Member of the Month: Ken Weinstein

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Ken is an active entrepreneur and real estate developer in the Philadelphia area. He serves as President of Philly Office Retail, which has renovated and restored more than 300 vacant and deteriorated commercial and residential units in the Philadelphia region during the past 37 years.  Philly Office Retail currently owns and manages more than 800,000 square feet of commercial and residential space in the Philadelphia region and has received nine Preservation Alliance Awards for its adaptive reuse projects.

Ken currently serves as Chair of the Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation (PHDC), as a Mayoral appointee, and Chair of the Mt. Airy Business Improvement District which he co-founded in 2007.  In 2023, Ken was appointed to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission by Governor Josh Shapiro. He previously served as Chief of Staff for Philadelphia City Councilwoman Happy Fernandez from 1991-1995.

Ken is Founder of the Trolley Car Teacher’s Fund, which contributes $25,000/year in grants to public school teachers and Trolley Car Table Tennis Club, the only full time table tennis club in the Philadelphia region.  Ken was an Organizer/Board Member of Valley Green Bank for 8 years until it was sold to Univest Bank in January 2015. 

Ken owned and operated four area restaurants over a 25-year period from 1996 through 2021.  His first restaurant, Cresheim Cottage Café, was located in a restored historic house on Germantown Avenue in Mt. Airy but his best-known restaurant was the 150 seat Trolley Car Diner and Ice Cream Shoppe which featured a fully restored 1952 Mountain View Diner and 1948 PCC trolley car.  These restaurants were followed by Trolley Car Café in East Falls and Trolley Car Station in West Philadelphia.

Ken regularly lectures on subjects ranging from real estate development to entrepreneurship to social impact investing and taught a graduate level class, entitled “Empowering Communities Through Real Estate Development,” at University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute of Government.  In 2015, Ken founded Jumpstart Germantown and Jumpstart Philly, an award-winning community development program that works to revitalize the Germantown section of Philadelphia, and surrounding communities.  Jumpstart trains, mentors, networks, and provides financial resources to local residents so they can improve their own neighborhoods through real estate development.  Now with 15 Programs around the country, Jumpstart has graduated more than 2,500 mentees from its training programs and loaned more than $50 million to its participants.

In 2004, Ken was awarded the Business Leader of the Year Award by West Mt. Airy Neighbors, in 2005 was given the Community Service Award by the Center City Proprietors Association, in 2006 was named one of Philadelphia’s 101 Connectors by Leadership Philadelphia, in 2009 received the Distinguished Leadership Award by Community College of Philadelphia, in 2010 received the My Block, My Business Award by the Empowerment Group, in 2011 was awarded the Edgar Baker Community Service Award by East Mt. Airy Neighbors, the 2012 Retailer of the Year Award by the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce and was honored by the Philadelphia Parks Alliance in 2013.  In 2015, Ken received honors by the Waldorf School of Philadelphia, the Wissahickon Charter School and the Philadelphia Business Journal as “Do Gooder of the Year.”  In 2018, Ken was honored by Mt. Airy USA and Historic Germantown as a community champion, by the Commonwealth Youth Choirs with its Founder’s Award, by SustainPHL with its Social Impact Award and by the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia with its ImpactPHL Award. In 2022, Ken was honored by receiving the inaugural Mary Werner Denadai award from the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia.

Ken’s mission is to revitalize neighborhoods by renovating vacant, deteriorated properties along Philadelphia’s commercial corridors. He believes that you can do well by doing good.

Ken lives in Mt. Airy with his wife, Judy, an executive coach, and can usually be found playing pickleball at the Water Tower Recreation Center.  They have three children, Noah who is finishing his final year at Georgia Tech unless his band takes off, Ellie who invented a chocolate 3D printer and lives with her fiancé, Jen, in West Philly, and Ari who heads up an AI start up in San Francisco after spending 6 years working at Apple.

More about Ken:

  • What is your favorite spot in Philly to disappear for some alone time? Forbidden Drive in the Wissahickon 

  • What is your favorite app right now? Shortcuts on the iPhone because my son, Ari, designed it for Apple. 

  • What is your guilty pleasure TV show? Suits 

  • What was your first concert? Harry Chapin in the late 70's

  • What was your first job? Delivering newspapers for the Courier News in Central Jersey 

  • If you had an extra hour in the day, what would you do with it? Take a nap!

  • If you “played hooky” how would you spend your day? Playing pickle ball 

  • What would people be surprised to learn about you? I've known my wife since she was 1 year old and I was 3 years old.

Ken Weinstein
Philly Office Retail
ken@phillyofficeretail.com
215-247-5555 x204
PhillyOfficeRetail.com
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