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NEWS
October 27, 2008
Grants seek to get Philadelphians down to the river
Diane Mastrull
Inquirer Staff Writer
Despite an economic crisis that has left funding wells as dry as Vegas in July, $1 million in grants will flow today to 13 projects in Philadelphia aimed at encouraging more public access to two rivers long monopolized by private industry - the Schuylkill and the Delaware.
If the hoped-for traffic materializes, so, too, should economic development along the banks of the waterways and in adjacent communities hoping for revitalization, planning and investment experts said.
"We think the riverfronts are the city's most significant redevelopment assets," said Shawn McCaney, program officer for William Penn Foundation, which is funding the grants. "The right set of public amenities will help reinforce the waterfronts as desirable places to develop."
The grants will be administered by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission under its new, aptly named stimulus program - "Take Me to the River."
The grants will support a variety of trail, park and entertainment initiatives designed to heighten the public's relationship with the rivers - "rather than have the Wal-Mart parking lot be the main public access," said Karin Morris, the DVRPC's smart-growth manager.
Though not by design, the scoring system resulted in the grants being almost evenly divided between both rivers - seven for the Schuylkill; six for the Delaware.
The smallest allotment, $25,000, will go to the New Kensington Development Corp. to help establish an eight-week summer concert series for two years at Penn Treaty Park, a non-industrial oasis along the Delaware where Mayor Nutter will join DVRPC officials and grant recipients today for a 10 a.m. news conference.
The largest grant, $125,000, will be picked up by East Falls Development Corp. for renovations to the long-vacant Bathey House on the Schuylkill's edge at the gateway to the East Falls business district. Plans include a restaurant, bathrooms, a bike-rental outlet, and kiosks dispensing information about the Schuylkill River Trail and area businesses.
The DVRPC received 46 applications.
In most, if not all, of the 13 projects selected, the grants will not cover the entire cost but will fill "critical gaps in the funding stream," Morris said. Like land-preservation deals these dollar-tight days, capital projects by nonprofits are relying on multiple funding sources.
For instance, the Schuylkill River Development Corp. plans to convert a tract of riverfront land between 34th Street and Grays Ferry Avenue, where DuPont Chemicals used to test paint, into a 3,300-foot-long stretch of the Schuylkill River Trail. Lane Fike, director of capital projects for the development group, estimates the total price tag at $3 million. Its grant from William Penn: $100,000.
Fike's group also qualified for another William Penn assist, $50,000, to help fund a feasibility study for a pedestrian bridge linking its planned DuPont Crescent Greenway on the east side of the river with the west bank and the horticultural gem there - Bartram's Garden, the oldest surviving botanic garden in the country.
Adjacent to the gardens are 28 acres owned by developer John Westrum. They form a former industrial site where Westrum envisions "a large-scale mixed-use community" - the details of which are still being worked out. That the Schuylkill River Trail is inching ever closer to that parcel, thanks in part to the new grant program, has Westrum enthusiastic that his project will get built eventually - despite the current chill on new development.
"We're bullish on rivers and the redevelopment of the rivers," he said.
For good reason, said Sarah Thorp, executive director of Delaware River City Corp., a nonprofit in line for three grants for a combined $199,000. Two of them, totaling $124,000, will be used to create the 64th park in the Fairmount Park System - and the first along the city's Delaware waterfront in at least a decade, according to Thorp.
Without more public greenways, she said, the city's redevelopment ambitions for its waterfronts would be limited.
"The work that we're doing is providing green infrastructure, which is going to help the mayor reach his goal of bringing new residents and jobs to the city," Thorp said.
A mix of public and private waterfront space is an important component of any healthy urban area, said William Penn's McCaney.
"Most competitive cities of the world have figured out how to balance public access and redevelopment along their waterfronts," he said.
October 1, 2008
Happy trails on the expanded Pennypack
Northeast Times
By Tom Waring
Former congressman Bob Borski, now chairman of the Delaware River City Corp., is eager to see the trail extended at Pennypack on the Delaware park.
On an otherwise miserable Sunday weather-wise, Borski, Fairmount Park Commission executive director Mark Focht and others took part in a fence-cutting ceremony to mark the beginning of the trail extension.
"Mr. Focht, tear down that fence," Borski said, sounding like former President Ronald Reagan ordering Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.
The 65-acre park is located along the Delaware River, near Rhawn Street and adjacent to the Riverview Home and prisons.
It opened in 1999 and is used by walkers, joggers, bicyclists, roller skaters, fishermen, picnickers, bird watchers and soccer and softball players.
The asphalt walking trail will be extended by a half-mile. It will proceed through a natural meadow, pass a tidal wetland and end at the mouth of the Pennypack Creek.
"We’re opening up a great asset," Borski said.
The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources is funding the extension, which should be complete sometime in November.
"It’s a really exciting project for us," said Sarah Thorp, executive director of the DRCC.
Focht, who succeeded Borski’s wife Karen as executive director of the park commission, said the area is beautiful and will be enhanced by graphic images and information about the wetland.
"This will bring more of an environmental focus to the park," he said.
Ultimately, the trail will be extended another two-plus miles to Linden Avenue. It will have to weave around the police and fire academies and a water treatment plant. A bridge will be built to cross Pennypack Creek.
The Delaware River City Corp. is a non-profit organization founded in 2004. It is developing an 11-mile system of recreational trails, parks and open space stretching from Allegheny Avenue in Port Richmond to the Poquessing Creek in Torresdale.
The development will include Lardner’s Point Park on a four-a-and-half-acre piece of ground at the base of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge. The corporation has raised about $1 million toward the $1.5 million cost.
"I-95 took the river away from us. Our mission is to bring the river back to the people of the Northeast," said Borski, who retired from the House of Representatives in 2002 after 20 years.
In addition, the DRCC plans to meet with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to discuss what it plans to do with St. Vincent’s Home, a care facility for adolescent girls that will close early next year.
The DRCC’s hope is that its initiatives will spur private developers to convert vacant land into residential, business and industrial uses. Right now, those developers are sitting on their properties in a soft real estate market.
There are proposed development sites at Rhawn Street, Princeton Avenue, Magee Avenue and Orthodox Street. An ownership dispute is delaying any movement on the Rhawn Street property.
July 3, 2008
Plans for River Revitalization are Flowing
Northeast Times
By Jon Campisi
For some time now, the Delaware River City Corporation has been working on a plan to revitalize the waterfront along the Delaware River from the Far Northeast south to Port Richmond. The 2-year-old non-profit organization’s work thus far has mainly consisted of vision planning and fund-seeking, all the while hopping through bureaucratic hurdles that are part of dealing with multiple jurisdictional boundaries.
It’s been a tough road, but there finally appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel, as evidenced by the recent visit by dignitaries from abroad who were so impressed with what they’ve heard that they had to see things with their own eyes. "Their sole purpose for coming to Philadelphia was to look at this project in the Northeast," Sarah Thorp, Delaware River City Corporation’s executive director, said during an interview last week in her Bridesburg office.
The project Thorp refers to is an 11-mile "greenway" trail, consisting of multi-use paths and recreational parks, that DRCC is developing for the stretch between Pulaski Park in Port Richmond and the Poquessing Creek in Torresdale.
The dignitaries were a delegation consisting of some 30 business people, investors and elected officials from Buenos Aires, Argentina, who wanted to check out the area to get some ideas for a similar project they are looking to develop on a 400-acre site along the Rio de la Plata.
The Buenos Aires site is owned by the Techint Group, a consortium of local businesses that plans to create a new community with residential, commercial and recreational space.
On June 13, the representatives met with Mayor Michael Nutter, toured the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and visited various points along the North Delaware River that the DRCC is working to improve. The group had visited a few sites in New York prior to the Philadelphia visit, but Thorp said she had it on good authority that the delegation was most impressed by the potential it saw along the Delaware.
"They wanted to see how we got to the point where we are right now," Thorp said, noting that the project planned for Argentina is similar in scope to that of the DRCC’s, namely, that both are trying to revitalize old industrial sites.
Thorp is particularly pleased to note that the North Delaware project is finally moving closer to fruition, with four aspects of construction set to begin in 2009.
The first item on the agenda is the extension of a trail within the Pennypack Park on the Delaware, a park that will combine both active and passive recreation. Currently, only half of the park is open to the public. The existing trail will be extended by three quarters of a mile. Construction should begin within a month and is expected to take six to eight weeks to complete.
The second smaller project in the foreseeable future is the construction of a three-mile section of trail connecting Pleasant Hill Park in Torresdale to Pennypack Park on the Delaware in Holmesburg. The trail will be multi-use, ideal for both foot and bike traffic, and will measure 12-feet wide. The trail will most likely be constructed of asphalt, since using pervious materials, while preferable from an environmental standpoint, could hamper already flood-inducing conditions there; much of the trail will be built within a floodplain. But not to worry: "It is going through pretty natural areas that have pretty good stormwater filtration as it is," Thorp said.
The third project on the horizon is known as the Kensington and Tacony Trail, a two-mile-long trailway — which is in the final design phase — that will stretch from Longshore Avenue in Tacony to Bridge Street in Wissinoming.
The last project within the overall Greenway undertaking that will be built in 2009 will be the construction of a brand new, 4.5-acre recreation space at Lardner’s Point Park, located between Tacony and Wissinoming. Thorp said a significant amount of wetlands — around 1,200 feet worth — will be incorporated into the park project; the shoreline there is currently quite rocky, she said. It will also incorporate restrooms, picnic tables and other amenities.
In Thorp’s view, the entire undertaking is aimed at making Philadelphians, especially Northeast residents, more aware of the natural spaces surrounding them. "It’s all about the public having better public spaces in Philadelphia, that once you revitalize former industrial land ... people will want to live there, or people will want to have their businesses there," she said. "But they don’t want to live next to a vacant brownfield that’s environmentally contaminated." Because some of the areas along the North Delaware were once home to contaminant-producing industries, Thorp said a big part of the riverfront’s revitalization includes remediation work.
One spot in particular, a section of Pennypack Park on the Delaware, was once home to an unofficial city landfill, Thorp said. But the landfill has since been capped and is safe to walk on.
Part of the goal of the tour for the Argentina representatives, Thorp said, was to "show this delegation that you could take a place that’s abandoned and bad and turn it into" a thriving public space.
