sustainability : Development News

   

From an abandoned street to a giant stretch of grass with nothing on it, three city sites now have the tools for major makeovers. Last week, we looked in on the end of the Community Design Collaborative’s Play Space Competition, which ultimately focused nine teams on three spaces in need of a revamp for young users.

The winning design for the Waterloo Recreation Center (Philadelphia Parks & Recreation) is titled "Rebosante" and it’s from Roofmeadow, Studio Ludo and Space for Childhood.
 
"Waterloo is a fascinating site that was a series of backyards: actually, a street, that had been abandoned and cobbled together as a playground," says Play Space Program Manager Alexa Bosse. "It has this very odd configuration, where it’s mostly inner blocks surrounded by houses," with low visibility from the street, leading to long-term problems with illegal activities there.

About a year-and-a-half ago, local organization Men in Motion in the Community (MIMIC) negotiated with Parks & Rec to base their all-volunteer group out of an onsite building, cleaned and painted the playground, and worked to deter the crime there.
 
MIMIC will take an important role in maintaining a redesigned site, an important detail for the Collaborative in choosing the spot.
 
The existing basketball courts and pool will stay, but an adjacent splashpark will augment the summer space. Four "wild nature areas" are in the works for the corners, incorporating hills, mounds and branches for play-time, as well as stormwater management.
 
The Free Library’s Blanche A. Nixon/Cobbs Creek Branch, another competition site, has a unique challenge: It’s a de facto childcare center, with many families using it at a safe after-school space.

"A library is not a typical space to go to for a play space, but they have a lot of interest in creating opportunities for kids to get their crazies out," explains Bosse -- as anyone who has just come from eight hours in school remembers.
 
The design, titled "Play Structure | Story Structure," came from Ground Reconsidered Landscape Architecture, Designed for Fun, Friends Select School, J R Keller LLC Creative Partnerships, Meliora Environmental Design LLC, and the Parent-Infant Center. It evolved out of on-site brainstorms from Friends Select second-graders.
 
The plan is inspired by the narrative structure of a book or story. The tri-cornered site will feature new play space in one corner, a fronting "grand plaza" in another, and a "quieter, more meditative area" for the community with plants, shade trees and stormwater management.
 
The design for the School District’s Haverford Bright Futures in Mill Creek -- dubbed "Bright Futures Chutes and Ladders" -- came from Atkin Olshin Schade Architects, Meliora Environmental Design, LLC, Viridian Landscape Studio, International Consultants, Inc. and the Parent-Infant Center.
 
"It’s an interesting site because it’s very large, and there’s a very large lawn," says Bosse. The Collaborative found a need for better community connection to the site since the school for three- and four-year-olds has a12:30 p.m. dismissal time. "The school is very open to being a place where other community members can come."
 
The winning design divides the lawn up in a Chutes and Ladders-style grid, with different play opportunities in each section, along with preserved lawn space, shade, room for adults to sit, and an amphitheater space for community gatherings in the back.
 
Each site, now with completed designs and budget plans in hand, is equipped to seek the funding to make them a reality.
 
Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Alexa Bosse, Community Design Collaborative

Over the last year, we’ve had our eye on the Community Design Collaborative’s international Play Space Design Competition, a major piece of the 18-month Play Space Initiative funded by the William Penn Foundation. Last September, the Collaborative announced the three sites that participating design teams would focus on, and in March, three winners emerged: one for each site. (Infill Philadelphia: Play Space is a partnership of the Collaborative and the Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children.)
 
"We’re really excited about all of them," says Play Space Program Manager Alexa Bosse. Thanks to supportive partners, the Collaborative was able to award a $10,000 prize to each of the three winning teams.
 
In all, there were forty submissions from six countries and 17 states. From the fall 2015 announcement of the sites (Parks & Rec’s Waterloo Recreation Center, the School District’s Haverford Bright Futures campus, and the Free Library’s Blanche A. Nixon/Cobbs Creek branch) to the final presentations in March, each proposal underwent a rigorous evaluation process.
 
