Philly developer Bart Blatstein owes the city $1 million in taxes: ‘It slipped through the cracks.’

At the end of last month, Bart Blatstein, one of Philadelphia’s most well-known private developers, was staring down a potential $25 million court judgment after he had defaulted on a mortgage.

It was his second time in court over a default in under a year, as the developer known for launching projects like the Piazza in Northern Liberties and the redevelopment of the Showboat Casino in Atlantic City has shown signs of financial strain.

While Blatstein says he secured a new loan late last month that warded off the $25 million judgment, he is still facing a million-dollar property tax bill from the city. Just last year, he faced similar troubles in A.C., where unpaid contractors have pursued him in court.

Blatstein has downplayed the turmoil as an inevitable cost of being a high-flying developer during a downturn in the real estate cycle.

He said he was unaware of the outstanding property taxes in Philly until The Inquirer asked him about them — even though some date to early 2023.

“We pay millions and millions of dollars a year in taxes, and it slipped until you brought it to my attention,” Blatstein said by phone last week. “We are doing half a billion in development right now. I’m not happy it slipped through the cracks, but it did. It’ll be resolved shortly.”

The most recent private debts are linked to Blatstein’s acquisition and struggles to redevelop land around the former Inquirer building at 400 N. Broad St.

Blatstein acquired and then sold the historic newspaper tower to the city for the new police headquarters in 2017. Two years later, he took out a $25 million mortgage from Webster Bank against two neighboring properties that had been part of the Inquirer complex. He describes the site as the largest undeveloped property left in Center City.

Blatstein says he borrowed funds to prepare a proposal to develop the garage and parking lot neighboring the new police HQ as a forensics lab — a bid he lost amid a fierce, and politicized, competition.

“You hear there is going to be an RFP [request for proposals] for this, you assemble a team, you go through countless meetings, planning a very sophisticated state-of-the-art forensic lab,” Blatstein said. “Isn’t it logical that the new forensic lab should be attached to the police headquarters?”

But today those lots remain empty.

Some of the money from Webster was also used to acquire undeveloped land in Atlantic City, where Blatstein’s interests have grown over the last decade to include both the Showboat, now a non-casino hotel, and an adjacent water park.

Blatstein says that his troubles around the North Broad properties are now resolved. He and Webster Bank reached a financing deal last week, and the bank on Thursday withdrew its claim in court.

They are not signs of larger financial pressures, he says, although like the rest of the real estate industry he has found it difficult to maneuver as interest rates soared after 2022 and construction costs never fell much from pandemic-era highs.

A new plan for the North Broad lots will be coming this summer, he said. He would not provide details beyond saying that it will not be a high-rise, multifamily building due to the current apartment glut.

Meanwhile, Blatstein says the water park in Atlantic City is performing well, and the huge new Post Brothers apartment project at Broad Street and Washington Avenue — built on his land — is leasing briskly.

The developer promised an announcement about the Showboat’s future in a matter of weeks, and his plans for a new movie theater at the Riverview Plaza on Christopher Columbus Boulevard are still on track.

“Sometimes timing doesn’t coincide with your plans,” Blatstein said. But “this stuff is minor, and in the scope of my world, it’s tiny.”

The developer also said that a personal tragedy, the death of his 39-year-old son Ryan in mid-2024, made it difficult to focus on his businesses last year.

“Losing my son Ryan, suddenly last summer, was devastating, and sidetracked me for months,” Blatstein said. “Ryan and I were incredibly close. I’m blessed with amazingly supportive family, friends, coworkers, and business associates.”

Blatstein closed on the former newspaper headquarters and several adjacent parking areas in 2011 for $22.7 million. The office portion of the property was subsequently resold to the city for the police headquarters. But a parking lot and garage — 1540 Hamilton St. and 1527 Callowhill St. — were parceled off and remain under the control of Blatstein’s companies.

At the time, the nearby Community College of Philadelphia had eyed the lot as part of a residential expansion project, but, as with the pitch for a forensics lab, those plans never materialized.

According to court filings, Blatstein requested and received several forbearance agreements after missing a $1 million repayment in April 2023.

In October 2024, Webster Bank gave a final notice of default, and it later filed a complaint against Blatstein to collect on roughly $26.2 million in principal, interest, and fees.

Earlier in 2024, S&T Bank sought a separate judgment against Blatstein and his company, Dickinson Square Associates, for $3.4 million after they defaulted on a loan tied to another property, at 1500 S. Christopher Columbus Blvd., which hosts a Magee medical rehab facility.

That claim was similarly withdrawn last summer.

Blatstein’s companies started missing tax payments to the city on the former Inquirer parcels around the same time his lenders say they started falling behind on mortgage payments.

According to city property tax records, he now owes more than $1 million — including back sums and taxes due at the end of March — for both properties.

Last April, the city placed $309,000 in liens against Blatstein’s companies over unpaid taxes dating from 2023 on the two lots. Last month, the city issued an additional $339,000 in liens for 2024.

Blatstein will owe a further $356,000 on the land at the end of this month.

His company’s tax debts are somewhat unusual for large, high-profile Philadelphia developers. For example, his partners at Post Brothers Development had no delinquent taxes across a portfolio of more than a half dozen large commercial buildings.

In Atlantic City, Blatstein has fought to win tax-exempt status — which was granted this month — after dealing with separate tax-delinquency issues on the Showboat Casino properties. A string of former contractors on that project also filed suit against him last year, seeking about $7 million in unpaid costs linked to the construction of a water park inside the former gambling hall.

In Blatstein’s telling, such financial complications are just part of the real estate industry — especially in a period where Federal Reserve policy has scrambled pre-2023 plans.

“In the normal course of business there are timing items, but they get resolved,” Blatstein said. “Don’t forget, my company does a lot of business. Everybody in my world, in any company, there’s always different machinations, different projects.”