Curbed.com: new Philly outpost of real estate blog network from NYC to be led by Liz Spikol

The competitive real estate and built environment news community of Philadelphia has a new player.

Curbed.com, the New York City based blog network, which also has regional versions in nine other markets, today launches Philly.Curbed.com. The local site will be edited by Liz Spikol, the former Philadelphia Weekly columnist and editor of the now defunct Hispanic tech magazine Tek Lado.

“Curbed marries an obsession with real estate and neighborhoods with wit and entertainment,” said Spikol. “It’s fun.”

The site was launched in Manhattan in May 2004 by writer and sometimes entrepreneur Lockhart Steele, who has since built a small empire of focused niche sites beyond the Curbed network, which also has local versions in Boston, Washington D.C., Detroit, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco and the Hamptons.

The display advertising model will be tested, following the path of the short-lived Philadelphia expansion of Brooklyn-based real estate blog Brownstoner. Since then, the niche has been attacked locally by Naked Philly and Plan Philly’s Eyes on the Street, in addition to historically-focused Hidden City and others.

[Full Disclosure: PlanPhilly has retained Technically Media, this news site’s parent company, for web strategy work in the past.]

It’s a place that Spikol says Curbed can distinguish itself with her local leadership, noting her “thorough knowledge of the city and its quirks.”

“People should come to the site if they have a sense of humor and if the following things make their hearts pound faster: castles in Mt. Airy; Frank Furness; confusing neighborhood renamings; community forum threads; mysterious new construction; urban ruins; street art; the fate of the Reading Viaduct; historical architecture; catchment issues; remarkable houses and apartments; hideous interior design; economic development; urban planning; sexy floorplans; Ed Bacon’s interest in skateboarding—and so much more,” Spikol wrote Technically Philly in an email. “I look forward to Philly readers helping us define the site.”

Below, watch Curbed.com founder Lockhart Steel talk real estate blogging.

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