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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Richard Wood Snowden
The ups and downs of a new age landlord

Third of a three-part series
August 9, 2001

by PETER MAZZACCARO

In 1985, Richard W. Snowden started Bowman Properties, a land development and management firm based in Chestnut Hill. Since its founding, Bowman Properties has become one of the most significant land owners in Chestnut Hill, making Snowden a magnet for local criticism and compliment. This is his story.

Richard Snowden, managing partner of the Chestnut Hill development firm Bowman Properties, hustles through the dusty, gutted first floor of one of Chestnut Hill’s oldest buildings. An old, stone colonial at 8433 Germantown Ave. that formerly housed the Mes Enfants Boutique, it has stood on Germantown Avenue since the mid 18th century. A white sign hangs next to the ancient door, a green-clad archer, arrow drawn. It reads: “Bowman Properties — Shop for Rent”

For months now, workers hired by Bowman have stripped the floor and ceilings, exposing old support beams and a brick floor. In other places, they’ve erected fresh sheetrock walls, etching a pattern of rooms in the once bare shop. It’s the pattern of many Bowman acquisitions: massive interior reconstructions that seem to last several years before a new tenant can be found. Most of these old buildings need the work, says Snowden.

“This building was in rough shape,” Snowden says as he climbs the steps to the second floor where his workers are installing a two-story luxury apartment.

Most of the commercial properties he owns have high-end apartments above them — comfortable, two-bathroom pads with reserved parking, a private entrance, and other trimmings that run between $1000 and $1500 a month. It’s the signature style of Snowden’s approximately 30 Germantown Avenue properties.

“This is what Chestnut Hill should be about,” Snowden says as he examines the fresh walls of the upstairs apartment. “We build high-quality living spaces that populate the avenue.”

Snowden takes pride in his apartment work, and is quick to take credit for building more housing on Germantown Avenue “than anyone in the last 40 years.” It has been, he says, part of what has preserved the Hill from possible decline.

The former owner of the property, the late Russell Medinger, florist and landlord, was known for keeping rents “livable” for his many tenants. But, like many of the last generation’s landowners, the Medinger family sold some of its properties, including the site of his former business at 8428 Germantown Ave., also owned by Bowman properties.

Bowman’s acquisitions have made Snowden a much-talked about landlord. Despite his tasteful restoration work and activism in many neighborhood preservation efforts, Snowden has attracted controversy other landlords who pack their properties with chain stores avoid. As he amasses more properties, business people and Hill residents wonder what consequences single ownership of so many properties will mean for the viability of Chestnut Hill.

The Blue Moon breakdown

The most notorious empty building in Chestnut Hill, and the one thing that possibly did more to distance Snowden from many in the neighborhood, is the Under the Blue Moon Restaurant, a sprawling building encompassing two Germantown Avenue properties which Snowden purchased in late 1997.

The Blue Moon Restaurant, located on the southwest corner of Germantown and Abington avenues, was once the hub of activity in the neighborhood. Since Snowden purchased the building, it’s been a vacant site of perpetual construction, except for a series of occupied apartments which Snowden completed in the last year. With the restaurant’s absence, the corner is a dark spot in the Friday night lights of Germantown Avenue.

Gene Gosfield, former owner of the restaurant, sold the Under the Blue Moon name to Snowden along with his half of the property. (Gosfield owned 8042; Karl-Eric Strandberg, a Local advertising representative, owned 8044.) He had run the restaurant with his wife for 21 years. “It wasn’t that I didn’t have any recourse,” says Gosfield. “Snowden made the best offer. That is, he took the building ‘as is’ without requiring any cleanup work.”

Gosfield said he felt bad shortly after selling the building to Snowden, particularly because of the building’s continual closure, but he looks at it now as just a real estate deal. He said it was tough running a restaurant in an area with so little parking.

“There were a lot of restaurants around then,” Gosfield says. “I’m just glad Roller is fighting the good fight along with Greg Welsh (of Chestnut Grill), Cin Cin and the Caffette.”

The Blue Moon became infamous after a three-month standoff between Bowman Properties and near neighbors who protested Snowden’s proposal to expand the Blue Moon to the point where it filled 97 percent of its property. The addition, for which Snowden finally secured the zoning approval, created a 164-foot wall along the southern edge of West Abington Avenue.

