Sustainability : Development News

Over the last 121 years, Chestnut Hill's storied Morris Arboretum has made a name for itself with slow, mature growth, planting seeds that will blossom into some of the most beautiful plants in Philadelphia. This week, the arboretum begins a new kind of growth that, officials say, is a long time coming.

With the help of the University of Pennsylvania and private donors like Dorrance Hamilton of Campbell's Soup, arboretum officials dedicated a new $13 million horticultural center. Designed as an equipment storage center and research facility, the building is the first added to the John and Lydia Morris estate property since the arboretum was founded in 1889. Arboretum officials were able to fund the project earlier this year and sought LEED Platinum status, hoping to remain a leader in environmental policy for Philadelphia.

"For the first time, we can put our equipment under a roof and put our people into decent workspaces, a place where they have lockers and showers because before they were operating out of a mechanics garage," says Morris project manager Bob Anderson. "We host seminars and before we would have to host these offsite. We are glad to give support to our educational staff."

The focus on education was part of the original expansion proposal in place since 1982, when a wing of the arboretum facility was turned into a mechanic's garage. Morris officials have been searching for funding to build not only this new Horticultural Center but a fully-functional education facility, capable of hosting larger classes and seminars. This building dedication represents Phase One of what has since become a two-part project. When the second phase will begin, though, is still anyone's guess.

"We had the funding for this project in place two years ago before the economy went to heck, but the funding for Phase Two could be a little tougher to get," says Anderson. "Unless you know someone with a lot of money that wants to give us $17 million."

Source: Bob Anderson, Morris Arboretum
Writer: John Steele

Philadelphia's Francisville neighborhood has a history of best-laid-plans gone awry. The neighborhood was originally called Vineyard after William Penn attempted and failed to start a wine vineyard there in 1699. As the settlement was designed to run along the early Indian trail Ridge Road (now Ridge Avenue) its streets run diagonally, creating an odd kink in Philadelphia's street grid. But as local activists prep Francisville for new development, they hope to rebuild its legacy as well as its infrastructure.

Their first order of business is The Vineyards, a 4,380-sq-ft, certified LEED Platinum housing development beginning construction this week. A clever play on that old William Penn story, The Vineyards brings three-family residences in the form of pre-fabricated housing units, each with 500-sq-ft, tenant-accessible green roofs. Officials hope housing will anchor the 20,000-sq-ft Francis Village Marketplace, a mixed-use development project at the center of Francisville's redevelopment plan.

"As a part of the Francisville community plan, the neighborhood set a series of priorities and at the top of that list of priorities was to bring back the Ridge Avenue Corridor," says 16th and Ridge Avenue Property Owners Association President Anthony Miles. "The number two priority was to bring back that corridor back green."

The project broke ground in June but was put on hold when officials learned that a documentary team was interested in producing a feature-length film based on the housing project. The documentary will follow construction officials and development teams as they prepare for the Vineyards, putting a green stamp on the Francisville legacy.

"We are actually shopping it around to PBS, Planet Green, NBC, CBS, and we'll be releasing webisodes of the documentary in January to get people excited," says Miles. "We are excited to show off what we believe is Pennsylvania's greenest and most technologically advanced homes."

Source: Anthony Miles, 16th and Ridge Avenue Property Owners Association
Writer: John Steele

International foods company Bertoli began in a Tuscany basement as an olive oil stand. The company now known as Progresso Soup started with two families importing Italian food to the U.S. for their families and friends. In an effort to pull Philadelphia's next foodie phenom out of a rowhouse kitchen or barbecue pit, West Philadelphia's Enterprise Center Community Development Corporation has launched Philly Food Ventures, a development program for home-based food entrepreneurs looking to take their businesses to the next level.

"When we grade applicants, we are looking for three things: managerial capability, the strength of their business idea and then we are looking for what we call entrepreneurial spirit," says Enterprise Center Managing Director Greg Heller. "People who come in with small or home-based food businesses and have the ability to run the business and take it to the next level but they don't necessarily have the know-how or the resources to get there."

Philly Food Ventures serves as a precursor to TEC's forthcoming Center for Culinary Enterprises, a 13,000 square foot food incubator with three community kitchens, urban farmland, and a training restaurant. The project is slated to transform a long-vacant grocery store at 48th and Spruce into a results-based food venture program, creating 130 new permanent jobs within its first two years and 20 new food ventures yearly.

"We are rolling this program out slowly so we can build up a client base so when our Center for Culinary Enterprises is open, we have a program and a set of clients and we can just plug and play," says Heller. "Every week, I get calls from folks who are trying to start food businesses, who have existing businesses and need assistance so this type of program is very timely."

Source: Greg Heller, The Enterprise Center
Writer: John Steele