little interest in reactivating the site for racing entertainment. In fact, it was almost non- existent."
O'Neill, however, said one track operator agreed to meet the property's original $20 million asking price, with a few conditions. The new owner wanted to keep $6 million in tax write-offs accumulated by Liberty Bell Park Inc. and be granted the right to develop a portion of the land for commercial use. Western Development, O'Neill said, apparently came up with a better offer.
Heyse blamed most of the track's problems on the burgeoning casino industry in Atlantic City. Local tracks have a hard time competing with the casinos for gambling dollars, he said. Heyse said Western Development's proposal represents the most logical use for the site.
Liberty Bell Park before (right) and after, as Franklin Mills Mall (left).
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