Oxford Mills

LifeCity Visits Oxford Mills in Philadelphia, PA

In July 2024, LifeCity visited the South Kensington-Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia to validate the impacts of Enterprise Community Investment’s New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) investment in Oxford Mills, a mixed-use development containing office space for education and social service based nonprofits and providing discounted housing to local educators. Half of the residential units at Oxford Mills are offered to local educators at a 20% discount, creating opportunities for local teachers to live in a desirable area of Philadelphia and ideally work in proximity to their schools.

The community impact of Oxford Mills is multifaceted, with nonprofit tenants providing a variety of community services that fit within the World Health Organization’s Social Determinants of Health model. Nonprofits at Oxford Mills support education from early childhood through adulthood, bolster health services within schools, particularly among students of color, create opportunities for social engagement through youth hockey and education programming and interfaith engagement, and provide housing support for low-income women and their families. The organizations also total at least 218 full-time job opportunities, plus more part-time positions. According to the WHO, education, social inclusion, housing, job security, and early childhood development are all critical non-medical factors in determining community health outcomes and decreasing health inequities.

Oxford Mills has been part of a major community revitalization in the South Kensington-Fishtown area of Philadelphia. The area is one that had been marked by severe distress for decades, but as of the 2020 census, the census tract median family income (MFI) had risen above the area MFI, and the poverty and unemployment rates both dropped significantly. The reduction in poverty rate has been significant for white, Black, and Hispanic and Latino residents, the three most represented racial and ethnic groups in the project’s zip code. 

Marc Collazzo, Executive Director for the Fishtown Kensington Area Business Improvement District, described the impact of the NMTC program on a project like Oxford Mills as an opportunity for a developer to “not only do well, but to do good,” arguing that “Oxford Mills is the example of why those credits work.” The project refurbished an existing historic building rather than demolishing and building a new one, which allowed the project to minimize its environmental impacts while protecting the atmosphere of the neighborhood. Projects like Oxford Mills showcase the significant and far-reaching impact of NMTC investments.