Why should Delaware Care:
There are nearly 1,000 vacant properties in Wilmington, including the 19th-century Gibraltar estate that for years sat crumbling in the upscale Highlands neighborhood after redevelopment plans fell through. For the past year, public debate over the estate’s future and use of tax money has intensified. The scrutiny has now deepened over the city’s plans to transfer the mansion to a new private entity aligned with the former mayor.
The board of Wilmington’s Land Bank wants to transfer a historic mansion rehabbed with the help of millions of taxpayer dollars to a newly created private company.
During a Thursday meeting of the Wilmington Neighborhood Conservancy Land Bank, board member Rick Gessner said the owner of the gardens that sit adjacent to the sprawling estate wants to reunite the two properties and place them under the ownership of a company called Gibraltar Estate & Gardens Inc.
The garden’s owner, a nonprofit called Preservation Delaware, previously owned the mansion but sold it in 2010.
Delaware business records show Gibraltar Estate & Gardens Inc. was created on Oct. 8.
While Gessner did not say who owns or controls the Gibraltar Estate & Gardens, the Land Bank Executive Director Bud Freel told Spotlight Delaware that Wilmington’s former mayor, Mike Purzycki, who lives next door to the property, is involved with the new company.
During Thursday’s meeting, another land bank board member, Elliot Larkin, asked Freel whether he had vetted Gibraltar Estate & Gardens Inc. — as is customary for entities that take over properties that the Land Bank had rehabilitated.
Freel said he had not, but noted “we know some of the board members.”
Freel declined to disclose to Spotlight Delaware the names of the company’s board members.
“These are private citizens. I don’t know if I want to put their names out there right now,” he said.
On Friday, Spotlight Delaware obtained a copy of the certificate of incorporation for Gibraltar Estate & Gardens Inc.
The document lists Charles S. McDowell as the company’s sole incorporator. McDowell, a prominent retired lawyer who has led the boards of Wilmington’s EastSide Charter School and REACH Riverside, owns a property a block away from the Gibraltar estate.
He did not return a call seeking comment on Friday.
On the incorporation document, McDowell describes Gibraltar Estate & Gardens Inc. as a nonprofit with a 10-member board of directors — five appointed by the Land Bank, and five appointed by Preservation Delaware. The documents do not state who has, or will, fill those positions.
It also does not describe how the nonprofit will use the estate, beyond it being a “community amenity, accessible by the public and consistent with preserving the historic characterizations thereof.”
Though details about the mansion’s future plans are not known, the Land Bank already has in its possession a written agreement to transfer Gibraltar to the nonprofit, which was distributed to the Land Bank’s board members during the Thursday meeting.
The agreement also does not outline a specific plan for the 181-year-old stone mansion, which had been a point of contention in previous years as neighbors opposed proposals to convert it to a bed and breakfast, a boutique hotel, office space, or townhouses.
Freel also says neither he nor the Land Bank’s board members know the final plan for the estate.
Purzycki – who has been instrumental in the rehabilitation of Gibraltar during and after his time as mayor – declined to comment for this story.
His own home also sits next to the mansion’s property and down the street from the house owned by McDowell — all in Wilmington’s Highlands neighborhood.
In May, Spotlight Delaware reported that the mansion, which in past years had sat crumbling and hidden behind overgrown foliage, had quietly turned into an expensive public preservation project with nearly $3 million in taxpayer money appropriated for the Land Bank’s purchase and repair of the historic estate.
The spending sparked criticism then from city council members who argued the project had not been sufficiently transparent, and that the millions of dollars committed to it could have been better spent in neighborhoods struggling with poverty and crime.
The Wilmington City Council created the Land Bank in 2015 as a taxpayer-funded entity with a goal of purchasing and then renovating “vacant, dilapidated, abandoned, and delinquent properties back to productive use,” according to its website.
The Land Bank purchased the Gibraltar estate in 2023, while Purzycki served as Wilmington’s mayor.
The backlash continues
Echoes of the past criticisms of the Land Bank also appeared during Thursday’s meeting.
In response to the announcement from the organization’s board, residents and city council members raised concerns about what they called a lack of transparency behind the proposal to transfer the property to a private entity.
Many, including some board members, noted they had just become aware of the proposal recently.
Listed on the agenda for the Thursday meeting was an item that only said “Gibraltar disposition,” a legal term for the transfer of property. Gessner emphasized that the agenda had been uploaded in a “timely manner.”
“It’s literally a foundation with no information available on Google that was explicitly created for this purpose. So that raises a lot of questions,” City Councilman Nathan Field, who represents the Highlands community, said during the meeting.
Field’s comments added to criticisms from other Highland residents as well as from Councilwoman Shané Darby, who for the past year has spoken out about the Land Bank’s and Purzycki’s handling of the estate.
During the meeting, she said, in reference to Purzycki, that the Land Bank should not transfer a property to a company aligned with a former city official, after that same official previously directed the city to purchase it.
“There’s a clear conflict of interest, and not seeing that and being OK with that, really, it doesn’t sit right with me,” Darby said.
Following the meeting’s public comments, Gessner decided to postpone the vote for a later time.
“I’m getting a sense from the board that this should be held at this time,” he said following the public comments.