Those from Argentina seem to be onboard in concept, Thorp said, since they too aim to redevelop an area that was home to various industrial uses during the past 50 years but has since been eyed as a spot that could benefit the public at large. While a private company bought the 400 acres in Argentina, Thorp said investors are working closely with the government, since, in the end, the project will consist of public use. Thorp said her only hope is that it won’t take the group from Argentina "ten years of planning like it did for us," and she would like to think reviewing the DRCC’s project gave them some ideas by which to move faster toward their ultimate goal. "They’re really in the very early planning stages," Thorp said. "This trip to the U.S. was to really be able to envision what’s possible. In order to see what’s possible for the future, it really helps to look at projects that are young at the planning stages and in construction."
According to Thorp, the DRCC works under an annual administrative budget of $100,000. Thorp is one of three workers. The others are a part-time secretary who reports to the 11-member board of directors and an independent consultant who puts in full-time hours.
Funding for the DRCC comes from the federal, state and local governments, as well as other sources such as private foundations and oil spill mitigation. Construction projects using federal money, which is funneled through the city, go to the lowest bidder, while projects using state money are more flexible on the bidding process, Thorp said. Funding, while a big part of the DRCC’s task, is not all that the non-profit has to contend with. The group also has its work cut out in the area of obtaining rights-of-way and coordinating with local property owners, since much of the trailway to be built snakes through private properties. "It’s not just about money, it’s about extensive coordination with the local neighborhoods, all the local businesses along here and the stakeholders," she said.
Aside from the riverfront development project, the DRCC also works on land acquisition, fund-raising for future projects such as the trailway undertaking, developing signage and implementing educational programs. "There are so many things that we are eventually going to be doing," she said. "The projects are so long-term that you have to think far in the future. We just chip away at the iceberg everyday. There’s tons of stuff going on and it’s really exciting."
Thorp, an Iowa native who spent 10 years in the Navy before relocating to Philadelphia to attend graduate school, said the city desperately needs to improve its riverfront aesthetics and accessibility. This project, along with improvements slated for the waterfront along the central Delaware, should help to paint Philadelphia as a more pedestrian, and public-friendly city.
"Philadelphia really needs it, really needs it," she said.
June 20, 2008
Delegation from Argentina views plans, progress along North Delaware Riverfront
About 30 businesspersons, investors, and elected officials from Buenos Aires, Argentina found common ground with brethren from Philadelphia on June 13, when they toured parts of the Delaware Riverfront to find similar solutions for a project at home. The delegation, which boasted two mayors, a state senator, and the Secretary for Environmental Affairs, was welcomed by Mayor Nutter at City Hall before a bus tour of the city’s diverse waterfront, including stops at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and key points along the North Delaware River.
One of the companies of the Techint Group, a consortium of businesses based in Buenos Aires, owns a 400-acre site along the Rio de la Plata, where it plans to create a new community with residential, commercial and recreational space. While researching the project, they found similarities with work being done in both Staten Island, New York, and in Northeast Philadelphia. They were most especially impressed by the world- class design for the North Delaware Riverfront Greenway being undertaken here.
The Delaware River City Corporation (DRCC), a non-profit group that is developing an eleven-mile greenway trail from Pulaski Park in Port Richmond to the Poquessing Creek in Torresdale, arranged the tour.
“Our goal has always been to reconnect the Delaware River with the residents who live in the neighborhoods of this city, and our friends from Argentina have the same goal for their project,” said former U.S. Rep. Robert A. Borski Jr., chairman of the DRCC.
Nutter, who is a major proponent of riverfront redevelopment, praised the visit as “a unique opportunity to see some of the challenges we face.” He cited both Borski’s longstanding commitment to revitalizing the riverfront corridor, and the hard work of DRCC Executive Director Sarah M. Thorp.
The delegation appeared to be most impressed by what they saw at Pennypack Park on the Delaware, the scenic open space at the river’s edge located east of the intersection of State Road and Rhawn Street in Holmesburg.
“This is perhaps the best example we currently have of what this greenway trail is going to accomplish,” Borski said. “We’re bringing the great Delaware River back to the citizens of Philadelphia.”
The existing trail in the park will be extended one mile this fall to the mouth of the Pennypack Creek, said Thorp. At the same time, the final design for an additional two-mile stretch across the creek into nearby Pleasant Hill Park is expected.
“We’re starting to see the fruits of our labor,” Thorp said. “More than that, the people of Northeast Philadelphia are going to see the tangible results of our work, and that’s very exciting to us.”
On the day of the visit, the delegation saw local residents sitting by the river’s edge, some fishing, others simply enjoying the view or working on their tans.
In addition to remarks by Borski and Nutter, the visitors heard from Peter Longstreth, president and chief executive officer of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp., who delivered his remarks in Spanish.
Longstreth detailed PIDC’s ongoing plans for the Philadelphia Navy Yard, which contains a number of new developments including headquarters for the clothing retailer Urban Outfitters.
Thorp and DRCC Capital Program Director Paul Lonie gave a presentation on the plans and progress along the North Delaware Riverfront. They were assisted by Steve Mullin, senior vice president and principal of Econsult Corp., who spoke of the positive economic impact in revitalizing the North Delaware riverfront with a recreational trail.
“There is tremendous synergy here between what we’re doing here on the North Delaware River, and what the people of Buenos Aires want to do,” said Thorp. “There’s no question this was a wonderful opportunity to share ideas and compare notes.”
June 18, 2008
Northeast as a template: South American reps look to Pennypack on the Delaware
BY John Loftus; Assistant Editor
NewsGleaner Publications
Argentine public officials and investors who want to develop land around the Rio de la Plata in Buenos Aires for recreation and other uses came to Northeast Philadelphia last week to look over the Pennypack on the Delaware Park. Their stop in the Northeast was one of several in the city.Mario Ferdkin, a government assessor, said there is an interest in developing land near water treatment plants outside the Argentine capital. He said the group, which included two mayors and other elected officials as well as investors, visited Staten Island and Long Island, N.Y., to see how former waste-disposal sites had been reclaimed for other uses. The Rio de la Plata is an estuary of the Parana and Uruguay rivers between Argentina and Uruguay The group of 30 Argentines visited several sites in Philadelphia on Friday to learned about the city's efforts to use former industrial properties for recreation, said Sarah M. Thorp, executive director of the Delaware River City Corporation. The group was diverse, she said, consisting of investors, government officials, architects and planners.
Thorp said a representative for an Argentine investor group had learned about the DRCC on the Internet, contacted her about three weeks ago and made inquiries about DRCC, which has been working on developing a system of parks and trails along the Delaware's banks in the northern part of the city.
Pennypack on the Delaware is a good example. It's a breezy stretch of green along the river and behind the prisons. It's been city property for a long time, Thorp said, but it essentially was vacant land that was being used as a dump. DRCC cleaned up the dump, put the debris nearby in a capped landfill and also created some wet-lands, she said.
What DRCC has been doing is similar to what the Argentines are considering for Buenos Aires.
"The city's development was similar to ours," Thorp said. There had been many industries located along the Rio de la Plata, she said, just as there had been along the Delaware, she said. "As industry leaves, the land becomes vacant, and the city needs to develop new plans," Thorp said.
Thorp said the group was investigating how to use parkland and recreational space to stimulate their local economy. "When you build places on the river, you draw people who want to live there and you draw investors," she said. "They have landfills just like we have landfills. We have to figure out how to deal with these places that don't look so pretty."
Some of the people who were using the park Friday afternoon when the bus carrying the Argentines pulled up said they liked the park's quiet and that apparently not a lot of people know about it. Certainly, Pennypack on the Delaware isn't easy to find. The entrance, marked by a small sign, is off State Road below Rhawn.
Thorp said nobody should be worried. "I don't think that park is going to get crowded. She wants people to know it's there. "Our mission is to restore the connections between the neighborhoods and the riverfront," she said.
Disclaimer for the above NewsGleaner article:
DRCC would like to clarify that the reporter misunderstood the statement by Sarah Thorp, our Executive Director, in that their organization did not develop Pennypack on the Delaware. The construction of this park was completed at the direction of Councilwoman Joan Krajewski several years before the formation of the DRCC nonprofit organization.
July 18, 2008
Porteños tour the Delaware
By Kellie Patrick Gates
For PlanPhilly
Quilmes City Mayor Francisco Gutierrez walked beside the Delaware River on a new trail that skirts a capped-off, former landfill.
The fresh air, the soccer and baseball fields and the man fishing from the bank all seemed to be hopeful signs for his city, which lies along the Rio de la Plata in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.
Guiterrez and about 30 other representatives from government agencies, planners and community activists from his region visited here last week to see Philadelphia's still-developing answer to a problem that their region also faces. They, too, want to reclaim waterfront land - often former industrial sites laced with pollutants - and reconnect their cities to their river.
"Many cities abandoned the river because the water was contaminated," Gutierrez said through interpreter Elizabeth Caruso. The public wants the river back, he said. "Cities need open places," he said.
But now, just as in Philadelphia, their neighborhoods are cut off from a natural resource that could provide space for recreation - and an economic boost through residential and economic development.
Reconnecting to the wide expanse of Rio de la Plata - the Silver River - is "central" to Quilmes' future, Gutierrez said. And "The project here in Philadelphia, along the entire coast of the river's edge - the idea is very similar to ours. We will use your experience."
The tour was led by the Delaware River City Corporation - a non-profit organization that is developing the North Delaware Riverfront Greenway Trail. The trail, now under construction, will eventually run eight miles from Pulaski Park to Glen Foerd. The idea is to help revitalize Northeast Philadelphia by reconnecting it to the river. Plans call for a multi-use trail, and also residential and retail space.
Guiterrez and the rest of the group walked along the river at Pennypack Park. They toured the Navy Yard, where they saw how buildings that were part of the Navy's large Philadelphia presence until the 1990s base closings were being restored and reused by businesses as diverse as ship-building company Aker and clothing retailer Urban Outfitters.
They also drove through the Packer Park residential development, built on land contaminated by a nearby refinery, after a vapor-barrier was put under three feet of clean soil to keep the fumes away from residents.
"You can't grow vegetables here, but you can live here in a safe neighborhood," said Paul Lonie, the DRCC's Capital Program Director who once worked for Westrum Development.
"These houses sold for $200,000 when they were built. Now they sell for $400,000."
Ernesto Mario Rona, personal director for the Techint Group - a consortium of companies based in Buenos Aires - helped organize the tour. One of the Techint companies owns 400 acres along Rio de la Plata, where it hopes to create, essentially, a new city with many homes, commercial space, a university, a convention center, hotels and public green space with a trail near the river.
