An innovation district, an energy corridor, and a logistics hub are three major elements of the Lower Schuylkill Master plan, a long-term vision released by the City this month that accounts for 68 percent of the city’s underutilized and vacant industrial land.

The Hidden River

The plan, still in the process of being completed, seeks to revitalize a 4,100 acre six-mile stretch of the river south of the Grays Ferry Bridge at 34th Street that goes from University City to the Airport. It focuses on revitalizing former industrial land by making use of leftover refineries, freight lines and rail lines. The $411M project includes a vision to make improvements in infrastructure, roads, the environment, and public amenities that would attract more than $860M in private investment and up to 6,500 new jobs while establishing 46 acres of green space and five miles…

Penn’s 23-acre South Bank campus is located on the former DuPont site between 34th St. & Grays Ferry Ave., and the Grays Ferry Crescent section of the Schuylkill River Trail park just south of the Schuylkill River where the river makes a turn before the Grays Ferry Bridge and continues south towards Bartram’s Garden and the airport. This campus represents a long-term redevelopment vision that also serves an immediate need.

Current entrance

Aerial view

A master plan for a long-term vision of the

Last night at the Philadelphia School, representatives from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Cooper Robertson and Partners held a community meeting to discuss plans for CHOP’s significant project coming soon to Schuylkill Avenue. This presentation represented the fourth large community meeting regarding this development, and included some details that came to light for the very first time.

The site

To review from the last time we covered this project almost a year ago, CHOP intends to construct a huge new facility just below the South Street Bridge on nine acres of land currently occupied by Springfield Beer Distributor and the former JFK Vocational High School. Built over four phases, the facility will mostly house clinical research and operations for the hospital, in a gross development area that will exceed two million square feet. Phase one, a…

Back in October, we told you about the completed pedestrian connector bridge linking Schuylkill River Park with the Schuylkill River Trail, and also gave you the early lowdown on a planned 2,000 foot “floating boardwalk” extending the trail to the South Street bridge. At that time, the only sign of this next phase for the trail was the presence of a barge in the river, tasked with drilling down into the river to install support columns to hold up the boardwalk. Well, it seems that in that task, workers have been successful.

Supports in the water

Perhaps a clearer view

According to Saundra Falska from the Schuylkill River Development Corporation, the project is moving along well, though perhaps running a month or two behind schedule. But it was in our brief conversation with Falska that we found…

Last month, representatives from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia presented plans for their Schuylkill Avenue site to an overstuffed room of community members and stakeholders. We tried to get into this meeting, but alas, there were too many bodies inside and we were forced to stand in the hallway, unable to hear much of anything. Thankfully, SOSNA had some representation at this meeting, and was kind enough to summarize the main takeaways on their website.

A little background- you may recall, we brought this site to your attention a little less than a year ago, when several of the buildings surrounding Springfield Beer Distributor were being torn down. At the time, we told you that the 9 acre plot on Schuylkill Ave will include the Springfield Beer site as well as the former JFK Vocational High School. At the time, we…

Pretzel Park, located just a block off of Main Street in Manayunk, provides neighborhood residents with several amenities including a dog park, a playground, and public green space.

Delicious

Green space

Fun for kids

And dogs too

Because of the nature of the topography in the area (steep, mostly), awareness of and access to the park from Main Street is severely hampered. Numerous area stakeholders, including Manayunk Development Corporation, Schuylkill River Project, and Friends of Pretzel Park were able to procure a grant to retain the Community Design Collaborative to come up with a plan to better link the park, Main Street, and the Manayunk Canal. The idea is to increase access to the park for visitors to the…