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When Impact is the Asset: Transforming Forgotten Spaces with Lindsey Scannapieco · Building Better Cities

• Kate Gasparro: In 2014, Philadelphia School District auctioned off a shuttered vocational school in South Philly. 340,000 square feet, nine stories, built like a bomb shelter, with concrete floors 14 inches thick. Multiple developers looked at it. Some bid $1. One person bid $1.75 million. That person was Lindsay Skenapico, and that building is now Bach. Home to more than 200 businesses, the majority owned by women and people of color, and one of the most talked-about adaptive reuse projects in the country. Lindsay is the founder of Scout, an urban design and development practice that started in London with a pop-up cinema built on a mountain of discarded refrigerators. Now, Lindsay has built an authentic impact development practice by honing one skill that developers resist. She listens to buildings. She lets them tell her what they want to be. So today we talk about the journey to deliver and operate Bach over the last decade and about Lindsay's most ambitious project yet, the Village of Industry and Art. This episode is all about the trade-offs to make impact development work and why this kind of development doesn't just do more good, it builds a stronger, more resilient asset. I'm Kate Gasparo and this is Building Better Cities. In Philadelphia back in 2014, there were these like massive buildings and school institutions that were put up for bid. At that point in time, when you saw Bach before it was even Bach, like what were your thoughts? Because this building was put up for auction by the school department, as I understand it. Many developers came forward and they bid a dollar for this building. You bid $1.75 million. Can you sort of talk through, yes, it's a large building, but you saw that there could be people in this space that made it more than such a big building? You know, my interest saying so there were seven other bidders. And I actually don't know fully what all of them bid, but I do know that I some people did bid a dollar. And I know that I was the highest bidder by a long shot. I'm fully aware of that. but you know, I think. ⁓ this was a school that was previously a vocational training facility. That's what it was built for. So it had the infrastructure to be that, to do that. And I think me and my team saw value in that. And I think other people were looking at it as maybe in they were looking at the external structure and saying, okay, we're gonna try to convert this into residential. And you know, this building was built as a bomb shelter. It has, you know, 14-inch concrete floor cores. So, you know, adding in kitchens and bathrooms would have been a huge expense. So I I think that they're they were probably right in offering ⁓ a lot less money for that use. ⁓ but ultimately, you know, our role and our interest is in listening to these buildings and really understanding what's already there and how you can use that instead of trying to add ⁓ something totally new to it. And I think that was really where we saw value. And therefore we were able to offer bid a higher price, which at the time I thought was ⁓ definitely not going to be the winning bid. So I was very surprised to learn that we were the top bidder. And I'm curious if we look backwards, you you started Scout in in England, in London, before moving it to Philadelphia. What aspects of your work there sort of led you to think Let's listen to the building, let's listen to spaces and let them sort of ⁓ tell us what they should be. From the beginning, our work has always been informed by the histories of a space and a place. And so our first project was a pop-up cinema in Happy Wick, and it was called Films on Fridges. And what was really interesting about that project is that we had actually spent a year while I was in grad school working within that community. And we talked to people about the physical change that they were experiencing with the upcoming Olympics in twenty twelve. Everybody mentioned this giant fridge mountain. And we all know that the fridge mountain wasn't a beautiful sight to be seen. It was because of a recycling policy ⁓ lapse that kind of created what at that point was the largest fridge mountain in all of Europe. But it really became a fridge mountain, Lindsay, a fridge mountain is a a pile of Refrigerators? A pile of discarded refrigerators. Yes, that's exactly right. When I was talking to people about the history of the space, they kept talking about this fridge mountain. And it's not that I think it was something beautiful, I don't think it was, but it was very symbolic of this industrial past of the site and in very stark contrast to the Zahad Adid aquatic center that was being built now on the site. And so we just thought, wow, that's a really interesting. kind of history, this history as an kind of industrial wasteland and now this kind of very flash Olympic site. And so we created a project called Films on Fridges, where we projected sports films on fridges for the same days as the Olympics, just one year prior. So this was in twenty eleven in Hathi Wick. And it really took off. It became I think Timeout London called it the hottest cinema in the UK. And so that work Had a lot of the same elements. We had to build something and get permissions. I actually had to work with the EPA equivalent in the United Kingdom to be able to use fridges and get CFC free fridges and, you know, the licensing and the marketing of it and the operations of it and finding a bar partner to kind of make it be able to stand up on its own two feet. But also this idea of kind of shining light on what already existed. you know, we kind of came as we came into that space, there was this past history and then there was this kind of future history that was still coming. And we were really interested one year prior of just kind of looking at them together and the kind of the mess that that that made, that friction that that made. And so, and I think