After doing some internet research, Techint discovered that Philadelphia and New York, were in various stages of work on similar issues, and the tour was arranged, Rona said. The day prior to coming to Philadelphia, the group visited the former Fresh Kills landfill, in Staten Island. New York has begun a 20-year project aimed at transforming Fresh Kills into public park space and reclaimed wetlands.
Rona said the visit was beneficial. "It is difficult to imagine how to change the things we want to change looking at the place," he said. "It is better to come to places where this is already taking place, to show it can be done."
Rona said the land his company owns has never been developed, but it is bordered by problem areas. "Behind our land is a landfill," he said. "The landfill is closed, but we have to find a way to fix it. There's no bad smell now, but things can be done to improve the safety." There is also an adjacent canal - essentially a sewer, Rona said - that is highly polluted. And a smaller river that leads into the Rio de la Plata also must be cleaned up.
For the project to happen, many levels of government and governmental agencies must work together, he said. Community support is essential, and, like here, riverfront development is highly regulated. "We need permits," Rona said. They hope to begin work sometime next year.
Technit CFO Eduardo A. Russo said the initial investment, to be shared by his company and two cities, a province, and the nation, would total several hundred million dollars. After that, it is hoped that other companies would invest and develop the new city, which would take between seven and 10 years to complete, he said.
The biggest obstacle, Mayor Gutierrez said, "is the same everywhere in the world - money."
Tour-goer Marcela Adriani is president of a non-governmental agency called The Mothers of the Towers. She said the project has residents' support.
"We've been working on this for nine years," she said through translator Caruso.
Her group takes its name from the apartment towers that are 500 meters from the landfill that is behind the riverfront property where development is proposed - between it and the neighborhoods.
"Our children had problems because of this (landfill), and we got them to close the landfill," she said. There was a huge fire in the landfill in 1999, and afterward, tower residents discovered many children living in the towers had leukemia. The World Health Organization told the Mothers that the normal incidence of leukemia is 1 in 10,0000 people. Twelve thousand residents live in the towers, Adriani said, and 22 children had leukemia. The landfill was closed in 2004, and since then, Adriani said, there have been no new cases.
"We want them to develop the whole waterfront, preserving the areas of public access for paths - walking paths and bike paths, similar to what you have here." Adriani said. "We want the project to go forward, to revitalize the whole area," she said, adding that her group would watch carefully to make sure environmental issues were handled properly.
January 3, 2008
Bridesburg Waterfront: Ready for Change
Star Staff Writer
By Brian Rademaekers
Right now, it is a little hard to imagine the Bridesburg waterfront at the end of Orthodox Street as a lush oasis for weary migratory birds and frazzled city dwellers seeking respite.
Driving east from Richmond Street, Bridesburg's tight-knit, row home fabric quickly fades into a "no-mans land" that includes a fenced-in field of overgrown brush, a repair depot for banged up Yellowbird Buses, and a gargantuan trash heap used by the city.
Once you get past all of that, Orthodox Street dead-ends into a muddy lot of gravel, the Delaware River barely visible through a chain link fence.
This grim scene, however, is one of the few along the city's Delaware River waterfront where real change is just around the corner.
The site - 67 acres of neglected, weed-choked land that stretches from Richmond Street straight out to the waterfront - is best known locally as the Philly Coke site.
Its moniker is a reference not to bubbly, sugary beverages, but the massive coal byproduct processing plant that operated there from 1927 until 1982.
The complex was demolished in the mid-1980s, and the land has sat vacant since.
But recently, the Westrum Development Corporation has been moving forward with plans that will see the space transformed not only into a new community, but also a waterfront nature preserve and park.
Westrum's project will contain about 900 residences, ranging from apartments and condominiums to town homes.
The river's edge, though, is to be set aside as a combined park and refuge for migratory birds that use the waterway as a flight path.
Late last month, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council received a $74,900 grant to begin work on environmental remediation of river's banks. That could be a daunting task as much of the waterfront along the property is either sealed in concrete or steeply eroded.
Despite those conditions and a level of soil contamination from the decades of industry, PEC has high hopes for reclaiming the shoreline.
The money, which was awarded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's Delaware Estuary Watershed grants program, will be used for early design purposes.
In all, the regional non-profit will tackle 15 acres along the river.
At the core of the project are 2,000 feet of what is known as "inter-tidal shoreline," or flat marsh areas that are temporarily exposed by falling tides. Such areas are not common along the Delaware, especially in industrial areas like Philadelphia, where much of the shoreline has been filled to accommodate piers and docks.
And while freshwater tidal marshes are hard to find, they are also essential to a wide variety of migratory birds and fish, such as shad and Atlantic sturgeon, which leave the sea to reproduce in the Delaware's waters.
Patrick Starr, vice president of PEC, described the Delaware's tidal marshes as one of the "most endangered" habitats in the state during a June exploration of the site, and said their preservation is important.
"Freshwater tidal marshes along the Delaware River's urban areas have been filled in, or piers have been constructed to accommodate large industrial, commercial and residential land use complexes," Starr said in a Dec. 20 news release. "This ecological restoration project not only improves wildlife habitat, it also provides amenities for the residents of Bridesburg, and contributes to the overall health and vitality of the Delaware Estuary."
The riverfront nature preserve will eventually be linked to a larger project that will see Delaware Avenue extended as a scenic boulevard starting at Pulaski Park.
That project is being funded by a $30-million federal transportation grant, and is part of a larger project being coordinated by the Delaware River City Corporation.
The non-profit DRCC was formed to oversee the creation of an eight-mile "green way" along the river that reconnects the Northeast's neighborhoods to river for recreation.
At the Philly Coke site, DRCC, Westrum, and PEC have all collaborated to come up with the park and natural area.
Mariann Dempsey, secretary to the board of DRCC, said her group's plans include a bike path that cuts between the Westrum homes and the river. "An alternate foot trail will complement the bike path and lead down to the river for people who want to take a closer look," explained Dempsey, who said the design plans for the park are still in early stages.
Paul Lonie, project manager for Westrum development, said he believes allowing public access to the river will increase the value not only of all 900 units, but also the rest of Bridesburg. He expects the first phase of development and the riverfront trail to be built by the spring of 2009. "Everyone should benefit from this," said Lonie. "Adding access to the river is something that adds value to this whole community."
He said plans also include a parking lot near the park to allow access for seniors. "It's like Kelly Drive. People don't necessarily have a frontage on the water, but they can go there and easily use the paths and enjoy the river," Lonie said, referring to the eastern bank of the Schuylkill River. "That feature makes the whole area around it a better place for everyone who lives nearby." ïï
Reporter Brian Rademaekers can be reached at 215-354-3039 or brademaekers@phillynews.com
November 1, 2007
Green infrastructure's expense
Planphilly.com
By Alan Jaffe
Philadelphians love their parks, and they want more of them. It becomes evident in city agency studies, grassroots movements, approved bond referendums, and well-used green spaces in every neighborhood.
This is a city, after all, grounded in William Penn’s 17th century vision of a “greene countrie town,” a grid bound by two rivers and built around open squares and parks. Trees, grass and flowing water are in the city’s DNA.
But if Philadelphia is going to continue to grow and attract new residents in the future, it will have to find ways to reclaim and sustain its natural environment.
In its Civic Vision for the Central Delaware, which will be presented to city leaders and the public November 14, Penn Praxis will propose a revised shoreline for the eastern river. A street grid will be extended to the waterfront; Interstate 95 will no longer essentially block access to the river; and vacant industrial sites will be revived as commercial, residential and recreational areas.
The crown jewels of the plan are the parks and open spaces that will be created or enhanced approximately every 2,000 feet along the waterfront, all linked by a greenway that will run the length of the seven-mile stretch. The elaborate necklace of emerald spaces will include wild habitats for birds and fish, pedestrian and biking paths, green streets reconnecting neighborhoods to the water, new or expanded parks, and a 12-acre grand gathering place.
Yet the city’s existing park system is already in a state of flux, with calls for reforming or reconfiguring the under-funded, overburdened Fairmount Park Commission and city Recreation Department. Who, then, will maintain a new chain of open spaces? Who will pay for the greening and cleaning? And how will the land or the access to it be acquired in the first place?
There are many answers to those challenges. Some can be found in other cities around the country that have succeeded in creating or reviving waterfront parks through a variety of financing formulas and forward thinking. Some answers have been found already in similar, sister projects right here in Philadelphia.
Along the Central Delaware, there may be a different path to each patch of green.
The Public Interest
Mami Hara, a principal in the planning and design firm Wallace Roberts & Todd, has been working over the past year and a half with GreenPlan Philadelphia, a cooperative effort of civic groups and 14 municipal agencies to draw up a roadmap for sustainable open space throughout the city. One of the initial steps in the research was visiting neighborhoods to learn what they wanted in terms of city amenities.
“Each area was asked what their priorities are. And there was a real focus in the communities on wanting more open space citywide,” Hara said. “They want more trees and better access to the waterfronts – and to make sure whatever open space there is, is well cared for and safe.”
The people know what’s good for them. According to Nando Micale, a senior associate at WRT who manages planning and urban design, green space is “a land use that’s needed for the public good in a city. You need to have lands set aside to recreate.” Recent studies have shown that when residents have access to parks and recreation, they are happier and healthier, Micale said.
Building green buffers around the city’s waterways has other benefits. “Fairmount Park was created to get people out of the city and into the country. And it was also to protect the water supply. So there are parallels to that and the Delaware,” he said. The city Water Department has been examining ways to create that kind of green “edge condition” around all the region’s rivers and tributaries in order to meet Environmental Protection Agency standards for the Delaware River Watershed. The large and small projects include finding ways to direct storm water into a natural system through parks and green space at the water’s edge.
The shifting profile of the waterfront also raises new possibilities. “In the last few centuries we’ve had an industrial waterfront, and we’ve been in the business of polluting the river,” Micale said. “Now that industry has changed location somewhat, in terms of its transportation modes, the waterfront provides the opportunities to restore the river to a more ecologically balanced state.”
The other advantage of adding parkland along the river is added value. Any public infrastructure increases the value of property, whether it’s nearby roads, power lines, or sewer and water. “Parks also add value. Studies around the country and the world find that property adjacent to parks has more value,” Micale said. In Philadelphia, property values increase with proximity to Rittenhouse Square, or on most any other street that borders a park throughout the city.
And it doesn’t have to be a park. GreenPlan’s studies found that just having trees near a property can provide up to 12 percent enhancement in resale value, Hara said.