Each submission was comprised of a 20-page packet detailing a plan to revitalize or create an eco-friendly 21st-century play space. The Collaborative assembled an expert jury featuring education, health and design professionals who judged the ideas based on cost estimates, maintenance plans, stormwater management and education strategies. The panel narrowed the field to nine finalists: three for each site.
 
Once they were announced, the Collaborative re-engaged site staffers, students, users and neighbors to vet the finalists' designs and get feedback. For about two weeks, each site had a ballot box courtesy of the Collaborative where locals could submit their votes for the plan they liked best. This yielded about 250 votes in all.
 
Finally, on March 16 at the Academy of Natural Sciences, an awards jury judged presentations from each team. The winning scores incorporated the initial expert jury’s recommendations, community members' votes, and the awards jury's decision.
 
"It’s really hard to get funding until you have a design," says Bosse of why the plans produced by the competition are so valuable for the participating sites. As part of the competition’s criteria, budgets could not exceed $1.5 million, reflecting the amount site stakeholders felt they could realistically raise.
 
And the winning plans? They include stormwater management and educational green space, a new splashpark at Waterloo Recreation Center, a Chutes and Ladders-themed lawn for Haverford Bright Futures, and a one-of-kind new play structure for the Cobbs Creek Library that emerged with the help from Philly second-graders. Stay tuned next week for a closer look at what the winning designs hope to create.
 
Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Alexa Bosse, Community Design Collaborative

While Bartram’s Garden has been gearing up for new visibility and an influx of visitors thanks to construction of the Bartram’s Mile segment of Schuylkill Banks, its historic house has been closed for renovations.

On April 1, it will be reopen with a compelling mix of old, new and new-to-us environments and programming. (This spring, our On the Ground program will land nearby in Kingsessing.)

"We’ve been fundraising since 2010," explains Bartram’s Garden Assistant Director Stephanie Phillips. With help from a $1 million state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant -- which Bartram was required to match -- the budget for the revamp grew to $2.7 million. The design phase commenced in 2014, and construction took place throughout 2015. The improvements range from a new roof and interior renovations to a cutting-edge geothermal heating and cooling system – the latter quite a feature for a house dating back to 1731.

"It was a great opportunity for us," says Phillips of bringing in the geothermal system. It’s not the first area historic site to install one, but probably the largest, with four main buildings and all the site’s historic outbuildings now on green climate control.

It was a special challenge, geologically speaking, because if you go back several hundred thousand years, the area wasn’t dry land at all: It was under an ocean.

"What we didn’t know was that Bartram’s Garden was on the site of a large sand dune," explains Phillips. If you need to dig 12 wells to a depth of 500 feet each, you have quite a job on your hands once you hit that ancient sand. Ultimately, they had to line the wells with steel casing and import a specialized Canadian drill.

New programming includes a Women of Bartram’s Garden tour -- as Phillips says, "broadening how we tell our story" -- which up until now has focused mostly on farm founder John Bartram, a famous botanist and co-founder of the American Philosophical Society with Benjamin Franklin. When Bartram was traveling in search of his prized plants, his second wife Ann Mendenhall, with whom he had nine children, managed their 200-acre farm. Their son William Bartram took over the site, and after 1810, his niece and John Bartram’s granddaughter Ann Bartram Carr continued the family legacy. She added ten greenhouses to the site.

A recreation of Ann Bartram Carr’s original portico and garden, which graced the western entrance of the house in the 1800s, is still under development at the site. Carr was an extraordinary figure in the art and horticulture world. New outdoor spaces and programming will introduce the public to her story.

"[The improvements] really coincide with the arrival of the Bartram’s Mile trail," adds Phillips. They will create "a much more welcoming experience" for visitors who arrive via the new amenity. For a long time, the west side of the house has been "treated more like a public park, and now it’s going to be treated more like a botanical garden."

Watch Flying Kite for more news at Bartram’s and developments on the Bartram’s Mile trail.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Stephanie Phillips, Bartram’s Garden

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Anyone passing through historic Old City these days has probably noticed a major project at the corner of 3rd and Chestnut Streets. It's the future site of The Museum of the American Revolution, and construction has been ongoing for 20 months.

