Power: Sherman’s Last Stand

Oddly enough, the one place he belonged is where he’s found the least comfort. At first, it was like Mark Sherman’s soles never touched the ground when he strolled through East Falls, which is even more diverse today than during his youth there — teeming with college kids and old-timers and young couples and low-income families and even a few heavy hitters with names like Rendell, Fattah and Specter. With help from various partners, Sherman bought land all along the river in 2000, a spree that netted him 35 properties and breathed some much-needed life into the neighborhood’s main drag. “People were very impressed with the investment he put into Ridge Avenue,” says Gina Snyder, head of the East Falls Development Corporation. “He fixed things up, added color, and really got things going.” Sherman also stood behind the community — and in opposition to resident and would-be-governor Ed Rendell — in blocking the Philadelphia Housing Authority’s plan to replace the Schuylkill Falls tower he grew up in with more low-income housing, raising, by his estimate, three-quarters of the legal fees needed to stop the project. Sherman replaced a check-cashing eyesore with the massive red pepper of Johnny Mañana’s restaurant, and prepared a $30 million makeover for the old Dobson Mills on nearby Scotts Lane.

But the glow of his good deeds has worn off. “There is definitely a fine line between being a hero and a villain,” he says. “For the first few years, I was their developer, their savior. Now that I have all my money invested, my glory seems to be diminishing with community leaders.” This, it seems, is the inevitable point where progress and parochialism don’t just rub shoulders; they crash like a running back and a defensive line. Tenants started griping about his rents, and when one shut down — Sprigs, a restaurant that many hoped would become for East Falls what Jake’s was for Manayunk — owner Sally Ferry posted a sign reading LOST OUR LEASE. “He started out doing something good,” says Ferry. “He started the revitalization in East Falls. All of the sudden, it seems to have stopped.”

One current tenant, unhappy with Sherman’s steep rents and the vacancies along Ridge Avenue, agrees. “Sherman is one of the world’s great salesmen,” the tenant says, “but he can’t deliver the goods. He is dragging down the forward progress East Falls is trying to create.” Yet of the 30 commercial properties Sherman owns along that critical artery, 27 are open for business; Sherman says his critics must be looking at all the other empty storefronts he doesn’t control. One of his projects, once the site of a nuisance bar, sparked fierce opposition when Sherman revealed his plan to open the Pour House pub there. Neighbors voiced concerns, loudly, demanding everything from an early last call to assurances that traffic wouldn’t clog up at closing time. And as some in the community have turned against him, so have his partners — a judge recently allowed him to sell his stake in Johnny Mañana’s, and he’s in ongoing litigation with a former partner over East Falls properties they shared.