you'll see a lot of parallels of that in our work, whether or not it's short-term projects or long-term development. But very much trying to kind of look at, you know, the past of a space alongside kind of its present or future ⁓ form. ⁓ but not in a way that I think is we always talk about this at Bach, you know, making sure that it's not kind of school closure themed or something really ick, because nobody wants a school to close. That's a that's a huge emotional challenge when you're taking on a building that is a past school that has been closed and trying to s acknowledge what it was, but also not be defined by it in the future. I think that's a really important ⁓ piece. Well you see that same sort of through line between history, then past, present, and future in Bach. So it was a vocational school. Now it brings together over 200 businesses. ⁓ What was it about the context of where the school was located or the history of it that led it to be where it is today and allow so many of these businesses, many of which are owned by women and people of color, to come together and coalesce around this space? So I guess like zooming out from the building, like what is the broader context in in Philadelphia at the point in time y'all took part in box now future history? So Bach is located in South Philadelphia. It's in a extremely dense South Philadelphia residential neighborhood. And I actually think that's really important is because the topology of South Philadelphia means that we have kind of 12 to 14 foot wide row homes. And those are lovely actually in terms of the social dynamic. But when you talk about production or making or having a business, a very kind of constrained ⁓ footprint. And so, you know, this idea that actually this very dense residential neighborhood and they need bigger spaces to work and they need spaces that also allow what I call kind of dirty workspace to thrive. So whether that's ⁓ fabrication making, art making, ⁓ so we have everything from, you know, glass blowers and jewelry designers and woodworkers and ceramic artists and fashion designers and you know, textile printers all in the building and they're doing things that frankly they couldn't do in their house. And that was ⁓ a huge part of the thesis and I think the attraction to this building was both in the infrastructure but also in its kind of physical location. ⁓ just understanding the kind of density of that neighborhood. ⁓ I also did have some familial ties to that neighborhood. My grandmother ⁓ and and grandfather grew up in South Philadelphia. ⁓ and so I was familiar with it as well and ⁓ had a one of my dad's cousins went to Bach. So, you know, had a connection point to to the school to some extent. And I'm curious, like as you know, people who used to know of that building in it its previous form. And you sort of talked about the grief that comes of especially schools when they close. And sort of move into the next phase, the community can sort of grieve together over that. ⁓ I did read that with a current project that you're pursuing, you did allow for there to be sort of a funeral period for that building. And I was wondering if you could sort of talk about that as a lesson learned from Bach or something you took from Bach as you are now working at the VIA and the University of the Arts acquisition. Yeah, so You know, I think particularly with the village of industry and art, there was, you know, when the University of the Arts closed, it was so traumatic for Philadelphia. There was no notice. There was no notice for s teachers, for staff, for ⁓ employees, students. I mean, there were students still living in the dorms. There were students who had just paid their ⁓ tuition fees for the upcoming fall. It was really jarring and ⁓ and done in a way that I think people felt really angry. And I think we felt, you know, the Bach alumni have been a big part of Bach and big advocates for us. Just this weekend I got to spend some time with Bertie, who's a very active Bach alumni ⁓ who comes to all of our events. And You know, but we really felt like we all needed a moment to actually just grieve the closure of this institution, this institution that's been a part of Philadelphia for a hundred and fifty years. And I think just in the context of where we sit today, I think it's really interesting and also obviously very sad, but you know, when we had the centennial in eighteen seventy-six, a hundred years we were celebrating of American history. They decided to start a museum school. The idea was that we would have a great art museum and a great school modeled after the Victoria and London in ⁓ the Victorian Albert, I'm sorry, in London. And that was called the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Arts, Pennsylvania Museum School. Over time, the museum portion became the Pennsylvania Museum of Art and the school became the University of Art, University of the Arts, and they only separated in in nineteen fifties. And so there this was an institution that has been around for well had almost been around for almost 150 years. and you know, the fact that we allowed it to close, I think there needed to be a serious moment of having a conversation about that and the loss that that means for young artists, working artists, established artists, artists in our city. ⁓ and so the celebration of life was. an attempt ⁓ to provide some space for that and also to also help to reconnect people with so many items that were left here in the building. You know, we had stacks and stacks of blank transcripts like that. I don't have a use for that. That would have become trash. And ⁓ you know people were able to build on this altar for four days. On the fifth day people were allowed to take anything that they wanted or needed from the altar. And so people took blank transcripts and they wrote their own for if they had graduated from here. You know, some really kind of amazing moments. People showed up in their their cap and gown. ⁓ people sang, people danced, people ⁓ just shared kind of like in an open mic kind