Those three big reasons for having parks and greenways – social equity, ecology and economics – are “essentially the definition of sustainability,” Micale said. They improve the health and welfare of the population and the resources themselves, now and for the future.
The Plan
The Civic Plan’s proposals begin back in the river ward neighborhoods, where the main east-west thoroughfares – Oregon Avenue, Snyder Avenue, Morris Street, Washington Avenue, Bainbridge Street, Callowhill Street, Aramingo Avenue, Cumberland Street and Lehigh Avenue – would grow down to the waterfront as “green streets.”
“Green streets means increased accessibility in terms of bike paths and landscape amenities such as tree cover and plantings,” Micale explained. “They also have more intensive storm water management treatment in terms of rain gardens incorporated into the landscapes. Storm water is captured that way rather than directly into the storm sewer system.
“From a physical point of view, it’s about trees, and also the width of the streets. They are big corridors that provide for connections and allow for more amenities to be put in.”
According to the plan, Snyder Avenue would spread into a wide boulevard and end in a storm water park at the location of a historic stream in South Philadelphia. “By re-creating this green space, you’re able to put the water back to where the water wants to go, even though that stream has been filled in. From a topographic point of view, there’s a re-creation of that hydrology for the area,” Micale said.
From the storm water park heading south to the city-owned Pier 70 area, on the edge of the current Wal-Mart site, the plan calls for an “ecological, naturalized edge” along the river. It would be allowed to revert to a “sort of wildness,” becoming a habitat for birds and fish, but would also provide recreational resources for people, like the Wissahickon banks, Micale said.
A 300-foot-wide swath of green is proposed, bordered by the water and a river road with some development along it. The goal is the construction of tidal marshlands on that portion of the river. “The Delaware is a tidal river, and the flora and fauna that would inhabit that area need to have a constructed edge condition as opposed to a natural waterfront,” Micale said. One technique that could be used is the deconstruction of one of the pier structures, allowing it to become a protective barrier for the creation of wetlands and wild habitats. The Delaware once contained protective islands, like barrier islands that protect the intercoastal edge. “That’s the technique we’re looking at to create an ecological edge.”
To maintain a balance between ecological and recreational concerns, the plan calls for a linear, 100-foot greenway to give people access to the water. On the pier side, there can be housing. “So some places are going to be natural, and some places are going to be inhabited by humans,” Micale said. “But they’re all connected by the green edge.”
The Civic Plan has plotted out a park or green space about every 2,000 feet along the Delaware. The next big park heading south is at the end of Washington Avenue, which is currently a combination of properties, including the Old Swede’s Church site, private land, and the Coast Guard headquarters. The plan reorients Washington Avenue to the south to open up more space, and would pick up even more land when the Coast Guard redevelops its site into a more contained, secure property. The result would be a mix of public and private land forming a park at the foot of the avenue.
If the riverfront greenway is a necklace, the next link is the diamond pendant.
Running from Lombard to Market Streets, covering what is the current Penn’s Landing property and connecting back through Dock Street into the historic district, is the plan’s big waterfront park. “The strategy is to balance development and open space by reconfiguring Penn’s Landing,” Micale said. "From a civic point of view, that’s the place where we want the great space.”
How great? The new Penn’s Landing park would be approximately 12 acres, or about twice as large as Rittenhouse Square. The basin on the river would become an active marina, which pedestrians could circle by way of an esplanade and draw bridges. At the foot of Dock Street would be "a public dock where people can come down and touch the water."
The next major green space to the south involves reclaiming land that is now part of the highway system. The plan envisions depressing Interstate 95 in the central area, and utilizing some of the land above and around it as a series of parks connecting the city to the river. One park runs along Willow Street, following the path of another historic stream. At the site of the old West Shipyard, part of the original British settlement, would be an archaeological park that would unearth historic roots.
At the end of Spring Garden Street, a park promenade along Festival Pier is planned, connecting the greenway around developments in that vicinity.
Penn Treaty Park already stands at the next point, at the end of Columbus Avenue. As the Girard Avenue Interchange is redeveloped and a ramp is removed along Richmond Avenue, the plan is to redirect Columbus Boulevard in front of the Peco station, thereby enhancing Penn Treaty Park. The interchange redo will make land available for parking lots and recreational uses, such as a skate park and trails that can run along and under the highway.
The interchange work will allow development of a park that manages storm water for the highway, including water infiltration and trenching systems under plantings, and living, green screen walls that clean the air and muffle the noise. It also poses the opportunity to reconstruct another former stream, Gunners Run, that came out near Aramingo Avenue. The site had been an 18th century utopian settlement called Dyottsville, an industrial village with a glass works. It is now vacant industrial land between two bulkhead piers. But “it has all the conditions for a bird habitat,” Micale said.
The greenway would become more of an urban path through some of the northern areas, but would return to the edge of the river around the SugarHouse casino site, which has a right-of-way along the waterfront.
Ore Pier renewal
At the end of Cumberland Street, where the Ore Pier stands, another small park is planned, part of a linear green space that reaches down to an expanded Pulaski Park.
Around Pulaski are various opportunities to explore the area’s industrial heritage, perhaps finding ways to re-purpose some of the old tanks and dry docks as green space. The park itself may be expanded by absorbing what is currently a city impound lot.
Habitat restorations and ecological parks are also planned on part of the Conrail site at the Lehigh viaduct.
“An ecological park doesn’t mean people can’t go in it,” Micale said. “The aim is that people will go in it, but in a controlled way,” over boardwalks that cause the least ecological impact.
Neighboring Lessons
The Penn Praxis Civic Vision ends around Allegheny Avenue, and for the most part exists only on paper and in the imaginations of the planners. But just a bit farther north, a similar plan with similar goals is taking shape.
The North Delaware River Greenway began 10 years ago, when then-Congressman Bob Borski saw that the abandonment of industrial sites and the erection of I-95 had cut off his Northeast Philadelphia constituents from the Delaware. He envisioned redeveloping the waterfront for residential, commercial, industrial and recreational uses. A plan was laid out in 2001 by the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, a nonprofit advocacy group, which looked at the riverfront from Penn Treaty Park to Grant Avenue.
“It was really a great first step, but it was not specific enough on how to implement it,” said Sarah Thorp, executive director of the Delaware River City Corporation, the nonprofit that is now overseeing a revised plan for an 11-mile greenway that will run from the Betsy Ross Bridge to Linden Avenue. The original plan “was great for looking at design and a vision, but then it needs to be practical. It needs to be based in economics.”
A cost-benefit analysis was conducted, examining three types of investment in the northern waterfront: one that called for a small public investment using what already existed, an intermediate investment, and a large investment that required the acquisition of a lot of land and environmental remediation. “What they found was the regional economic impact was the highest with the large scenario,” Thorp said.
The recommendations for the plan included the creation of the DRCC in 2004, supported by the business privilege tax program. The organization’s corporate sponsor, Chickie’s and Pete’s Restaurant, covers DRCC’s $100,000 annual budget instead of paying a city business tax. Thorp, a former Navy pilot, historic preservation student and Kensington neighborhood activist, was hired to lead the group last year.
The first order of business was creation of strategic and operating plans, which determined that DRCC was going to be “a maintenance and operating organization for the trail and some of the park spaces along it,” Thorp said.
The Fairmount Park Commission will own almost all the land involved, and the city will own “all of the stuff that we’re developing. That’s kind of for liability purposes,” she said. “So the model is that the city will own it, and we will operate and maintain it, in coordination with FPC.”
It’s the same model used by the Schuylkill River Development Corporation, which is leading the creation of the Schuylkill Banks trail and other improvements along that river. “There are some things Fairmount Park does, some things the nonprofit does, and some things that are contracted out to a third party,” Thorp explained.
“It’s a complicated model of maintenance, but it’s necessary in Philadelphia. We don’t have the budget in our park system to do the maintenance for this sort of infrastructure, so the funds have to be raised some other way.”
Portions of the DRCC’s $1.5 million operating and maintenance budget will come from grants, the city Commerce Department, and the business privilege tax program. But that won’t account for all of it, “so we’re thinking about the business improvement district, or tax increment financing for different types of long-term financing for the trail,” Thorp said, referring to a method used in Atlanta and other cities for large greenway projects that needed big amounts up front for infrastructure.
“We’re estimating a total of $150 million capital budget, and we only have raised about $30 million so far. We have a lot of capital fundraising that still needs to be done,” she said. “A lot of the money is federal transportation money right now.”
The Greenway project is currently in different stages of acquisition, which will be followed by design, remediation and construction phases. “Projects like this are built as you can do them. You’d love to just start at one end of the trail and just go straight up to the north end. But it has to be done the way that you’ve got it,” Thorp explained.
“We’re starting with areas where the city already owns the land. In those areas, where the acquisition is already done, those are the places that we’re moving the fastest.”
In the middle of the Greenway is a city-owned railroad right-of-way, including a section deeded to the city by Conrail for $1. Another portion of city land between Rhawn Street and Linden Avenue has five different prisons and a major water treatment plant. “So it’s pretty important stuff going on in this little area. But there’s certainly space along the riverfront to put in a trail and add on some new park area.”
An extension of the Greenway into Pennypack Park is fully funded, fully designed, and awaiting paperwork before construction begins. That part of the trail is being funded by a grant from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. The same grant will pick up some of the cost of construction at Lardner’s Point Park, at the base of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge. Lardner’s Point, which will be the 64th park in the Fairmount Park system, will include new wildlife habitat in the marsh and shrub areas of the former industrial site. Some of the money for that is expected from a mitigation fund for an oil spill near Tinicum a couple of years ago.
Private developers along the Northern Delaware have been “very much on board” with the Greenway project, Thorp said. The new waterfront redevelopment zoning classification put in place a few years ago requires developers to include a 50-foot setback along the river. But they don’t have to choose that designation.
“One of the things we need is better zoning; we need something that’s mandatory so that a developer can’t buy a parcel and not do riverfront zoning. The political will and the pressure right now probably wouldn’t allow that to happen. But the fact is, you need policies that reflect the will of the people.”
The four large developers in Thorp’s area have all elected to include the setback. “All of them are doing a riverfront trail, and they’re paying for the trail to go through their section,” she said. And it’s in their self-interest.
The sites are isolated from neighborhoods and need new roads and water infrastructure. In return for the city’s help in building some of the infrastructure, the developers will create the trails and maintain them for 10 to 20 years, or until a homeowners association takes over maintenance.
