WILMINGTON — When John Carney takes the oath of office to serve as Wilmington’s 58th mayor of Wilmington Tuesday, Jan. 7, he will inherit a city that is rapidly on the rise and one that has been built on the economic development policies set by outgoing Mayor Mike Purzycki.
In the past decade, not much has changed in terms of Wilmington’s largest employers, but the major players themselves have changed. City records show that
JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America and
Barclays were among the top five companies for wage tax withholdings in calendar year 2014, joined by DuPont and the state government. Wilmington remains the credit capital, as it has relatively stayed even with its 2013 numbers while maintaining its 11,500 annual finance and insurance jobs.
But looking back at when Purzycki first entered the mayoral race, he said he remembers two things very clearly: the departure of
DuPont and
“Murdertown, USA.”
At the end of 2014, DuPont announced it will move out of its downtown headquarters and out to the Greenville suburbs - taking its 1,000 employees and its estimated $5.1 million
in wage tax with its move. At the same time, Newsweek magazine published a cover story that focused on Wilmington’s high homicide rate at the time.
“All our places and our image that we depended on, not just for the economy, but our self-image, were gone,” Purzycki told the Delaware Business Times. “Before that article, no one would say Wilmington is a dangerous city. But that forced us to look in the mirror and realize that there were problems. And it was unnerving.”
By the time Purzycki was first elected in 2016 in an eight-way race, he had already been overseeing redevelopment at the Wilmington Riverfront, turning warehouses that lined the Christina River into a destination for restaurants and diversions like Frawley Stadium, Kahunaville and later the Delaware Children’s Museum. Today, the riverfront also includes a series of apartment complexes that have roughly 2,000 residents, as well as offices.
Lessons learned at the Riverfront, Purzycki believes, set the tone for his eight years as Wilmington’s mayor. At the Riverfront, he worked closely with then-Gov. Tom Carper setting infrastructure improvements as well as addressing environmental concerns to get Delaware’s version of the Baltimore Inner Harbor off the ground.
“As mayor, you do set the tone,” Purzycki said. “When you meet with a developer who’s never developed here before, the mayor should pledge to him that the city will be supportive of the process and they’re not going to be nickeled and dimed. That investment is important to us and that’s the message you have to send out. And that’s how I feel about it.”
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CEO Chris Lundin cuts the ribbon on the company's new Heald Street warehouse as President Jennifer Brooks and Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki look on in 2023. | DBT FILE PHOTO BY JACOB OWENS[/caption]
‘Build it and they can’t take it from you’
Looking back on his time at the Riverfront, Purzycki can point to one prophetic phrase he offered then-Wilmington Mayor Jim Stills. “Build something and they can never take it from you.” More than a quarter of a century later, Purzycki can say the same under his own leadership as mayor.
More often than not, a small city like Wilmington is likely to see small developers try new projects. Purzycki argues that’s like a test case - if the project goes smoothly, it’s likely they’ll come back for bigger projects.
“We set the table, and that means making sure the city’s cleaner than before, from the neighborhoods to the Rodney Reservoir. It’s a cultural mindset,” he said. “I feel like if you engage people and they feel you’re doing the best you can, people will be satisfied.”
Since he was elected mayor, Purzycki’s administration has issued $2 billion in building permits in Wilmington neighborhoods, downtown and the Riverfront, according to the city Economic Development office.
That includes the
Imani Village in Riverside, Wilmington’s first purpose-built community, as well as the affordable housing complex The Flats on Wilmington’s west side and apartment complexes built by the
Capano Management and
Tsionas Development.
The Buccini/Pollin Group also completed one of the first new apartment buildings built in the center city in many years, as well as
many conversion projects. The developer has added many restaurants downtown, drawing more nightlife there as the years passed.
In all, the Wilmington Economic Development Office reports that 1,546 new residential units have been added downtown and at the Riverfront under Purzycki’s leadership. The Downtown Development District has also brought in 29 new retail businesses, three hotels with more than 250 rooms and five entertainment venues like bowling alleys and theaters.
Though the construction sector is relatively small in Wilmington, it’s grown stronger in the past year because of the development in the city. In 2024, there were 384 construction jobs added, representing a 39% increase. There was a reported 1,365 construction workers overall in Wilmington, according to city representatives.
When hybrid work was established as the new normal during the COVID-19 pandemic and housing and rental costs rose, Wilmington was in a unique position to capitalize on the changing dynamics. For a few years, rents in Philadelphia and New York were higher than in Delaware, driving people to find remote or hybrid jobs and move to Delaware.
“It changed the world profoundly. We had a beautiful parcel on the east side of the river planned for tremendous office development as a fantastic, futuristic place. Today, you look at the plans, and everything has been turned upside down by this cultural disconnect with work from home,” the mayor said.
In a sense, redevelopment also interlocked with one of Purzycki’s first initiatives that predated the pandemic: investing back in neighborhoods. That launched the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which brought an increased police presence and a crackdown on nuisance properties.
“I think the best of it [his term] has been with our engagement with our neighborhoods. When the ‘Murdertown’ article came out, I think at that point people ignored the neighborhoods. I don’t think there was a sense of urgency to require the change needed,” he said. “But even trying to do it it’s really difficult.”