of conversational way. It was just a really ⁓ amazing, amazing experience. The way that these spaces get activated temporarily, how does that help ⁓ inform or create this sort of relationship between community and place to help move a project into its next chapter of life? Yeah, you know, for me, I'm really interested in incremental development. I'm really interested in early activations and learning and listening of what works, what doesn't work, what do we learn from that experience and that time. I think that's just such a helpful tool. It also allows you to have people shape and make suggestions and comments in that. I think you're you know, anytime you kind of bring something alive or open the door, you learn something. ⁓ and those early activations are a huge part of it. ⁓ they're also I think ⁓ you know, a form of communication and marketing and brand awareness. ⁓ but it also feels sometimes like lower stakes. You say, Hey, we're just gonna try something out. You know, if it doesn't work, we can try something else, but we're just gonna try this out. This seems to be something that's more attuned with civic development or impact development. And you've spoken in the past of usually lay people and even people in the space think about developers as being private-minded and interested in the monetary value of these spaces and the impact that they have, versus the public sector sort of s seems to have more of a collective well-being ⁓ Prowess or sort of ⁓ value set when they come to these projects. And you're sort of trying to weave both of them together. And when we were talking before, you sort of talked about there's additional pressure that comes along with that. I was hoping that you could sort of speak about how does being a private developer interact with the public sector mentality of serving the community, and how have you been able to make that work in your various projects? Well, I think what I've learned over time is that that was just such an oversimplification that I kind of had come into this work with, you know, thinking that the public sector is for public good and the private sector is not for public good. Because actually there's lots of public sector led projects that I'd say haven't actually been for public good, aren't for public good. and I think there's some private development that has been actually good for the public. So I think that those are kind of gross. overstatements that don't always apply. And so I'm really interested in the kind of gray space between that and really about yes, how can we have a model that stands on its own two feet and that I can support myself and my team, but also is a space that ⁓ you know, does think about public good, thinks about our role within our neighborhood, thinks about how we're attuned to the needs of our community and how we can give back. I mean, at at Fox, I think we give over $250,000 a year of ⁓ subsidized event space. And that allows so many things to happen in the building. And that's kind of why we have such high visitation. And I think also such high community buy-in is because people know that this is a space that they can come to and there's ⁓ you know, it's a space that they can feel comfortable coming through the threshold of and in and that they will find something hopefully that speaks to them. Many people who want to be in this impact space ⁓ have to answer to underwriters or lenders who don't necessarily see the quantifiable value of bringing community in the space in such a deep way that will lead to the success of the building long term. Can you sort of speak about how you've had to move through the traditional institutions of real estate development to make a case for Bach, even in its early days? Yeah, I've been so lucky because I found some amazing, amazing ⁓ banks and funders and supporters who understand what we're trying to do. and probably actually understand it more so since COVID. I think that things that were considered quote safe investments didn't hold up ⁓ during the period of COVID. And our project, which I think was viewed as very fragile actually showed and revealed itself to be very ⁓ resilient and robust and able to shift as the world around us shifted during that period. ⁓ So, you know, I think that's been a huge part of it. And then with our new project, you know, we were able to bring on kind of philanthropy with yield is what I would say. You know, people who ⁓ whether through ⁓ mission-related investments ⁓ or through grants or through accepting a lower yield, really understood the mission of this project and really understood the desire to keep working artists on the Avenue of the Arts, to keep this building that for 100 and almost 50 years had been an arts institute to keep that creativity here and alive. And they really wanted to see that. ⁓ and I'm so grateful to so many on my team and people not on my team, people that I had just met, some people I never even met in person when they committed to that, that they they all were absolutely critical for a project like this to happen. ⁓ truly would not have happened without them. There's a lot of time at the beginning of these projects when ideas are coming together where individuals second guess the vision or even second guess themselves and executing on the vision. Can you sort of talk through what your relationship to the project was and how you had that confidence at the beginning and it only grew over time or you were even uncertain at times and that sort of grew as you saw pieces come together. And maybe there was some sort of waterfall moment for you in which you really saw Vach come together. I mean, the early open studios were just so thrilling. Like seeing people come to the door and discover it and just get so excited about it. My still to this day, like if I'm in the elevator and I hear somebody explaining to their friend where they're headed or what they're gonna see. I love that. On Saturday I was working the front desk for a little bit and got to hear a few people just doing kind of like touring, whether it was like