The new tourist attraction is landing in Independence National Historical Park thanks to a land-swap with the National Park Service -- they gained a new parcel in Valley Forge in exchange for opening up the site to the new four-story 118,000-square foot museum. The site was long home to a Park Service visitors’ center built in the 1970s for America’s bicentennial. That closed about fifteen years ago and was demolished to make way for the new museum.

"We wanted a building that reflected classic design, to fit and honor the history of the neighborhood," says CEO Michael Quinn of engaging Robert A.M. Stern Architects for the $150 million project, currently funded at $124 million with a matching grant of $12 million underway to close the gap.

"We took an approach [to the layout] that we think is going to be really effective," continues Quinn. The site's main exhibit space will be on the second floor, with a core gallery of about 16,000 square feet integrating immersive multi-media experiences with a range of notable artifacts, including George Washington's original tent which served as both his office and sleeping quarters during the Revolutionary War.

The ground floor will feature a lobby, museum shop, 180-seat introductory theater, 5,000-square-foot gallery for temporary exhibitions, and a café that will spill out along 3rd Street.

"We wanted to contribute to the dynamism of the urban environment," says Quinn.

The lower level will offer two large classrooms and the top floor will house the museum’s offices and event space, including room to seat 180 for dinner. Out of about 85,000 "usable" square feet of space, 30,000 are dedicated to visitors, education and experiences -- a very high ratio of visitor orientation.

According to Kirsti Bracali, a project manager with consulting firm Dan Bosin Associates, the design also incorporates eco-friendly elements such as a green roof and state-of-the-art stormwater management, air-cycling, and heat-recovery systems.

The building meets and exceeds Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) stormwater requirements and is working toward LEED certification. There’s a green roof on 90 percent of the spaces over the museum -- it handles rainwater as well as deflects heat. It’ll also be a nice splash of green for taller adjacent buildings to look down on.

The museum's recovered stormwater will have year-round use in cooling towers, via a large underground cistern. With its museum-quality air requirements -- temperature and humidity control is essential for preserving the artifacts on display -- it’s notable that the site will use collected stormwater to help with climate control.

"This is the first time it’s been done in Philadelphia," says Bracali of the system, which the museum has been working with PWD to implement.

The museum’s offices should be occupied by September of this year; opening day is planned for 2017.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Sources: Michael Quinn, Museum of the American Revolution; Kirsti Bracali, Dan Bosin Associates 
 

Last week, we took a look at how city-wide cooperation between several groups and agencies laid the groundwork for a much-needed new schoolyard at West Philly’s Henry C. Lea School.

Thanks to grants from PECO and the Philadelphia Water Department Stormwater Management Incentive Program (SMIP), design was underway in spring of 2014. Then lead project designer Sara Pevaroff Schuh of SALT Design Studio learned that, in addition to Lea’s older existing play structure, the space would be getting a brand-new setup -- the School District planned to relocate one from the recently closed Alexander Wilson School.

"Since we had this SMIP grant, they were [only] going to put the new rubber surface right under the new play structure," says Julie Scott, co-chair of the Green Lea project spearheaded by the West Philly Coalition for Neighborhood Schools. "[But] we really wanted it to be a green project and be cohesive,” 

With Schuh’s help, the relocated addition was placed next to the old one, which rested on an aged and impermeable tiled surface. Funds raised by the Coalition paid for the removal of the asphalt under both sites, and new continuous permeable rubber surfacing went everywhere.

"The kids had no idea it would be like a tumbling mat for them outside," enthuses Schuh. "It’s purple, red, and blue," with a design reminiscent of ripples from a raindrop.

Other beautification and stormwater management measures include three additional rain gardens on the site along 47th Street and 19 new trees. The yard also got a new entrance on the corner of 47th and Spruce.

During one community planting day last fall, volunteers put in 1200 plants (another workday is planned for April of this year). The Philadelphia Orchard Project has gotten involved as well, adding edible plants to the yard including chokeberries and blueberries.