Aside from zoning issues, Thorp said her biggest problem has been wading through the federal funding quagmire. “Federal money doesn’t come to a nonprofit; it comes to the city,” which has meant following the paper trail through PennDot, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, the state Transportation Improvement Plan, and the city Streets Department.
“The longer you wait, the more things cost, and the less you get done,” Thorp said.
The small size of her staff – one full-time and one part-time person – doesn’t provide much political clout or fund-raising leverage. So she meets with colleagues in the Schuylkill group, with civic leaders in East Falls and Manayunk, and with planners for the Central Delaware.
“We need a riverfront consortium with all these different groups,” Thorp said. “We need to decide what we all have in common and push for those policies, so that we’re all moving in that direction.”
City Limits
When Mark Focht, the executive director of the Fairmount Park Commission, talks about successful new park projects in the city, he points to the North Delaware River Greenway and the Schuylkill River Development Corporation. And, he said, the city should “absolutely” support the planning for the Central Delaware.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the concept of thinking big, while at the same time struggling with what’s on our plate today,” he said.
What FPC is currently struggling with is responsibility for 63 city parks on a $13.1 million budget this year. “Our budget has basically flat-lined for the last decade or more,” Focht said. “A colleague of mine recently commented that, ‘We used to do a lot with a little; now we do everything with nothing.’ That sums up the pressures we feel are on us on a daily basis.”
So can it take on maintenance of another string of parks along the Delaware? “Not given our current budget,” Focht said.
Major initiatives like the Greenway, Schuylkill Banks, and the Central Delaware vision “simply can’t be implemented with the current level of funding and staffing we have. If the city wants to build these -- great. If they want to maintain them, resources need to be provided.”
The park commission is working on partnerships with the Greenway and Schuylkill groups to find capital to keep the projects moving. “For example, we have access to federal grants and programs that are set up to specifically to support government entities. They also involve a lot of paperwork and minutia that is best left to government, because that’s how we function – we speak that language,” he said.
On the flipside, “you have foundations, corporations and citizens who are weary of giving to government and want to give to a nonprofit for tax benefits. And they trust that there’s more accountability with a nonprofit that those dollars will be used wisely.”
But those sources are seldom interested in underwriting management and maintenance costs, and the constraints on the city budget leave few dollars for park preservation.
“There has to be some innovative thinking about how you access resources from lands that benefit from these public improvements,” Focht said. Possibilities are the special services district model, or diverting a percentage of the real estate transfer tax on improved value of homes near the parks, he said. “There are a lot of models nationally that can create funding streams for maintenance and programming.”
It is relatively easy to find money “to build things,” Focht explained. “If people are jazzed up by a broad vision and it has a broad base of support, you find money to do it … It’s much tougher to find money to maintain it. Maintenance is not sexy.”
But as it has done with the Greenway and the SRDC, the park commission could forge a partnership with whatever management entity is formed on the Central Delaware. And Focht said that creating one organization that can “establish standards that are imposed the entire length” of the waterfront is beneficial to everyone involved.
“If this is truly public open space, the city should own the land. It’s then placed under the jurisdiction of Fairmount Parks. So it’s within our inventory, we’re responsible for it, and I think that’s appropriate,” he said.
FPC would then enter into a management, maintenance, and programming agreement with the nonprofit entity “that says we do this, they do that. We don’t fully abdicate our responsibility.”
Regarding upkeep, FPC does “ordinary maintenance,” like mowing and snow removal, while SRDC is responsible for “extraordinary maintenance,” like seasonal plantings.
And the park commission usually offers to use its arborists and labor contracts to manage the properties. “In our partnership agreements, we’ve said we’ll manage it all. We just can’t afford to pay for it.”
The city Recreation Department has the same problems. It staffs 150 rec centers and playgrounds and directs most of its resources there. It is also responsible for the maintenance of 79 neighborhood parks, “which are basically passive, open green spaces,” said parks coordinator Barbara McCabe. But she said in Philadelphia, all the green spaces are very active, not passive.
Covering those 79 parks, which range from a quarter-acre to 45 acres, are 34 staffers. “So we’re a bit strapped right now. The numbers don’t jibe. We have all of these facilities, and we just don’t have enough people,” McCabe said.
The department does contract out for lawn mowing and trimming, or for repair of benches or safety hazards. It has also developed partnerships with Philadelphia Green, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s community outreach program, and with neighborhood friends groups.
The creation of new parks and green space along the Delaware waterfront should include “any kind of public-private partnership that can be forged,” McCabe said.
“The truth of the matter is, the budgets are not going to get bigger. The city has a lot of demands – police, fire, streets, all that. They’re very essential needs. Unfortunately, when it comes to budget, it’s almost like recreation and parks are a luxury. Really, they’re not. But when it comes to budget time, and you have to cut things, it seems that’s the way it goes. To think that the city is always going to increase budgets – I don’t know how realistic that is. So we have to find another way to do it, before they’re built.”
City Council has been debating reforms of the park commission, and a possible merging with the Recreation Department, for several years. A ballot initiative to reform FPC has been led by Councilman Darrell L. Clarke. His bill, supported by the Philadelphia Parks Alliance, would shift the power of appointing park commissioners from city judges to the mayor and Council. In September, the bill failed to get the Council votes it needed to get on the November ballot. It could be revived for the primary ballot in the spring.
A State of Flux
Questions of acquisition and maintenance are just beginning to be addressed in conversations about the Civic Vision for the Central Delaware. The opportunities for federal, state and municipal involvement and options for regional partnerships will be part of the discussions in coming months, if not years.
“There are lots of different approaches you can use in negotiating either transfer of land or easements into the public domain,” said WRT’s Mami Hara.
Some cities consider voluntary contributions by landowners as a best practice, she said. “They work with landowners to demonstrate the public good, and the benefits for any land that they retain.”
Others cities find the best approach is regulatory controls that require dedication of easements or enhancements triggered by development permits. “The issue is when the trails or parks don’t develop until somebody initiates some kind of change on the property,” Hara said.
An example of that approach is the Hudson River Trail in New York. WRT performed the planning for the trail through Hudson River Valley 20 years ago, and it is still being implemented incrementally, “although many sections are very successful,” Micale said.
St. Louis has used a percentage of a sales tax to develop an ambitious greenway system. “They use one-tenth of one percent of the sales tax on a limited number of goods, and that’s been able to finance a huge amount,” Hara said.
The water district in Omaha has used an increment of a sales tax to create linear parks along its streams for ecological reasons, Micale noted.
And some cities look at partnerships with land conservancies. “If there’s a high resource value, culturally or environmentally, and there’s an important role for the land regionally or on a large scale, the conservancies can play a big role in helping to develop financing strategies and use their leverage for partnerships,” Hara said.
“A lot of times, it’s a mixture” of financing methods, she said, “and it’s always tailored to the conditions on the ground. You can’t pick a strategy until you know who the players are, and what the concerns of the constituents are. It’s not going to work unless it’s tailored to everybody’s needs and agendas.
“Once people start to see success and understand the role that a green armature can play for a development, and quality of life, then it becomes easier,” Hara said.
As to park maintenance, creative partnerships will probably come into play again.
“The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society maintains a lot of open space in Philadelphia that the Fairmount Park Commission and the city cannot,” Micale said.
“I think in the end, it’s going to be a combination of things. Other cities have a variety of organizations. In Boston, the municipal park called Post Office Square is actually managed by the consortium of landowners that developed the parking garage underneath the square.”
In Philadelphia, there will be different models depending on the players and the location, and the future roles of FPC and the Recreation Department, Micale said.
“It’s a big open question. There are a lot of ways to do it, and we’re in a state of flux right now. As a city, we’re looking to reform some of the older government structures that are in place. Parks management is certainly one of them.”
Alan Jaffe is a former Philadelphia Inquirer editor. Contact him at alanjaffe@mac.com
October 19, 2007
K&T trail - Access and Industry
For PlanPhilly
By Kellie Patrick
Sarah Thorp, executive director of the Delaware River City Corporation, has become well acquainted with the balancing act that comes with bringing people to the waterfront.
Her organization, which focuses on the northern portion of Philadelphia’s Delaware River shoreline, has already begun construction on an 11-mile multi-use trail that will link a series of parks, but also wind through industrial and residential areas, and skirt the city’s water works and fire and police training grounds.
“We are not kicking out industry,” said Thorp, whose organization list economic revitalization as a goal. “This is a working river.”
But business and industry leaders were very wary of the trail at first, she said.
“I was very nervous,” said Ron Greller, President of Morris Iron & Steel, a scrap metal recycling company. “And the employees were very nervous about their livelihood.”
His company, located on Milnor Street, uses the Delaware to ship the scrap metal they recycle.
“There are steel mills in the Carolinas that receive scrap by barge,” he said. “We can go from here to North Carolina for $12 per ton, versus about $50 per ton by rail.” If something blocked the company’s river access, “We’d have to lay people off,” he said.
“You can’t be so tough on industry and say we want you to stay in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. You can’t say ‘we want a river walk’ and force me to go to Mexico or something like that.”
At the time he first heard of the river walk, Greller’s company was about to launch a $2 million modernization effort. “We put it on hold,” he said.
But after attending meetings and talking to Thorp, Greller said he feels much better. He went ahead with the conversion and is planning to grow his company at its current site.
“We have a commitment from them, a verbal commitment, that they will not interfere with our operations,” he said.
The details have to be worked out – Greller said perhaps the trail will need to veer away from the river at times. His company has lots of heavy equipment and large chunks of metal that could harm people who wander on the site. And he is somewhat concerned about theft.
Thorp said some portions of the trail will be fenced in so hikers have no way of accessing nearby properties. Some parts will run entirely around a property, onto city streets. She thinks that diversity in scenery will make for a more interesting trail.
Thorp also has to consider when people shouldn’t get too close to nature.
“Where people are, it discourages birds from nesting,” she said. “We don’t want to make a trail and provide access to endangered species.”
Take the Pennypack Park portion of the trail. There is a restored wetland where birds and other animals have already returned. The trail will come close enough so that an overlook will provide bird watching opportunities, but there will not be access to the wetland.
Another area, near where the Pennypack flows into the Delaware, already has good wildlife habitat that includes large trees. The paved, multi-use trail will be away from that area, Thorp said. But a narrow wood chip path will allow people to explore the area on foot.
Experts say this kind of compromise can help blend uses – sometimes to the benefit of all.
Residential and commercial properties can exist symbiotically on the same site – restaurants and shops on the ground floor of a residential tower, for example.