To support that difficult task, the Purzycki administration also launched 311, a call center system designed to streamline customer service for residents, including flagging nuisance properties for the city Licensing and Inspections Department or the Wilmington Police Department.
In the last four years, close to 6,000 complaints on vacant or nuisance properties have come through 311.
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Gov. John Carney, left, will be stepping down on Tuesday to become the next Wilmington Mayor. | DBT FILE PHOTO BY JACOB OWENS[/caption]
But the city has also made strides in improving communal spaces over the years, like the $4 million renovation of the Anderson Community Center and new parks in Southbridge, including Eden Park and the South Wilmington Wetlands Park. Investments also included $26 million in spending to improve community recreation facilities, pools and playgrounds throughout the city.
Purzycki said that the biggest struggle he faced while in office was getting people in Wilmington’s neighborhoods to trust him to deliver on his promises for a brighter future. Over the years, that's been underscored by controversies where critics argued that services that serve those who are homeless or struggle with addiction have felt as if they're pushed out of the neighborhood, while the mayor has long maintained that he was working to raise the city.
Purzycki recalled a campaign event in 2016, when a woman asked: “What do you know about my life?”
“Score one for the neighborhood,” the Wilmington Mayor told the Delaware Business Times. “They looked at me in a way I never saw myself. But people looked at me and they saw I was reasonably well off and not from their world. I’ll tell you the truth, I think it took eight years of work, but I think we’ve gotten to a point where people, by now, trust us.”
Wilmington Economics
While Wilmington public records no longer disclose the top employers in the city, labor statistics and business license reports show that where DuPont has left, small businesses and the finance sector have picked up the slack.
In 2013, Wilmington recorded 12,422 business licenses filed. A decade later, it’s now at 14,337 ranging from financial institutions, law firms, restaurants and bodegas, and more.
There are 47,876 people who work in the city, according to reports the city cited from the Department of Labor. Most likely, many of those people work at small businesses that employ fewer than 20 people, as that’s the case with many Delawareans.
Even with the high-profile downsizing of Bank of America’s operations in the coming months, finance and insurance industries remain the top employment base in Wilmington, with Barclay’s and JPMorgan Chase & Co. remaining stalwarts in the town with recent investments in new offices.
Employment in that sector overall remained flat at 11,500. But the sub-industries have changed in the last decade, according to the Wilmington Office of Economic Development which receives quarterly employment reports from the Delaware Department of Labor.
In 2013, 91% of finance jobs in the city were associated with credit intermediation and insurance carriers with the remaining 9% accounted for by securities, commodity contracts and other financial investments. A decade later, that 9% has more than tripled to 32% - or hitting 3,785 jobs.
The biggest shift overtime, however, may be in Wilmington’s leisure and hospitality, growing 27% over the last decade. That surprised Purzycki, but remembering his days at the Riverfront, it makes sense as people are drawn to a “place with a little personality and a good location.” Bardea Food took a big bet on Wilmington, and has help spur up-and-
coming restaurants to open new eateries.
“Since I’ve been here, we’ve had two hotels go up on King Street,” Purzycki said. “We’ve gotten great press out of Philadelphia and people come down for it. I walked into
Bardea one day for dinner with my wife, and I did not know a soul there. That level of confidence and skill to bring people here.”
On the flip side, he said, was the loss of the lunch crowd that once was the bread and butter for downtown Wilmington. Hybrid work, which drove many new residents out of higher cost-of-living cities and to Wilmington also had a trickle-down effect on restaurants that cater to office workers.
Recalling the past predictions of recessions that have dogged the “new normal” years after 2020, Purzycki believed that hybrid work would eventually run its course when the recession does arrive and limit choices for the labor force.
“I’ve been through so many recessions where getting a job was just not taken for granted. I’m certainly not hoping for one, but I know they do pop up as part of the economy readjusting itself over a period of prosperity,” he said. “And we’ve had a remarkable period of prosperity … people will be shaken out of this ‘here’s when I want to work and take it and leave it.’”
Aside from development and growing jobs in the city, the outgoing mayor believes he will be leaving behind a strong foundation to build upon. But the course will not be smooth. There’s two issues Purzycki said Wilmington struggles with: addressing the homeless population and the decades of ramifications of desegregation.
“I do think [desegregation] did a terrible injustice to the people in the neighborhood. It put kids on buses and sent them to the other side of the county where they didn’t feel at home,” he said. “Today it’s different, but it still creates problems where teachers aren’t sure how to handle the problems these kids face, and parents can’t easily go to their football games.”
But in the out-going mayor’s opinion, Carney has shown himself to be as committed to solving the education issue, as he started as governor through the Wilmington Learning Collaborative, a consortium of leaders that meet to reimagine public schools in the city. Carney is also a longtime Wilmington resident and has led the state government through the economic and public health crisis of COVID-19.
“There’s challenges that every mayor across the country faces, and there are no easy answers. It’s hard stuff. But he’s inheriting what we all did together, the state agencies, the city, the private investors,” Purzycki said.
“I think he’s got a pretty good situation,” he added. “But the challenge for the city will always be, you want to continue economic development and healthy neighborhoods. I think he’s committed to that.”