"It’s pretty dramatic," says Schuh. "It basically went from being a one-acre asphalt schoolyard to…[having] a little urban forest on it now -- and it’s the kind of urban forest that works in a schoolyard."

Input from the community informed the design. 

"They wanted a place for neighborhood folks to gather," she says. "For parents to be able to have a social space while they waited for their kids [or] when they came to meet with teachers."

Meanwhile, school staffers needed unobstructed sight-lines and a flexible space.

"As designers, we wanted to really create room for different sorts of activities in the landscape…that would be educational tools for teachers throughout the school day," adds Schuh.

There’s already been a major uptick in community use of the yard outside of school hours.

A few minor projects remain -- painting the basketball court, additional planting and dumpster enclosures -- but Lea’s new schoolyard is largely complete as of 2016. Scott estimates the cost of the project at $850,000, including the original design grant and volunteers' time.

"We felt like the yard was a very large signal," she says, "a way of saying to the community that this is a really great place to send your kids."

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Sources: Julie Scott, West Philly Coalition for Neighborhood Schools; Sara Pevaroff Schuh, SALT Design Studio

Remaking a local school space -- and erstwhile one-acre asphalt lot -- took the efforts of a citywide coalition reaching back five years. Late last year, West Philadelphia's Henry C. Lea School (which boasts about 550 students in kindergarten through eighth grade) completed the final phase of a years-long improvement project for its schoolyard at 4700 Locust Street.
 
"It was a major accomplishment to see another schoolyard in Philadelphia go from being an asphalt lot to something different, something that actually provides kids a really stimulating place," explains lead project designer Sara Pevaroff Schuh, principal at SALT Design Studio.
 
The initiative got its start through the West Philly Coalition for Neighborhood Schools, which launched in 2010. Before achieving its nonprofit status, the group applied (under the umbrella of the nearby Enterprise Center) for a design grant for the schoolyard from the Community Design Collaborative.
 
In 2011, the Coalition officially became a nonprofit organization and the Collaborative grant was awarded: Lea’s yard became part of a design project (alongside Germantown’s John B. Kelly School) culminating in a 2012 charrette that yielded a new master plan.
 
By fall of 2012, the Coalition had the Collaborative’s official report in hand. According to Julie Scott, co-chair of the Coalition’s Greening Lea project, "We did a little pilot project using the master plan as a guideline." The group took on a manageable slice of the bigger vision and informed the community (many of whom had already participated in the charrette process) of the coming change. The Coalition chose to depave and plant a section of the yard bordering Spruce Street.
 
They approached the School District with their plan, hoping to get the depaving and planting done over the course of a few weekends with help from volunteers. The District came through, handling the depaving and the installation of a new hose, while local volunteers took care of the new plantings.
 
That enabled the next big steps: a pair of grants in 2013. First came a PECO Green Region grant and then a Philadelphia Water Department Stormwater Management Incentive Programs (SMIP) grant. (The University of Pennsylvania also contributed $75,000 towards the yard's completion.) 
 
The SMIP dollars were longer in coming, but the PECO dollars -- $10,000 that was matched through community fundraising spearheaded by the Coalition -- let the group begin planning their latest landscaping and water management schematics. They put out an RFP in spring of 2013 and SALT came on the scene in early 2014.
 
"It had been a while since that plan had gone through the community process by the time we came on board, so we went through another round of community engagement," recalls Schuh. A new school principal also meant some adjustment of the vision.
 
But things began to move quickly thanks to an unexpected element in the design. The Alexander Wilson School at 46 and Woodland was among those closed by the District -- and just after community members had invested in a brand-new play structure. In the midst of planning, the District decided to relocate the Wilson structure to Lea, a sudden challenge for the designers.
 
Next week, we’ll take a look at Lea’s new landscape, which benefits students, parents and community members.
 
Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Sources: Julie Scott, West Philly Coalition for Neighborhood Schools; Sara Pevaroff Schuh, SALT Design Studio
 

On January 20, Keep Philadelphia Beautiful (KPB) continued its push to produce the city’s first unified front on the issue of litter with a convening of officials and community stakeholders at the Municipal Services Building’s 16th floor Innovation Lab.  