And the lure of green space brings more customers to the area, said Toronto-based planner Ken Greenberg.
But not everything mixes well.
Greller, of Morris Iron & Steel, worries that one day, someone will build a residential development close to his factory, and then the people who live there will complain that his facility is unsightly and the trucks that bring in the metal for recycling are too loud.and industry
July 26, 2007
Down by the river
Northeast Times
By Tom Waring
Times Staff Writer
As a longtime city councilman who represented a district centered in Northwest Philadelphia, Michael Nutter knew little of the vast grounds along the northern Delaware River waterfront.
As the Democratic nominee for mayor, Nutter wants to familiarize himself with the largely undeveloped land.
The candidate contacted Delaware River City Corporation officials, who arranged a grand tour for him on Friday.
Nutter took a van tour, starting at Pulaski Park in Port Richmond and heading north to Pleasant Hill Park in East Torresdale. In between, he saw the sights in the Bridesburg, Wissinoming, Tacony and Holmesburg portions of the waterfront.
To say the least, he was impressed.
“I’m tremendously excited,” he said. “There’s an incredible amount of land and property the city owns. It gives us a tremendous opportunity for growth, development, open space and trails.”
Among those joining Nutter on the two-hour-plus, eight-mile journey were DRCC officials Sarah Thorp and Bob Borski, a former congressman; Jim Donaghy, a deputy city managing director; and Patrick Starr, vice president of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council.
By next summer, two projects should be completed, thanks to $1 million in funding from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
One would be a two-thirds mile extension of an existing trail at the Pennypack on the Delaware park, just north of Rhawn Street.
The other would be creation of Lardner’s Point Park on a 4.5-acre park near Levick Street for picnicking, fishing and passive recreational activities.
By 2009, three more projects should be completed, largely from federal funds secured by U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz.
Two of the projects would add a combined 5.7 miles of trail, while the other would be a city Department of Streets effort to extend Delaware Avenue from Lewis Street to Buckius Street.
Three projects remain unfunded. Two of them would add 3.3 miles of trail, with the other extending Delaware Avenue to Carver Street.
The long-talked-about development finally seems to be coming to fruition.
“It takes years, but we have a lot of irons in the fire,” said Donaghy, the deputy managing director who is also vice chairman of the DRCC.
Borski, a state representative for six years before serving in Congress from 1983 to 2002, is widely credited with having the vision to do something about the vacant land along the river. Talk of a “river renaissance” began in the mid-1990s.
On last week’s slow-paced ride, Borski and the others showed Nutter every nook and cranny the Delaware River waterfront has to offer.
“Most people in Northeast Philly don’t know these things exist,” said Borski, chairman of the DRCC.
The DRCC promotes itself as the principal advocate and watchdog to ensure that river projects are funded and implemented in a proper and timely manner.
Besides the work to build trails and extend Delaware Avenue, the organization is dealing with private developers at four sites.
At Orthodox Street, there are plans for housing and retail stores at the former Philadelphia Coke site.
At Magee Avenue, housing will be built on the old Dodge Steel location.
At Princeton Avenue, Tacony Pointe will feature housing on ground once occupied by an Army manufacturing plant.
Just south of Rhawn Street, Independence Pointe will include houses, a hotel, a health club and commercial uses. However, development of the onetime Northern Shipping property is delayed because two individuals claim to own the ground.
In each of the private development projects, the DRCC will insist that the public have access to the river with a 50-foot setback from the water and 20-foot-wide trails.
Thorp, the executive director of the DRCC, said the combination of public and private revitalization efforts will wow the public.
“It’s really exciting,” she said. “We’re doing the behind-the-scenes work now, but in the next two years, there will be a huge transformation.” ••
The Delaware River City Corporation invites the public to walk the K & T Trail on Saturday, Aug. 18, from 10 a.m. to noon. Guests will meet at Levick Street and the Delaware River and walk to Princeton Avenue.
For more information on development on the Delaware River waterfront, visit www.drcc-phila.org
Reporter Tom Waring can be reached at 215-354-3034 or twaring@phillynews.com
July 21, 2007
Nutter tours hidden side of N.E.
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Larry Eichel
Inquirer Senior Writer
MICHAEL BRYANT / Inquirer Staff Photographer
On a clear day, Michael Nutter can see New Jersey. The Democratic mayoral candidate joined Bob Borski of the Delaware River City Corp. near the Frankford Arsenal boat launch in Tacony. Nutter toured the largely underused Northeast Philadelphia riverfront, which the group wants to develop.
Michael Nutter spent yesterday morning visiting a place he'd never been before - the Northeast Philadelphia riverfront.
Showing him around were the principals of the Delaware River City Corp., a nonprofit group dedicated to revitalizing what has been a little-utilized and largely ignored chunk of the city.
The Democratic mayoral nominee came away from his tour impressed with the riverfront's eclectic mix of industrial sites, unexpected greenery and possibilities.
"I'm tremendously excited about this," Nutter said, noting that the city's land holdings along the Delaware give it the power to shape what comes next. "This is a whole new opportunity for Philadelphia."
Very little of what the corporation wants to see happen along the North Delaware has happened. Most of the projects are the planning or talking stages, with federal and local funding in place for some of them.
The DRCC's mission has several elements:
To reconnect the riverfront with Northeast Philadelphia, most of which sits on the opposite side of the barrier that is Interstate 95.
To reclaim, improve and preserve green spaces along the river.
To enliven the area, parts of which feel all but abandoned, with residential developments that don't block public access to the water and don't displace existing businesses.
"In the next two years, there's going to be a huge transformation," said Sarah Thorp, executive director of DRCC, chaired by former U.S. Rep. Bob Borski.
The central thread connecting the group's plans is an 11-mile bike and walking path that would extend from Bridesburg north to Torresdale.
By the end of next year, the corporation hopes to have lengthened an existing section of the path in Pennypack Park and to have created Lardner's Point Park on 4.5 acres near the foot of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge.
A lot has to happen, though, for the path to materialize in full. For one thing, Delaware Avenue, which now stops dead at Levick Street in Bridesburg, will have to be extended several miles upriver through an industrial area; the path there would run along the avenue.
The Delaware Avenue extension, for which some federal and city funding has been set aside, also is essential in terms of making some of the proposed residential developments feasible.
Four large tracts have been talked about for housing; no start dates have been set for any of the projects. In Bridesburg, Westrum Development Corp. hopes to build as many as 2,000 homes and condos on the site of the former Philadelphia Coke industrial plant.
No one knows how quickly any of this will happen. Much depends on federal funding, local funding - the total cost of what DRCC wants to do is $150 million - and the vagaries of the housing market.
But Borski, who wanted to line up Nutter as an ally, is confident about the riverfront's future.
"The views are breathtaking, the opportunities are tremendous, the area is so underutilized," Borski said. "Most people in Northeast Philadelphia don't even know these things exist."
At least now, Nutter knows.
June 28, 2007
So much potential on the waterfront
Northeast Times
By Brian Rademaekers
"Life is change," explains Stella Oskiera.
The 76-year-old West Torresdale resident should know. She has spent her years — first growing up in Port Richmond, and later raising a family in the Northeast — along the banks of the Delaware River. One of America’s earliest pathways of trade and exploration, the waterway has been at the front line of nation-shaping trends for centuries.
In her seven decades, Oskiera has witnessed much of that change firsthand. And while the seasoned Northeast resident has seen sweeping transformations in her life, she is not done yet. Marching over Bridesburg’s riverfront of coal dust, concrete, weed-strewn fields and railroad ties on June 16, Oskiera was on ground zero of a new era along the Delaware.
The scene was that of the former Philadelphia Coke industrial plant, and more than 100 people joined Oskiera as developers and urban planners described a revitalized riverfront that will soon bear 2,000 residential units and a rustic path on the water’s edge.
Spanning 78 acres, the proposed development would stretch north from Orthodox Street toward the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge and the Rohm & Haas chemical plant.
"It will contain just about every type of housing style you can imagine," said John Dean, vice president of Westrum Development, the company taking on the massive project.
The first phase of the plan, calling for 900 stacked townhomes, should break ground in 2009. Later, more homes are to be built closer to the river.
For a community that has watched industry along the river crumble steadily over the last several decades, the Westrum proposal is an exciting shift in direction.
"You could have knocked me over with a proverbial feather, to have that kind of change happen that fast," said Bob Borski, a former member of Congress, as he recalled the day Westrum officials came to his office with the development idea.
Borski, who ended 20 years of service to the region’s 3rd Congressional District in 2003, said his tenure in the House of Representatives was marked by a time when the riverfront seemed inexorably tied to defunct industry.
And while the former congressman is thrilled to see investment along the Delaware again, he seems most happy about plans to open the river to recreation. Borski sits on the board of the Delaware River City Corp., a non-profit group pushing to create a lengthy waterfront trail throughout the city’s Northeast.
"All over the world, people celebrate their rivers. Here in Philadelphia, we hide it," Borski told the crowd on the June 16 tour. "Our goal is to take away that separation."
In all, the DRCC seeks to devote more than 700 acres of vacant riverfront land in the Northeast to developing the waterfront trail.
In the future, the plan could be part of the East Coast Greenway, a grassroots effort that has existed for 14 years to link scenic urban areas stretching from Maine to Florida. The section in Northeast Philadelphia will be known as the North Delaware Greenway, and will connect the Bucks County riverfront with recreational areas currently being plotted out by the city’s Central Delaware Advisory Group.
The segment of the trail on the Westrum site will span nearly 2,000 feet of riverfront and feature public parking near Orthodox Street as well as connections to the neighborhood through five new streets in the Westrum development.
Walkers and bike riders also will soon be able to use the trail as a loop that will connect to a scenic extension of Delaware Avenue, from Lewis Street in Port Richmond to Buckius Street in Bridesburg. Beside the tree-lined boulevard will be a bike path that connects to the riverfront trail. That project is set to begin next spring.
While clearly a boon for residents long cut off from the Delaware River, the pathway will be more than just a recreational park. The project also will result in an environmental cleanup in hope of restoring the area’s natural habitat. Part of that will be reintroducing native plants that have been choked out by invasive species. Another more daunting aspect involves reclaiming the river’s banks, currently a combination of eroded cliffs and concrete.
The goal is to bring back the freshwater tidal areas known as "mud flats," an ecosystem the Pennsylvania Environmental Council’s Patrick Starr describes as "one of the most endangered habitats in the state."
In addition to serving as vice president of the council, an environmental advocacy group, Starr is secretary of the DRCC.