But before Snowden won the zoning war, Snowden lost a key hearing on February 11, 1998, when Zoning Board of Adjustment Chair Thomas Kelly refused to grant Bowman Properties a variance at the request of near neighbors who had come out to protest. After the decision, outraged at his swift denial, Snowden yelled to neighbors, “I’m withdrawing the variance and boarding up the restaurant!” The next day, he had the Blue Moon’s windows covered in wood planks like a derelict bar.

The fight lost Snowden his first possible tenant, Steve Waxman, who opened Trax Cafe in Ambler shortly after.

Since he removed the boards, after winning the concession of near neighbors to his ambitious building expansion, Snowden has been mum on the Blue Moon. He’s promised tenants, but none have materialized. He says he’s waiting for the right tenant.

“I’ve been to the preacher with a number of tenants [interested in the Blue Moon],” Snowden says. “We could have put a few things in there and been criticized. It’s really the crown jewel of Chestnut Hill.”

Two men who had nearly gone the distance with Snowden on the Blue Moon, however, feel Snowden was simply out to control the whole process.

Keith Helms and Fred Szymborski, a Princeton-area based team who run Health World were ready to open an Italian restaurant in the vacant Blue Moon called Luna Azul. Szymborski and Helms see Chestnut Hill as a neighborhood with a lot of growth potential, where a few more restaurants and other shops could be pitched towards a younger crowd. “A record store would be a great addition. It would bring younger people in,” Helms says.

Luna Azul began as a fine dining concept in April 1999. It was to be a large, ornate restaurant with an average entree price of $15-$20. The only problem was that Snowden owned the property they wanted.

“I thought it would be a home run!” Szymborski says standing in the back office of Health World. His voice rises as he catalogues the misdeeds of Snowden, yet his arms rest calmly at his side. “Every idea we had, Snowden second guessed us...He put us through a credit check that lasted four weeks. We wanted marble for the floor, Snowden said he wanted blue stone.. He wanted sidewalk tables and we wanted to keep them inside.”

Although they had signed a letter of agreement on the property, and Szymborski had already purchased some furniture for the restaurant (“I’m STILL getting money back from the deposits I made on chairs and chandeliers!”), Snowden called the pair into a meeting with his lawyer and canceled the whole deal in November that same year.

Snowden says that he and Szymborski both agreed to end the deal. Asked if he were overly picky, Snowden nods yes.” Of course I’m particular. It’s so important to find an appropriate tenant for a building like the Blue Moon. I can’t say that enough.”

Reflecting on the Blue Moon, Snowden says he is puzzled by the poor reception his plans received back in 1998. “I thought it was going to be a slam dunk,” he says. “We covered the trash area, put in five nice apartments. ... That building is probably one of the most elegant additions we’ve ever designed.”

Szymborski thinks the grip Snowden has on the restaurant business is too one-sided. With the number of properties he owns, it is difficult for a new business person with different ideas to contribute and make a dent in historically change-shy Chestnut HIll.

“I think Chestnut Hill lost out,” Szymborski laments “This wasn’t the first business plan I’ve had. It’s not like I’m a flash in the pan. I don’t know what people in Chestnut Hill are looking for. It needs someone to step up to the plate, someone who can see new trends. Chestnut Hill needs some new thinking.”

Landlord unity?

The monthly meetings of the Chestnut Hill Business Association always end promptly at 10:00 a.m. to give the board members the chance to get back to work, open their shops and tend to their businesses. A loose federation of local shopkeepers, managers and other entrepreneurs, the board of the business association, under new president Tom McGinn, is looking to become more proactive.

Snowden joined the board this spring, the first time he’s been involved with the organization since he failed to get John Herrick, a former employee of Bowman, a paid salary as head of the Garden District Fund two years ago. Paul Roller, owner of Roller’s market, says Snowden was infuriated when the board questioned Snowden on the particulars of financing the position.

“We started asking questions,” Roller says, “and Richard wasn’t happy.”

“I was ambushed,” Snowden says of the incident.

The resulting feud had kept Snowden away from the business association until McGinn took over.

At the business association meeting, McGinn, a serious-minded bank executive with the Chestnut Hill branch of Progress Bank, brings up the subject of the “Landlords’ Committee,” a recent undertaking involving a number of local landlords, including Snowden and Roller, for the purpose of hammering out an active plan. The idea, McGinn explained in an interview, shortly after he’d been elected president, was to let the landlords come up with a cohesive structure for the purpose of stabilizing rents and filling empty buildings.