Attendees were from groups as diverse as the Streets Department, the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD), the Tookany Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership, the Aramingo Business Association, the People's Emergency Center, the Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia, the North Fifth Street Revitalization Project, the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC), the Schuylkill Navy of Philadelphia and the South of South Neighborhood Association.

"How do we do this as a city, and how do the smaller groups work together?" asked Marian Horowitz, an environmental engineer at PWD.

Alan Robinson of the Schuylkill Navy said that when it comes to the city environment, he wishes people would get as excited about reducing and eliminating litter as they are about pop-up parks, pools and gardens.

One of four specialized break-out sessions focused specifically on the problem of illegal dumping. PCDC Deputy Director Rachel Mak led the discussion.

While litter in the streets, sidewalks and waterways is a problem in Philly, illegal dumping is a problem on a larger and much more noticeable scale. People unwilling to dispose of their household or construction trash properly leave bags and piles on public corners or strewn around City trash cans.

Mak highlighted a few sites in the Chinatown neighborhood that research has pinpointed as hot-spots for illegal dumping, including the corners at 10th and Race Streets, 10th and Cherry Streets, and 11th and Wood Streets.

One reason tracking the dumping sites is important, Mak said, is that the installation of cameras can capture illegal dumpers in the act. Printouts of the images can also be distributed throughout the neighborhood.

PCDC also partners with the Streets Department’s Streets and Walkways Education and Enforcement Program (SWEEP) to check illegally dumped material for identifying information that can be used to track down and fine the perpetrators.

Stopping illegal dumping takes a lot of groundwork, persistence, education, and "getting your hands dirty," explains Mak.

"People get used to seeing trash, so they let it go when it happens," adds Horowitz. "People think they aren’t doing anything wrong or no-one will notice.

Later, we’ll take a look at how the new KPB consortium is hoping to mobilize business owners on the issue.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Sources: Rachel Mak, PCDC; and KPB litter convening participants

According to Ellie Devyatkin, commercial corridor manager at the Frankford Community Development Corporation, the name for Frankford Pause -- a new park coming this spring to a piece of land at Frankford Avenue and Paul Street -- came about because whenever the el rumbles by, locals know to pause their conversation.
 
It’s going to be a unique and much-needed green space for the Frankford Avenue corridor: the result of dollars from an ArtPlace America grant via the City Planning Commission, and subsequent partnerships between Frankford CDC, the Community Design Collaborative and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS).  
 
In the process of pursuing designs for what was originally envisioned as a temporary park, Frankford CDC quickly realized that to secure the necessary funding, they had to think beyond a pop-up.
 
“We realized that we would need to actually build the park," recalls Devyatkin. "With all the effort that was going into it, it made a lot more sense for it to be a permanent park than a temporary pop-up."
 
That meant going back to the drawing board, but the work has been worth it. A design grant from the Collaborative made the initial concepts possible, while Locus Partners ultimately drafted the final construction documents. Remaining ArtPlace America dollars will fund the construction --  estimated at about $240,000 -- with additional support from Councilwoman Maria Quiñones-Sánchez’s office.
 
The CDC calls the planned park "a new hub of community activity" and a "flexible open space" that can host a variety of gatherings and events. The design features open lawn, flexible seating, a performance stage, plantings and raised vegetable gardens.
 
The latter will be made possible through $25,000 from PHS, and Devyatkin hopes that maintenance of the plantings and gardens will continue with help from the neighborhood’s many active gardening groups.
 
Seating will consist of benches made from repurposed plastic milk crates and pressure-treated wood, and wire mesh gabion structures (pressure-treated wood, lacing wire, mesh and rocks).
 
A distinctive aspect of the space will be bright pink "loops" that surround the space with stripes painted up the sides of the adjacent building and extend over the top of the park in the form of long, durable shade cloths that can be removed in bad weather. There will also be sound-activated lighting triggered by the passing train and other city noises, bringing new awareness to the urban acoustic landscape.
 
Devyatkin predicts that the park will break ground this spring, with an official opening in June or July.
 
Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Ellie Devyatkin, Frankford CDC

Last week, we told you about a new 10-acre park slated for the North Delaware riverfront at Orthodox Street in Bridesburg. The project is still in its early planning phase, but ideas for the exciting green space are already taking shape. The Delaware River City Corporation (DRCC) and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation are spearheading the effort, with the help from community stakeholders.

“We’re really excited about the project because it provides that neighborhood access to the river that they haven’t had before,” enthuses Stephanie K. Craighead, director of planning, preservation and property management at Parks & Rec. Bridesburg Recreation Center is nearby, so locals don’t lack for certain recreation facilities -- including a ball field, a pool, basketball and tennis courts -- "but what they don’t have is this wonderful resource at the river."

The new park will focus on more passive recreation with meadows and stormwater management, walking and biking trails, a boardwalk, places to sit quietly, and a healthy waterfront habitat that planners hope will draw birdwatchers.

"Spaces that are contemplative," is how Craighead puts it, along with an area for kids to ride bikes without worrying about car and truck traffic -- a first for the neighborhood. The park will also have raised benches offering river views or amphitheater-style seating for a performance area, along with a plaza for events like a farmers' market. Restroom facilities and parking will be included.

"We hope that a friends group will develop around this park as friends groups have developed around our other parks," she says, "and that we could work with them to schedule special events, and have the park be a very active place that supports the community."

A re-vamp of Orthodox Street will also be included in the designs -- the thoroughfate will welcome pedestrians to the park with benches, shade trees, a safe place to stroll and traffic-calming measures.

"Our North Delaware Riverfront Greenway trail is going to run right along that location," adds DRCC Executive Director Tom Branigan. "This will become a trailhead park for the Greenway."

Now that an official concept has been developed with community input, Branigan says DRCC will pursue funding for design and construction from sources like the William Penn Foundation, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and the City of Philadelphia.

Without hard plans, the final cost is hard to estimate, but organizations estimate it at up to $7 million, with an additional $1.5 to $2 million needed for the Orthodox Street upgrades. If all goes well, official design on the park could begin this year, and Branigan estimates that construction could launch within two to three years.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Sources: Stephanie K. Craighead, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation; and Tom Branigan, Delaware River City Corporation
 

SEPTA riders, neighborhood groups and City Council members have long been calling for more transit shelters, and late last year a platform finally launched for residents to have their say.

According to Angela Dixon, deputy director of the Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities (MOTU), the City of Philadelphia has over 8,000 surface transit stops. Only 300 of those have covered transit shelters, and an effort is afoot to double that number while also replacing all existing stops. Residents are voting on where the new shelters should go.

"This network was established over 25 years ago and is well past its useful life," says Dixon. In 2014, the City kicked off a competitive RFP process for managers of a new Street Furniture Concession Agreement that will last for 20 years. Intersection was ultimately chosen and authorized to develop, install and maintain the new shelters, which will be funded by an advertising program, not taxpayers.

A public voting website to determine the placement of the new shelters was a stipulation of the Concession Agreement; it launched in late October 2015. The criteria were determined with several factors in mind: the ridership at the individual stops, requests received from a variety of public and private sources, available space, and the stops’ proximity to sites like hospitals, senior centers, shopping centers and community centers.

The website’s "add a shelter" feature also allows voters to suggest a location not currently on the map. MOTU reviews these submissions and decides, based on ridership at the site and other factors, whether they’ll be added to the official voting roster. Site users can also leave their comments.

Dixon confirms that people are interacting with site already, but it’ll get a boost early this year with a new ad campaign on buses, existing shelters and libraries.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Angela Dixon, the Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities

The first phase of the new Delaware Avenue extension officially opened in December, and it isn’t the only change coming to Bridesburg. The sole Philadelphia neighborhood that lies east of I-95, the community has long been divided from the Delaware River by the historic industrial center there. Now a proposed 10-acre riverfront park could change all that.

Over the last several months, the Delaware River City Corporation (DRCC) and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation have been engaging residents in a planning process (aided by dollars from the William Penn Foundation). Those meetings culminated in the presentation of a final concept and master plan on December 16 at American Legion Post 821.

