Kevin Riordan: Ready to answer opportunity's knock

The apartment complex called Chatham Square was so decrepit and plagued with crime "it would have made sense to cut it off the map and throw it away," Gloucester City attorney John B. Kearney recalls.

Instead, the city bought the eyesore, and a Philadelphia developer is transforming it into a "townhome community" called Meadowbrook Mews.

With an open floor plan, granite countertops, and other amenities, the first of what will be 50 townhouses for sale looks great. The timing of the project is another matter.

"We picked a miserable time to go into the real estate business," Kearney says.

"You have to work with the times you're in," adds Jonathan Orens, whose Orens Bros. Real Estate Inc., best known for condo projects in Center City, is "reconstructing" the half-century-old complex.

If location is everything, Meadowbrook Mews has it all - or maybe too much. The Walt Whitman Bridge and the 42 freeway are close; so is an uninspiring stretch of Route 130, complete with strip club.

But Meadowbrook Mews also is adjacent to the site of the demolished Starlite Drive-In, where an attractive development of single-family homes stands. And the transformation of the first among six former Chatham Square buildings is most welcome.

"Just about everything is new," says Matt Barrabee, project manager, guiding me through the model unit and others in progress.

The city sold bonds to pay $4.2 million for Chatham Square in 2007 and is financing the $1.2 million redevelopment from its revolving loan fund for economic development.

Once all 50 townhouses are sold, Gloucester expects to break even; the Orens company stands to make about $1 million.

The project was envisioned in 2006, before real estate prices went south with the economy. Back then, even blue-collar Gloucester expected to see upscale condo high-rises built on its Delaware River waterfront.

But from the beginning, the city's main intention for Chatham Square has been to rid itself of a nuisance property and bolster its tax base. The sheer number of students from the apartment complex - more than 100 at one point, Kearney says - had been a burden on the school system, and people were getting robbed while delivering pizza there.

"It was getting pretty bad in here. It was one of our biggest police problems," says City Councilman Jay Brophy, who once lived at Chatham. "We saw an opportunity."

So did Orens. The company is venturing into the suburbs (it's also developing an assisted-living facility in Feasterville) largely because of the sour economy.

"We have to be innovative and do other things," Jon Orens says. "We're expanding our borders. We're not just in Center City anymore."

About a dozen of what had been 100 units at the old Chatham Square are still occupied, and tenants pay rent to the city.

Living in the last two buildings scheduled to be rehabbed, they likely won't be moving any time soon. Construction of each new unit is paid for with the proceeds of previous sales.

"It's better in here since the city bought it and got rid of all the riffraff and the drugs," says Mickey Forker, a retired meat cutter who has lived at the complex for 25 years.

"I give the city credit," Forker, 73, says. "But it's still Chatham Square as far as I'm concerned. I think that's how people look at it. And I don't know if they're going to sell."

So far, no units are under contract.

"There's going to be a hump people have to get over," Barrabee says. "It's a confidence issue."

Here's hoping the city's confidence also turns out to be well-founded.