A $60 million education, health care and retail hub begins construction in Seaford
A long-fading shopping mall in Seaford, a formerly bustling DuPont factory town in Western Sussex County, is seeing a couple things it hasn’t seen in decades: construction fencing, and optimism.
As of this week, construction crews have finally moved in on a long-awaited, $60 million project that city officials hope will revitalize the onetime “Nylon Capital of the World” — and potentially bring back some of the prosperity that has eluded Seaford since DuPont sold off the pioneering textile factory that once gave the town its nickname and its primary identity.
The 285,000-square-foot Nylon Capital Shopping Center, long a decrepit and mostly vacant retail husk on a 22-acre property at the western edge of town, will soon become a mixed-use hub of education, offices, health care, pickleball courts, restaurants and retail.
The ambitious plans for the new mixed use Nylon Capital Center were first announced in late 2022 by city officials and Wilmington-based developer 9th Street Development Co. 9th Street partner Robert Herrera described a town-center feel — with open spaces, trees, public amenities like pickleball courts, and a mix of institutional tentpoles and Main Street businesses.
The revitalization project had long been in city leaders' plans, but didn't begin to move until Gov. John Carney took a personal interest, Seaford mayor David Genshaw told Delaware Online/The News Journal in 2022.
Initial coverage: Why Delaware leaders are turning their eyes and wallets to this run-down shopping center
"The governor personally talked me into it," said Hererra at the time. And indeed, the Nylon Capital project was one of the callouts in of Carney's final State of the State address on Wednesday.
Herrera is best known, perhaps, for the fast-expanding The Mill coworking space he founded, which is quickly filling the floors of yet another one-time DuPont flagship: the former Nemours building in downtown Wilmington.
Herrera’s company is now busy preparing the ground for another 20,000-square-foot outpost of The Mill in the Nylon Capital Center. Nylon Capital will maintain most of its current crop of retail and restaurant tenants while adding a host of new ones.
Bit by bit, Nylon Capital's architects have been putting blocks into place, and announcing new occupants — including a just-announced medical center. The first new tenants could move in as soon as this year, Herrera said, depending on always fluid construction schedules.
Here’s what we know, as the wrecking balls and big diggers move into the Nylon Capital.
What anchor businesses are confirmed at the Nylon Capital Shopping Center?
Nylon Capital will be a reverse mullet: party in the front, business in the back.
Rather than just build shops and hope people will show up, Nylon Capital’s developers will follow a template mapped out all over the country in recent years: a mixed-use complex where office, education and health care tenants will create a built-in customer base for retail and restaurant tenants. The retail and restaurants will, in turn, become amenities for office workers.
Offices and schools will go in the back of the center. This will include a two-story, 30,000-square-foot vocational training center from Delaware Technical Community College, and an early education center from BrightBloom, a company that specializes in working with children with autism and special needs.
Also confirmed is a 20,000-square-foot outpost of Herrera’s co-working space The Mill, which already boasts the region’s largest dedicated co-working office space in Wilmington’s Nemours building, at 108,000 square feet.
At the end of January, medical group TidalHealth announced it would construct a “new, state-of-the-art” health care facility at Nylon Capital. Though the site was initially announced at around 22,000 square feet, Herrera said the plans are already expanding and getting more ambitious.
”We’re excited to be the healthcare partner in the continued rebirth and economic transformation of this once thriving space,” wrote Tidalhealth Nanticoke president Penny Short, who also said the final shape of the health center has yet to be decided.
”We will be making our decision soon on the clinical services to be based there,” Short wrote in a statement.
What retail stores and restaurants will be at the newly renovated Nylon Capital Center?
In part, this will include what’s already there. Sal’s Italian Restaurant, Dollar Tree and Rite Aid will remain.
But the new anchor retail tenants have mostly still not been announced. In part, Herrera said, this isn’t an accident.
While the retail component at Nylon will be the most public-facing aspect of the shopping center — harking back to nostalgic times when the shopping center was the center of life for the DuPont factory community — the attractiveness of the retail space was dependent on first lining up a good mix of office, medical center and school to form the institutional backbone for Nylon Capital. Those involve more complicated negotiations, Herrera said, and were the center's first priority.
But with schools and offices and TidalHealth in place, retail announcements should arrive in swift succession, Herrera said.
Herrera expects to be in a position to announce two retail tenants, including an anchor tenant, in the coming weeks, once the Ts are crossed and the paperwork is signed. If all goes well, the still-to-be-announced anchor retail tenant may be able to open its doors as soon as this year, Herrera said.
What kind of recreation will be at Nylon Capital Center?
The first step to construction will be knocking down a defunct Woolworth’s and turning the center of the shopping center into a broad boulevard leading to the back of the property.
This boulevard will double as public space, as well the planned bocce and pickleball courts. But also, there’s the bowling.
Most of the nostalgia surrounding Nylon Capital surrounds the legacy bowling alley still on the site. When Herrera’s company asked the city what they most wanted to see at the shopping center, the response surprised him.
“The number one response was ‘Bring bowling back,’ Herrera said.
His company is still looking for the appropriate steward for the old bowling alley, but the plan is to renovate and update the old alley, and to create a new entrance facing the Center's central boulevard.
Did Nylon Capital Center receive public funding?
It sure did!
At least $3.1 million came from the City of Seaford, and another $2 million or so came from the state. The largest piece of public funding, $20 million, came via the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
The project is expected to create approximately 320 short-term construction jobs. Long-term jobs will depend on the shape of final plans.
What’s the timeline for the Nylon Capital Center?
As always, it’s a bit of a moving target.
The first stage is simply preparing the ground and putting up construction fencing, said Herrera. Demolition will begin before spring, and likely be complete by summer.
Construction will likely also begin in spring, he expects, while demolition is still taking place on other parts of the center.
The first new retail tenants will potentially begin to open as soon as this year. Institutional and office tenants at the rear of the center will likely not start to move in until 2025.
Matthew Korfhage is a business and development reporter in the Delaware region covering all things related to land and money: openings and closings, big projects, and the many corporations who call the First State home. He also likes to write about tacos, oysters and beer. Send tips and insults to mkorfhage@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Can the $60 million Nylon Capital Center help revive Seaford?