According to land owner Parks & Rec and DRCC, the proposed space for the park is a "blighted and unused tract of former industrial land" at the end of Orthodox Street.

Stephanie K. Craighead, director of planning, preservation and property management for Parks & Rec, argues that the site has been underutilized for years.

"There are some limitations to how close to the river you could get, because of how the site was used prior to our acquiring it," she says. In particular, a lot of concrete has been dumped at the river’s edge there, which rendered it unstable for major development.

Tom Branigan, executive director of DRCC, has become very familiar with Bridesburg residents and businesses over the last five years. Throughout many community and civic meetings, "they were always frustrated that things were happening all around them, but nothing was happening in Bridesburg," he recalls.

The momentum behind the park project really began when Taucony-headquartered Dietz & Watson lost a New Jersey distribution center to fire a few years ago. The City of Philadelphia and the State of Pennsylvania worked to incentivize the company to locate its new distribution center near its headquarters across the Delaware in Philadelphia.

During that process, PIDC purchased a piece of the former Frankford Arsenal property adjacent to the Dietz & Watson headquarters. Known as the Frankford Arsenal Boat Launch, it had been scheduled for development as a shopping center, and was made available to the company to buy for its new distribution center. But that particular spot had been targeted by federal dollars for use as a recreational area, not a commercial one.

PIDC had an answer: Let Dietz & Watson develop the former Frankford Arsenal land, and transform a comparable piece of nearby riverfront into a recreation space. PIDC owned the land at the end of Bridesburg’s Orthodox Street, and transferred it to the City of Philadelphia for development as a new recreation site.

And so the groundwork for Bridesburg’s new park was ready. Next, we’ll take a look at what DRCC and Parks & Rec are planning for the space.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Sources: Stephanie K. Craighead, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation; and Tom Branigan, Delaware River City Corporation

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) is gearing up for its second round of Neighborhood Placemaker Grants. PHS Associate Director of Civic Landscapes Tammy Leigh DeMent says the organizations expects them to be even more popular than last year’s awards, which drew about 150 entrants.

The call for proposals (released on December 22) asks applicants how they plan to make their "neighborhood uniquely beautiful through horticulture."

The 2016 program has a total budget of $75,000, half of which is funded through the Philadelphia Department of Commerce, with the other half coming from PHS. Ultimately, this will be divided into two or three separate awards. PHS is hosting an information session at 5 p.m. on January 6 at its Center City headquarters (100 N. 20th Street), but attendance is not required to apply -- a summary of the Q&A will be posted on the PHS website.

The initial application process is simple in its goals but broad in scope. Because of the competitive nature of the program, PHS is not asking for full applications right out of the gate. Instead, interested groups (which could range from schools and churches to Community Development Corporations, garden clubs, park groups and more) should submit Letters of Intent that answer five short questions. According to DeMent, these include basic info on the concept, how it will impact the neighborhood and how the project aligns with the PHS mission.

"There should be some longevity within the project itself," she adds, explaining that the initiatives should not be temporary in nature, a requirement of the Commerce Department dollars. "It has to have at least a five-year lifespan."

"It’s really focused on any neighborhood in the city that has an idea for creating a new place, a green space for communities to gather,” she adds. It could be a garden, a park, a schoolyard, a neighborhood gateway or even a traffic triangle, like one developed into a new community space honoring U.S. veterans in Feltonville thanks to 2015 grantee Esperanza.

Another of last year’s grantees, the Somerset Neighbors for Better Living, launched a grassroots community planters program to beautify and unify the neighborhood. The planters and materials, offered free to residents, became a trademark of homes there, drawing interested neighbors into more conversations with each other and creating engagement with local happenings.

PHS will be accepting Letters of Intent for its Neighborhood Placemaker Grants through February 12.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Tammy Leigh DeMent, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
 

On December 8, Mayor Michael Nutter and other local leaders cut the ribbon on a significant first step for the Delaware Avenue Extension in Philly's Bridesburg neighborhood. According to Denise Goren, director of the Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities, this waterfront project is the first entirely new road constructed in the city in the last 30 years.

