By Brian X. McCrone
Philadelphia Metro, August 9, 2009
Redevelopment of a 1-acre pier shooting into the Delaware River has been touted as a change for the better at the mostly-ignored waterfront — mired in corruption and politics for years — but some wonder if the city is ready for the challenge.
Tackling problems beyond spending $3 million to convert a weedy pier into a park will require developing other tracts and connecting them, Matt Ruben of the Northern Liberties Neighbors Association said.
"Pier 11 is a wonderful project. But it's a very small and constrained site," Ruben said last week. "There must be multiple public access points. ... The only real long-term way is by doing right things with bigger sites. Then you have a critical mass to attract people."
But solving the epic problem of making the riverfront accessible to Philadelphia neighborhoods is still not on the horizon. Both the firm recently hired to design the Pier 11 park and the new chairman of the Delaware River Waterfront Corp. said no plans are ready yet for solving the access problem.
"A lot of riverfront land is sort of in a dead zone," Christine Knapp of PennFuture said.
Tackling problems beyond spending $3 million to convert a weedy pier into a park will require developing other tracts and connecting them, Matt Ruben of the Northern Liberties Neighbors Association said.
"Pier 11 is a wonderful project. But it's a very small and constrained site," Ruben said last week. "There must be multiple public access points. ... The only real long-term way is by doing right things with bigger sites. Then you have a critical mass to attract people."
But solving the epic problem of making the riverfront accessible to Philadelphia neighborhoods is still not on the horizon. Both the firm recently hired to design the Pier 11 park and the new chairman of the Delaware River Waterfront Corp. said no plans are ready yet for solving the access problem.
"A lot of riverfront land is sort of in a dead zone," Christine Knapp of PennFuture said.