Why Should Delaware Care?There are nearly 1,000 vacant properties in Wilmington, including the 19th-century Gibraltar estate that for years sat crumbling in the upscale Highlands neighborhood. For the past year, the public has debated the estate’s future and whether taxpayer money should have been involved in its renovation. The debate intensified after plans emerged to transfer the mansion to a new nonprofit company.
Wilmington has paused its plans to transfer the deed of a historic mansion, renovated with millions in taxpayer dollars, to a nonprofit led by the city’s former mayor.
In an email sent last week, Wilmington Neighborhood Conservancy Land Bank Executive Director Bud Freel told residents who live near the Gibraltar Estate that his organization now wants to explore “all possible options” for the property. Freel later told Spotlight Delaware that the pause could leave open the possibility of the mansion going to still another entity…