The opening of this first phase of the project -- a .6-mile stretch of two-lane road (flanked by broad space for bikers and pedestrians) eventually slated to extend two miles -- is an important piece of Northeast Philly’s larger Delaware Riverfront Greenway, itself a piece of the region’s burgeoning Circuit and the East Coast Greenway.

Phase 1A of the Extension is also a vital new connection between the Bridesburg and Port Richmond neighborhoods -- it runs between the river and Richmond Street, from Lewis Street in the south to Orthodox Street in the north, and includes a new bridge over the Frankford Creek. The project has been in the works for over 15 years.

At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Mayor Nutter called the effort "much more than just a road project."

"All users have the right to use our roadways safely," he said of the mixed-used nature of Delaware Avenue’s new stretch; in its next phase, it will reach north between Orthodox Street and Buckius Street.

Other speakers at the event included Deputy Mayor of Environmental & Community Resources Michael DiBerardinis and former U.S. Congressperson Robert Borski (founder and chair of the Delaware River City Corporation).

Tom LaCroix of the Bridesburg Business Association also spoke, expressing gratitude for the improved safety and quality of life for Bridesburg residents that the Extension promises. It gives trucks and other industrial vehicles an easy route to I-95 without rumbling through the busy Richmond Street corridor where children are often crossing the street. It’s also a big relief to the community, which has experienced terrible traffic congestion anytime a nearby accident on I-95 rerouted highway traffic through the riverfront neighborhood.

"This is just a godsend," he insisted.

Construction on Phase 1B of the Extension is scheduled to begin in 2017; the road will open the following year.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Sources: Mayor Michael Nutter and Delaware Avenue Extension speakers
 

Chinatown North/Callowhill residents are considering a significant new mixed-use development in the neighborhood. Last week, architects from the Chadds Ford-based T.C. Lei Architect & Associates met with representatives of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC), the 5th Republican Ward and the Callowhill Neighborhood Association to introduce their plans and take questions.

The design features four independent buildings: two seven-story apartments towers and two five-story buildings with apartments above and a total of 12 new commercial spaces fronting Callowhill on the first floor. Financing is still being worked out.

PCDC hosted the Civic Design Review, which was required by the Philadelphia City Planning Commission in light of the complex's large footprint (173,913 square feet in four buildings) and high number of proposed residential units. The meeting drew a variety of community stakeholders. Architects Michelle Kleschick and Vernon Lei of T.C. Lei joined general contractor Alex Chau in presenting plans for the facility and its construction; the property owner/developer is Wing Lee Investment, L.P.  

The proposed project will sit on a rectangular parcel of what is now a mix of warehouses and industrial space, a lumberyard and vacant lots at 900-934 Callowhill Street. The area is bounded by Carlton Street, N. 9th Street, Callowhill and Ridge Avenue, and existing structures would be razed.

All residential units (146 in total) would be market-rate two-bedroom rentals of about 880 square feet. An open-air cruciform courtyard and central elevator/stairwell tower would complete the interior of the site, which is being designed with an estimated $20 million total budget. The development would include about 14,000 square feet of commercial space and over 135,000 square feet of residential space.

The green-roofed complex would hold 90 percent of its own stormwater with the help of a filtering and retention matrix. According to Lei, the commercial storefronts are slated to be "mom and pop neighborhood-size spaces" of about 1,000 square feet, with the option for open construction that would allow stores, service providers or restaurants of up to 2,000 square feet.

Chau explained that the steel-and-concrete construction would be consistent with the look of other modern residential towers in the city, while Lei touted the potential for a "beautiful" new commercial space along Callowhill boasting an "Asian motif" on the façade.

Meeting attendees had a variety of questions for the presenters, including parking options (ample spaces are slated for a below-ground garage), the potential disruptions of construction, specifics of the façades, trash removal and target tenants.

An official City Civic Design Review hearing is pending, date TBA. If the proposal moves forward, Chau hopes to break ground in spring 2016, with total time to completion of three to four years.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Sources: T.C. Lei & Associates and partners

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