family or friends or visitors through and it's just ⁓ Amazing to kind of see what it's become. ⁓ so there's been so many moments that I think, ⁓ my gosh, that's it. But it is, you know, and the vision, I see the overarching vision hasn't changed at all. But there's certainly been moments and tweaks and learnings along the way as we kind of thought about, you know, how people even enter the building as an example. and once you kind of start to layer all the activities happening at once, we put a ton of work into the operation to make sure that it's smooth for the person who's coming to the bar upstairs or having a wedding here or going to a community workshop or going to work here. really making sure that it's kind of a positive experience for everybody as as best as possible. And sometimes that means it is a bit messy and I think cities Are messy places where there's lots of things happening can feel, you know, like difficult to navigate. But I actually think there's some beauty to that. I I talk a lot about this, but I think, you know, if we set out to design a new building, we kind of want the signage to be perfect. We want it to be really clear where you go, where you turn, what's the quickest and easiest way to get there. But actually, it's a bit soul crushing. And when you go And if you think about kind of I was kind of thinking, you know, in Europe and a back alley and up the stairs and turn right and turn left and walk up another set of stairs and you'll find something amazing. God the feeling when you finally get there is just it's amazing. It feels like you found something so special. And there's a part of human nature that really seeks to discover. And it's sometimes okay if there's a little bit of work that's required to get there. I want to take this in sort of two different ways. In part, you know, Bach itself is such a massive undertaking. And you said previously how much you love incremental development. So we've discussed before how Bach is an elephant, and you really just have to start eating an elephant bite by bite. At what point ⁓ did you feel like the scale was an asset to the incremental side of development. Cause we bring on a lot of incremental developers onto this podcast, people who are working on infill spaces of maybe a quarter of an acre, or, you know, there'll be six units on this site. And you're talking about tens of thousands of square feet in which you're programming over a period of time. The scale itself can be daunting, but it seems like it's also a benefit here. Can you sort of speak to that? Yeah, so Bach is three hundred and forty thousand square feet. Our newest project is on one point nine acres, ⁓ but in the center of the city. And I actually think scale is I know it can be scary and certainly there's days where it scared me. but I also think there's an opportunity in it because it allows you to create a place and an impact that frankly a smaller scale space just can't provide and can't Can't do. Just it just won't. And so there's something, ⁓ think it's a real gift when you have this scale to actually be able to create a community of a certain size, to be able to create amenities of a certain size and staff of a certain size, and I think most importantly impact of a certain size. So I find myself continually drawn to old big buildings. So And and thinking about that as one component of this over three hundred thousand square foot elephant, ⁓ it's really that you're not just redeveloping spaces, but you're also building ecosystems. And I'm curious when you were first forming the capital stack, the governance of what Bach would be managed by, is there anything that sort of like lent itself to building an ecosystem? more so than like redeveloping a space or is that something that sort of came together over time? And I guess like the long story short, like when you are pursuing these community assets and looking at the long term value to the neighborhood, what sort of changes in the structure of the deal and the development itself? So interestingly when we are trying to buy the village of industry and art, I actually thought about doing through a nonprofit. I thought that would actually be a great solution. But because of the confines of the bankruptcy court sale, I would have had to start a new nonprofit and somehow raise $12.5 million in 30 days, which was just impossible. You just can't do that. ⁓ and so very quickly we realized that that wasn't the structure that would work. I think there was also, frankly, An argument when you talk about kind of positive community impact. I think one of the other things was bringing this building, frankly, back onto some sort of tax role for the city, was something that the city was excited about. And so I think the nonprofit status would have also changed that. ⁓ but we did start a public benefit LLC, which is yes, it's a private LLC, but we kind of have a commitment to public benefit. And we've articulated what we want that public benefit to be. And we do annual reporting on that public benefit. And so that's kind of a new tool that I've found as something that tries to kind of say, how can we actually structure this that we're accountable and also committed to what we say we want to be? Like trying to understand ⁓ If Bach as a case study has helped you move forward with the VIA in different ways, we talked about how COVID and the resiliency of Bach in that environment led it to be a stronger investment in some ways than other buildings and assets in the neighborhood. Are there elements that people point to in at Bach that in some ways can help you catapult other elements at VIA? ⁓ Or might be hindering the way people think about your investments and ⁓ journey with that building. Yeah, I think, you know, like I said, a lot of our lenders I think were potentially concerned about BAL during COVID and we really showed our ability to be resourceful and resilient and that we work with a tenant body and community that shares in that with us. And so that meant that one of my big lenders was also like when we called