Philadelphia real estate developers sought to tear down more buildings in 2019 than any other year on recent record.

With two weeks left in the year, records from the Department of Licenses & Inspections showed 543 demolition permits had been issued to private developers over the past year. That’s up from 514 in 2018 and more than any year since 2007, which is as far back as L&I has digitized its permit records.

City government, which is charged with preemptively tearing down neglected structures, requested another 398 permits in 2019, bringing the wrecking ball total to 941.

CBRE real estate analyst Joseph Gibson said the pace of demolitions was strongly linked to demand for new housing and commercial space as Philadelphia continues to grow.

“As the resurgence of the city grows and more and more people want to live in the city, that effect starts to bleed out into neighborhoods where there had been…vacant buildings for years if not decades,” Gibson said. “They’re either getting torn down or, if the infrastructure is still good, getting turned into something creative or different.”

The total number of demolitions increased slightly compared to last year, when 936 buildings were torn down. A more remarkable contrast comes from looking at the trending role of private developers. Before 2009, blight reduction efforts by the city constituted much of the demolition happening. But over the last decade, developers have eclipsed municipal government as the primary force where tear-downs are concerned, with a 255% uptick in private-sector demo permits since 2009.