“In the last 10 years there’ve been major transitions in the landlords in Chestnut Hill,” McGinn says. “In the last generation men like Henry O’Donnell, Sr., Eli Schmidt and Russell Medinger were landlords who were ultimately concerned with investment right here in Chestnut Hill. It was at the top of their consciousness.”

Newer landlords who’ve come in and invited chains into the neighborhood, big national retailers with the ability to pay a higher rent, have upped the rents, particularly between the 8400 and 8700 blocks of Germantown Avenue. Snowden, accused by some of pushing rents up and making things difficult for tenants, only rents to one chain, Starbucks Coffee at 8513 Germantown Ave. Overall, Snowden says, his rents are average, running from the higher end, $35-$45 a square foot in the 8500 block, to the average $14-$24 a square foot in the Lower Hill.

McGinn is aware of past acrimony and feuds that have often pitted one business owner against another, and small fights between some locals that have interfered with the whole group’s ability to work together. He would like to get past some of the old rivalries like that between men like Snowden and Roller.

“What we need is unity,” McGinn said. “I’ve had a conversation with Snowden and what I realized was we have a group of people running with parallel goals and not necessarily all working the same way.”

McGinn’s basic theory has worked for Manayunk’s Community Development Corporation where the primary property owner, Dan Neduson, is a member of the CDC’s board. The result has been a major turnaround in the Main Street business corridor from a trench of empty factories to a trendy yuppie Mecca.

Kay Smith, executive director of the Manayunk CDC, says the inclusion of Neduson, owner of three major restaurants and “quite a number of stores,” makes planning for Main Street more easy.

“We’ve made a conscious effort to bring all the major stakeholder to the table,” says Smith. “It’s important for us to have everyone in the dialogue. Because of this, we’ve been able to maintain a good mix of chains and many independents.”

But can Chestnut Hill do the same thing? Manayunk has seen business boom, but at the expense of the residential community where many homeowners have fled, leaving a gang of college students and parking problems in their wake. In Chestnut Hill, where no change in the status quo goes unchallenged, any business plan will need support from Chestnut Hill’s residents.

Also, in order to move ahead, McGinn has to convince other business leaders to work with Snowden, to trust he has the best intentions for Chestnut Hill and can preserve the neighborhood’s affluent quality of life. With the number of personalities involved, it won’t be an easy task.

Sitting at Starbucks on a Friday, several weeks after the business association meeting, Snowden considers the push to unite landlords in Chestnut Hill.

“I have to give Tom McGinn credit,” says Snowden. “He’s worked very hard to get the property owners together. I think we’re in the best spot we’ve been in for 10 years. Chestnut Hill has to decide what it wants to be.”

Asked about his differences with other business people in the Hill, Snowden isn’t entirely defensive.

“Looking back, I think I would have done some things differently if I had the chance,” he says. “Overall though, I stand on my record here in Chestnut Hill. The Anglecott restoration (Snowden’s first residential development on Bethlehem Pike), Garden Gate Cafe, The Blue Moon... these are properties I’m proud of.”

Still, Snowden says he is tired of the controversy that has followed him in his 20 years of business on the Hill — the distrust, the community fights over properties and the fear people have for his designs for Chestnut Hill. After spending the last two decades investing heavily in the neighborhood, he seems hurt by the reputation he’s gained. Despite his financial security, a successful business, and the kudos he’s gained from the preservation community, the conflicts he’s attracted and the verbal jabs he’s received have taken a toll. As he speaks, his hands, at rest on the cafe table, shake.

“I’m getting to the point where I can’t see keeping my family’s money invested here,” Snowden says. “I’m just tired of it. I work more than 60 hours a week and draw a $125 a week salary. I don’t really need to be working.”

Outside Starbucks, the late Friday afternoon crowd bustles about the avenue. Groups of teenagers are already cruising the sidewalks, discussing the possibilities of another July night in Chestnut Hill as early commuters begin to jam the avenue on their way in and out of Philadelphia.

Snowden says his goodbyes and heads south. A moment later he jogs across the avenue towards Chestnut Hill Hair, a popular hair-cutting business he owns on the 8400 block. He has time for a haircut after a long day of phone calls and meetings. Next week, his assistant will set up a time for him to be photographed for the Local story. Business will go on as it always has in Chestnut Hill and Snowden will continue to work, while a large group of Chestnut Hillers wait to see what he’ll do next, whether he likes it or not.

End of Part 3

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3