"Bridesburg, in the future, will be a very important stopover for migratory birds," said Starr, describing a waterfront that could be not unlike the one William Penn found when he came here more than 300 years ago. "You are not going to see a whole lot of mowed grass like you might get along Kelly Drive, but it will be pretty."
For people like Oskiera, that the plan is actually underway is a dream come true.
"I love the river, it is just so beautiful and so relaxing just to sit there and look at it," said Oskiera.
When she was growing up, spending time on the river was just a way of life.
"We used to walk down Allegheny Avenue, right to the river, and they had boats that would take us to Soupy Island," remembered Oskiera, referring to a now-closed summer camp that used to give youngsters a break from the inner city.
Old-timers aren’t the only ones excited about the planned site. Fred Moore, a much younger Holmesburg resident who also took part in the hike, is pleased to see a project that will open the waterfront.
"I’m really excited about this . . . the view is just incredible," said Moore. "It’s not too often that a developer makes room for public access, but that is what they are planning for here."
Still, for some residents like Howard Pyott, who worked at the Rohm & Haas plant for 33 years, the coming of the Westrum site marks the end of a time when industry along the river made Bridesburg and other riverfront neighborhoods a blue-collar bastion.
"All that industry that was here provided a lot of jobs for the folks in the ’burg," said Pyott.
Acknowledging that building thousands of homes likely to be bought by Center City office workers is "its own kind of industry," Pyott welcomes the change.
"I think this is going to be real nice," he said. ••
Reporter Brian Rademaekers can be reached at 215-354-3039 or brademaekers@phillynews.com
June 16, 2007
A Unique Delaware River Greenway Walk
For PlanPhilly
By Kellie Patrick
Lee Carr spent the summers of her Bridesburg childhood fishing on the Delaware River with her father. While she loathed the resulting catfish and eel suppers, Carr, 55, has missed the Delaware, which for decades has largely been cut off from Bridesburg by industrial development. Today, she went back.
Carr was one of about 50 people who walked the Bridesburg section of the future North Delaware River Greenway, a trail that will stretch eight miles from Pulaski Park to Glen Foerd.“This is just beautiful back here!” she said, taking in a river-side meadow full of wildflowers near the former coke plant, where the coal by-product was produced for industry and residential use.
The primary goal of the Delaware River City Corporation – the non-profit agency working to create the trail - is to reconnect Philadelphians with the river. It’s a goal shared by those working to renew the waterfront up and down the Delaware, including the community activists, residents and others who have participated in the Penn Praxis-led efforts to re-imagine the Central Delaware.
The hope is that the shared vision will lead to a series of connected trails running throughout the entire city. And that Philadelphia’s river pathway would be but a part of a larger trail system – The East Coast Greenway – running from Maine to Florida. Construction is set to begin on the section that runs through Pennypack Park in August.
In much of Philadelphia, it was the construction of the Delaware Expressway that separated the city from the river.“You have to get on I-95 and look out the window to see what it looks like,” DRRC chairman Robert Borski joked with the walkers before they began.
But Bridesburg is east of the highway. The community was established where it is because business and industry needed river access, said Jane Spector, a landscape architect who recently completed a cultural landscape study on Bridesburg for a class she took at the University of Pennsylvania.“There used to be a pier, and people would go to dances there,” she said. “There were fishing shacks.”
Ironically, so many businesses located on the river that they eventually cut off public access to the water, Spector said.
Some of that business, including the coke factory, is now defunct. Westrum Development Company plans to build 2,000 new homes – condos and row homes - on the 78-acre site, now classified as a brownfield. John Dean, Westrum’s vice president of land acquisition, spoke to the walkers as they stood near the development site. His company will develop about 2,000 feet of water frontage as part of the Greenway, he said. The linear park will be up to 150 feet wide in some places, he said, and the trail will be accessible to both wheelchairs and strollers. There will be 25 to 30 parking spaces for the public near the new homes – prices of which have not yet been set. Delaware Avenue will be extended in this part of the city, and the Greenway will connect with a proposed trail along side that extension, forming a half-mile loop. Before the first nail is pounded, the area must be cleaned up. The contaminants have not sunken deep into the soil, he said. Rather, the problems, including a lot of coal dust, are near the surface. Some will be hauled away. Some will be capped by paving or a dirt layer, he said. Because this must be left undisturbed, few homes will have basements.
Jennifer Shaw, 23, who pushed her 6-month-old son, Gage, along the roughed-out trail site, was pleased to hear how accessible the trail is. With her boyfriend, Stephen Regan, Shaw runs a community website, www.Pridesburg.com. She was very skeptical of the development at first, but has warmed to it, largely because it will help re-open the river to Bridesburg residents. “I can’t wait” to get on the finished trail, she said. The trail will also cut through property owned by chemical giant Rohm & Haas, which still makes products in its original plant in Bridesburg.
DRCC Executive Director Sarah M. Thorp said her organization is keenly aware that the trail must complement other uses of the river, including business and industry. Rohm & Haas does not use much of its land near the river, and it is working with DRCC to create public access through that portion – a feat that will not always be easy, considering the post-9/11 chemical industry security requirements.“There is a fence around the whole place, and there are security cameras,” Thorp said.“The fence is specially wired so that if you touch it, the cameras point right at you.”
The Greenway is not just going to help people who love the river, but birds and animals who need it or the nearby mudflats, wetlands and meadows. That means restoring these habitats, in part by removing invasive plant species and replacing them with native flora that have a niche here, said Patrick Starr, DRCC secretary and vice president of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council.“We’re on the Eastern Flyway” for migrating birds, he said. “Bridesburg, in the future, can be an important destination for migrating birds.”
Frank Rogaski, 66, said his family has lived in Bridesburg for more than 100 years. He used to go to the river near Lewis Street to fish and watch the boats go by. He’s hoping to stay healthy enough to use the finished trail.“Frank, we’ll bring you down here in your wheelchair if we have to,” Carr teased.
May 30, 2007
Walking the River to Pennypack Creek
Northeast News Gleaner
Despite a forecast calling for chilly rains, Saturday, May 19 turned out to be a beautiful day for a walk along the riverfront. That’s exactly what more than 40 people did when they joined the Delaware River City Corporation (DRCC) for the second of their monthly “Walk the River” series
Sarah M. Thorp, DRCC executive director, along with former U.S. Rep. Bob Borski, Chair of the non-profit organization, and City of Philadelphia Deputy Managing Director Jim Donaghy, who is also the DRCC Vice Chair, led the group on a walk along the existing trail at Pennypack on the Delaware, and into a portion of the park currently not open to the public. Construction on this portion of the trail is scheduled to begin in August, and completed in early 2008. The trail will provide a diverse experience for users; it will pass inland from the river through a large meadow, then will skirt the edge of a mitigated wetland where there will be an overlook platform before it continues to the Pennypack Creek. There will also be a smaller trail section along the river’s edge that will branch off of the main trail and lead to the mouth of the Pennypack Creek.
This section of the trail has already completed the final design process by landscape architect Mark Jendrzejewski of Pennoni Associates. Jendrzejewski joined the walkers to answer questions and explain the design. A portion of a $1 million grant to DRCC from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources will fund the trail construction. The remaining funds from the grant will allow for initial construction of a new park at Lardner’s Point, just south of the Tacony Palmyra Bridge, which will also be a part of the North Delaware Riverfront Greenway.
Two additional portions of the greenway are scheduled for final design in the coming months. These sections are the K&T Trail which is an unused portion of the Kensington and Tacony Railroad that the city acquired from Conrail, and the northern-most section of the Pennypack trail that will further extend the portion being built later this year to Pleasant Hill Park, also known as the Fish Hatchery, at Linden Avenue. Once final design is completed, funding is in place to allow for construction of these sections to begin in 2008.
The Pennypack walk was the second in a series sponsored by DRCC. Various sections of the greenway trail are being toured on the third Saturday of each month through August. More information on these walks is available by calling 215-537-8400 x135 or 136, or by visiting www.drcc-phila.org.
May 19, 2007
Pennypack Park walk shows potential
PlanPhilly
By Kellie Patrick
The small ripples on the water’s surface sparkled in the springtime sunlight like the facets of a diamond. An air force of swallows darted over the coastline surface, their acrobatics yielding a lunch of insects for the arrow-shaped birds. The about 40 people who came to Pennypack Park to walk a section of the proposed North Delaware Greenway trail could not believe their luck: The big river was showing off. “What could be more wonderful than having access to such a beautiful location?” asked Margaret Philippi, 63, who lives near the Parkwood section of the city in the Far Northeast and plans to hike the trail once it is complete.
Philippi won’t have too long to wait.
The North Greenway trail is a project of the non-profit Delaware River City Corporation (DRCC), and Executive Director Sarah Thorp said the Pennypack section will be the first completed. “We are starting in August, and it should take six months of construction,” Thorp said. About $350,000 of a $1 million grant from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources will fund the project, she said. Tucked behind the prison complex, a retirement home, and an industrial/commercial stretch of State Road, this part of the Pennypack Park is “a hidden treaure,” Thorp said. “Even people who live near here don’t know about it.” Part of her organization’s mission is to reconnect Philadelphians with the river. But even residents who come to Pennypack often have not seen places the new trail will take them. Behind the sports fields, a woodchip path will wind down the tidal flats, frequented by shorebirds.
Even the noises of nearby I-95 were hard to hear through the dense wooded area, although there was the occasional sound of shots fired at the police academy.
Another section will lead visitors through a meadow and to a man-made wetland, constructed by the Philadelphia Airport in exchange for extending a runway through a natural wetland. “This is the only area in Northeast Philadelphia that’s like this,” said Frank Windfelder, a retired Northeast Catholic teacher and the secretary of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club. “You’ll see birds here that you’d never see in your back yard.” Windfelder, viewing scope in tow, identified several birds for today’s walkers, including an orchard oriole perched in a tree and an osprey that soared high over head – likely one of a pair nesting nearby, he said.
A vast meadow surrounds the wetland, and the tawny remnants of last year’s tall grasses still swayed in the breeze, along with this year’s green crop. This summer, the field will burst with wildflowers and the butterflies who sip their nectar, said landscape architect Mark Jendrezejewski, who designed this portion of the trail specifically to take in as many landscapes and habitats as possible. Interpretive signs along the way will teach visitors about the habitats and animals who live there, he said.