them about the village industry and art, they were like, Yep, we get it. We want to be involved. Let us know what you need. ⁓ so certainly very ⁓ helpful to have had that ⁓ success under our belt. And I think now it's also more of an established comp, to be honest. When I was doing Ba, people were asking me, you know, where are your Where are your comps? Where's your market study? Where are your pre-signed leases? And I know Ken Weinstein has been working on a project in Germantown that he's just calling a mini bach. And I think that's great because you know, a lender is able to very quickly now say, ⁓ I understand what that means. I get that. ⁓ and so again, I think it's about like I love kind of helping the whole community to have better tools for talking about what I'd say are pretty non-traditional projects. And on the other side of that, I I'm curious if people think about Bach as such a huge and influential ⁓ building in this space and community in this space that it sort of might create some sort of ceiling to what the village of industry and arts can be. And if people are always pointing back to Bach, how Scout is trying to Follow in that line of thinking or trying to separate the VIA into its own, its own project that is separate and apart from Bach? Yeah. I mean, I when people say, ⁓ we you should come to our building, our city, and do a Bach. I don't believe that this is a copy and paste model. I think there's ⁓ learnings. I do not think that the village of industry and art will be another version of Bach. It will have elements you might say, this seems like off relation. And when somebody tells you, ⁓ yeah, it's the same company behind it, you'd be like, ⁓ that makes sense. But it should feel totally different. It's a totally different context. It's a totally different building. It has a very different history. and you know, it's on the Avenue of the Arts in center city, downtown district, ⁓ on Broad and Pine, has this history as a historic art school. You know, I think there's just a lot of different components that require a different ⁓ different reaction, different response. And every building, every community should solicit that. So I think, you know, there's always going to be learnings and takeaways that we can apply. And I have, I mean, we also are a design-led practice. And so there's certainly kind of design-led touches that you'll kind of say, ⁓ that feels familiar. But generally speaking, it will be it will be quite different. I mean, there's a residential component here, which is very exciting. It's the largest proportion of affordable housing through agricultural workers to ever be delivered within the city of Philadelphia. ⁓ and so, you know, certainly a lot of ⁓ opportunities here to kind of expand and apply some of our learnings. And as I'm sure you're approached all the time by people who are trying to get Scouts input or maybe to have Scout come on as a partner or even to pursue a building redevelopment, what are some of the elements that you look for as people propose projects to you that would make them a sure win for Scout? And what are things that you just wouldn't touch because they're just not aligned with those values and elements you just spoke to? I mean, I'm obviously very drawn to a big old sheet building, but you know, there's a lot of bombed out, you know, I shouldn't say like empty, you know, just shells in a building. That's really hard. That requires a ton of essentially you're doing almost new construction at that point. I'm really interested in how you can use what's ready there and almost do as little as possible instead of as much as possible. ⁓ and so those are kind of things that I always look for. ⁓ there's some buildings that are frankly just too constrained, whether or not they have a lack of light as an example. ⁓ I'm trying to think of projects that I've said no to over the years. Some of it's also about access for me and my team, about like how, you know, I think we're pretty hands-on. So something that would be really hard for us to be able to physically touch and shape. I think would be really challenging for us. We have a project in Providence, for example, and ⁓ we go up there quite a bit. One of my team members actually relocated up there, ⁓ which was extremely helpful ⁓ for a short period of time as we were kind of getting that off the ground. And frankly, I mean it has to be at the right price point for this to this model to work. I think that's ⁓ very clear and You know, I always go back to Jane Jacobs' quote of, you know, new ideas must use old buildings. And I think about that because, you know, an old cheap building is kind of a a vessel that can be so many different things. Right. And I think we when we look at kind of the history of reuse, which has been happening for thousands of years before anybody termed it. So you know, whether it was the one room schoolhouse became, you know, the general store, and then it became the, you know, a retail and then or then it became a home. And then it became, you know, a whatever it might have become over its period of time. But it kind of had the flexibility to accommodate for all of those uses. ⁓ and I think particularly when we talk about sustainability, the most sustainable building is the building that's already built. The development industry has long treated impact and return as trade-offs. Yet, Bach is the evidence for the opposite. A diverse, deeply rooted, affordable building turned out to be more resilient than assets everyone called safe. And every project like it makes the next one easier to finance. That's not charity dressed up as development. That's a better asset class, hiding in the buildings we forgot how to value. If this episode made you see the old overlooked buildings in your own city a little differently, share it with someone who should hear it. Subscribe wherever you're listening, and if you have a minute, please leave us a review. It genuinely helps more people find this show. And as always, until next time, let's keep building better cities together.