James Donaghy, the DRCC’s Vice Chair and Deputy Managing Director for the City of Philadelphia, said part of the meadow must always stay meadow – in fact, trees are removed. A big mound at the site was once one of the places Philadelphia dumped ash from its residential waste incinerators, he said. The sites have been sealed off since environmental rules were toughened in the 1970s, he said. Monitoring shows no signs of leaching, he said, but tree roots could rupture the special fabric that seals the ash in.
Other portions of the trail will be less green and more residential, industrial or commercial, said James Donaghy, the Corporation’s Vice Chair. Interpretive signs along those portions will teach other lessons, such as the history of the area or industry. The Pennypack portion of the trail includes a loop, which will make it easy for visitors to walk just this section, Thorp said. “But they can also park, get on the Greenway, and ride their bikes from here to Maine,” she said. That’s because the Greenway is part of a larger effort, the East Coast Greenway, which would form a continuous trail from Maine to Florida. Saturday’s walk was the second in a series of five that will trace the entire proposed path of the Greenway. To see the schedule, go to http://www.drcc-phila.org/events.
May 2 , 2007
Down by the River: On the waterfront with the woman working to help the North Delaware live up to its potential
Philadelphia City Paper
by Daniel Campo
Sarah Thorp considers the city's waterfront north of Penn's Landing "one of Philadelphia's best-kept secrets," even though she realizes, "You're not going to get there unless you know how to get there."
"It's ridiculously beautiful," she says of the 10 fragmented miles of waterfront stretching from Allegheny Avenue north past active chemical refineries, factories, distribution centers, garbage transfer stations, industrial ruins, polluted inlets and superfund sites. But hidden amid this vast array of industry and wasteland are several places to experience the Delaware River's nature and beauty, including Pleasant Hill Park, Pennypack Park on the Delaware, two public boat launches, numerous informal spots and the serene Glen Foerd estate. Thorp, executive director of the Delaware River City Corporation (DRCC), began at the fledgling nonprofit in October after earning a master's degree in historic preservation at the University of Pennsylvania and serving 10 years as a Navy pilot. As the DRCC's only full-time employee, she's an "army of one," leading the implementation of the North Delaware Riverfront Greenway.
While the Central Delaware Waterfront planning process, led by PennPraxis, has garnered most of the public attention and excitement, and the two planned riverfront casinos in Fishtown and South Philadelphia most of the controversy, this effort will likely produce public amenities on the North Delaware long before anything happens to the south. "Our goal is to add to and connect the existing waterfront park spaces," she says, "and then connect them back to the neighborhoods." The plan capitalizes on public-owned areas where the trail can be developed and knitted together using additional land purchases and easements over private properties. It also calls for the development of "green connector streets" to be improved with various combinations of new plantings, sidewalks, bike lanes, lighting and signage. This part of the plan is crucial, since most of the adjacent neighborhoods are largely cut off from the water's edge by I-95, the Northeast Corridor train tracks, various industrial plants and, in one section, a prison and detention center.
Armed with a $1 million grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Thorp will oversee the construction of the first two sections of the greenway: a two-thirds-of-a-mile extension to the Pennypack Park Trail to begin this summer; and in the fall, the transformation of a five-acre tangle of concrete, weeds and fencing at the foot of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge into Lardner's Point Park. Both projects will be ready for public use in early 2008. The Greenway Plan is part of a larger effort to redevelop more than 700 acres of vacant or underutilized riverfront property into thousands of units of housing, commercial space and parks over the coming decades. Implementation of the plan's recreation trail — to run the entire length of the northern riverfront — is being done in concert with private developers who are moving forward with large-scale master plans for residential communities at four different brownfield sites. Construction on two of these communities may begin as early as summer.
While the goals and larger strategies are relatively simple, the challenges are complex and numerous. In addition to the obvious need for environmental remediation in places where 150 years of accumulated waste have degraded the land, logistical, legal and economic issues complicate matters. The properties lining the river are a jumble of public and privately owned parcels. The middle stretch of the trail through Bridesburg, Wissinoming and Tacony will capitalize on the city's recent purchase of the former Kensington and Tacony Railroad right-of-way. But through these sections, the trail will pass several active industrial operations, including the Sunoco and Rohm and Haas chemical plants, and deal with their security concerns. In other sections, the right-of-way has been unofficially claimed by adjacent businesses. Then, in the section that runs through Holmesburg, the trail will be routed past a private firing range and inland around the massive water treatment facility that intakes and filters 50 percent of the city's water supply. (Post-9/11 security issues will require greater separation between the trail and the treatment plant.) Farther north in Torresdale, the trail must detour well inland around two gated waterfront communities developed in the 1980s, which have no legal obligation or present incentive to provide public access to the river.
So, Thorp spends much of her time meeting with property owners to gain easements for the trail or assure them that the presence of hikers and bikers will pose no threat to the success of continued operations. She also meets with numerous private and public organizations, trying to build constituencies for the trail's eventual use and maintenance and raise funds for its development. For someone who used to land jets on aircraft carriers in the middle of the ocean, Thorp concedes that this may be her greatest challenge.
"Come back in just five years when most of the trail will be complete," she says. "It's going to be a huge transformation!"
April 23, 2007
Blazing a trail that's a work in progress
Plan Philly
by Kellie Patrick
Dorothy Fritsch has lived all of her 72 years in Mayfair. She enjoys the river. She just wishes it were a bit easier to be near it.
Saturday, Fritsch joined about 30 other people on a walk along a portion of the proposed path of the North Delaware Greenway – a $150 million system of parks and natural spaces linked by a multi-use trail that will stretch about 10 miles from Pulaski Park to Glen Foerd. So far, $30 million in federal transportation money has been promised to the project.
River advocates, community leaders and others hope this trail will eventually be part of a city-long, riverfront path – and that Philadelphia’s path will, in turn, be part of a multi-state East Coast Greenway. The city has given the Delaware River City Corporation, a non-profit formed by former Congressman Robert A. Borski, the responsibility of guiding and implementing the Greenway plan. “We’re hoping we can get a lot more people out on the river,” Sarah Thorp, the Corporation’s executive director, told another walk participant. Fritsch hoped so. “I’ve listened for 40 years about what people are going to do on the river,” she said, her purple and orange jacket tied around her waist on this balmy spring day.
The condition of the parking lot at Pleasant Hill Park – torn up on the eastern edge, where it will be replaced by plant life for both beauty and flood control, gave Fritsch hope. “It looks like something is starting,” she said. Construction is underway. About half the project is set for completion in 2008, and the entire project should be finished within five years, Thorp said.
The Earth Day walk began at Pleasant Hill, which is also called the Fish Hatchery. Rich Sodouski, maintenance supervisor for the city’s recreation department, spoke a bit about the history of the place. “This was the original hatchery in Philadelphia,” he said. “1896, the building stone says.” Shad and other fish were raised here then released into the river, particularly in areas where fish seemed never to go on their own, he said. But as the Northeast portion of the city developed, it was decided this was no place for a hatchery, and it became a park.
Sodouski, 49, grew up in the neighborhood. The river was much more contaminated then, when steel mills and other industries churned out their goods along it. “We used to come swimming here, anyway, and my mom would catch us because our underwear would turn a brown, rusty color,” he remembered. “Now, you can actually stick your leg in the water and see your foot.”
Above Pleasant Hill, the Greenway Trail will stick close to the river. But the park is adjacent to the Baxter Water Treatment Plant – which takes much of the city’s drinking water from the Delaware. And for now, due to post-9/11 security measures, the trail will jut westward on Linden Avenue, then follow State Road to Pennypack Street before cutting through somewhere on or near the Philadelphia Fire Academy property and returning to the riverbank.
Thorp said the trail will skirt natural areas along the river as much as possible, but will sometimes need to skirt around places like Baxter or active industrial sites. Along some parts of the path, litter and broken glass were as common as wildflowers. “It’s still a working river,” said DRCC Board Secretary Mariann Porter Dempsey. The 70 interpretive signs planned for the trail will teach not only about the nature found in and along the river, but about its industrial and historical significance, she said.
Walkers caught a glimpse of Philadelphia firefighters practicing at their fire tower before climbing up a bank and along a gravel roadway that took them back to expansive views across the water. The tide was low, and the tops of muck-loving plants were visible. Ducks and geese floated like miniature rowboats on the glassy surface. Dianne Retzback, 70, feels so peaceful at the river that she suggested school children be taken there to contemplate and relax. Retzback has long volunteered with river and stream organizations. “I’m glad I lived long enough to see this,” she said of the coming trail.
The walk ended where the Pennypack Creek – which starts in Horsham, Montgomery County – widens to give its waters to the Delaware. The trail plan includes a bridge at this point, so that users can enter Pennypack Park. As the walkers retraced their steps back to Pleasant Hill Park, Fritsch had a suggestion.
“I hope they have benches when they fix it up,” she said.
“Lots of benches,” Thorp promised.
April 19, 2007
Riverfront an old Friend in 'Burg
Bridesburg Star
by Brian Rademaekers
Sitting in a small building near the fenced-off banks of the Delaware River, members of the Bridesburg Historical Society listened as Jayne Spector told the story of how the neighborhood had been shaped by the massive body of water. Spector, a landscape architect, flipped through slides showing maps dating to the 1600s, historical photographs, and clippings of poetry written by a sailor back when the area was known simply as "Point No Point." And as she neared present day, residents began to fill in the blanks with their own history, tied forever to the river.
Spector created the presentation from a project she undertook during a cultural landscape course at the University of Pennsylvania. The idea, she said, was to understand Bridesburg's changing relationship with the river. The neighborhood first started out as a handful of inns and taverns set up for travelers using the Delaware River ferry and a bridge over Frankford Creek, Spector explained. In time, that cluster of dwellings evolved into an industrial powerhouse, with hundreds of mills along Frankford Creek and an active port along the Delaware. It was during this era that the banks of the river in Bridesburg were carved out for easier ship access, and a pier extending from Bridge Street was built. Eventually that pier became an important part of the neighborhood. Later, the railroad would come to replace ships as the dominant movers of riverfront industry.
But in addition to the working uses of the river, it still remained a recreational center for residents, with yachts and fishing shacks intermingling with the industry. "Even during this industrial time, the riverfront was still a mixed-use area with recreation along the river," Spector said. For some time, the riverbanks in Bridesburg remained a place where people lived, worked and had fun. But after World War II, things began to change. Most heavy industry moved out of the area, but warehouses remained in private hands and access to river became restricted. Even occupied parcels, like the Rohm and Haas plant, became off-limits.
Spector said the Bridge Street pier provides an example of how the people's relationship with t |
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