By Harris Steinberg
Philadelphia Inquirer, November 13, 2007
The report, assembled by a University of Pennsylvania team of experts called PennPraxis, is the culmination of a fast-track planning study that was launched a year ago with $1.6 million from the William Penn Foundation and the approval of Mayor Street.
The long list of recommendations is meant as a course correction to the laissez-faire approach of the last 16 years, which has yielded a jumble of big-box stores, gated condos, proposals for two sprawling slots parlors, and a high-profile federal corruption conviction.
The PennPraxis report advocates a more urban-development model for the central riverfront, between Allegheny and Oregon Avenues, a 7-mile-long strip comprising 1,146 acres. But its ideas have already caused consternation among developers, who say the plan ignores the economics of modern construction.
Its centerpiece is a deceptively simple proposal to replicate the city's traditional network of streets on the waterfront's large industrial tracts, which are cut off from downtown by the expanse of Interstate 95. Once a manageable street grid is inscribed on city maps, PennPraxis suggests, those blocks would blossom with an eclectic mix of towers, townhouses, street-level retail, and light industry. The streets would be created as each new project was built.
The city would do its part by making strategic infrastructure improvements. One key recommendation calls for narrowing Delaware Avenue (including the Columbus Boulevard section) to two lanes in each direction, so it feels more like a grand boulevard than a highway. With the leftover land, the city could widen sidewalks, install bike lanes, and run a light-rail trolley down the center.
PennPraxis director Harris Steinberg argues that the street grid would increase the value of waterfront property by making the land more accessible and attractive. Because people like to live near parks, PennPraxis recommends the construction of nine, as well as a recreation trail, and restored wetlands.
Steinberg said the real purpose of the waterfront study is to provide the city with a set of design guidelines and development goals, so that it can finally end its scattershot, ad hoc approach to zoning along the river.
He concedes that the report offers a broad, philosophical vision, rather than concrete details. But his hope is that Mayor-elect Nutter will embrace the report's core values and signal his support by quickly authorizing one of its "early action" proposals.
Topping the list is a proposed zoning change that would discourage sprawling superblock structures for garages and commercial complexes. Such a change would need City Council approval. Other recommendations will require sanction from a variety of city agencies.
Since the planned slots parlors are prototypical superblocks, the PennPraxis proposal could force the operators to redesign the gambling halls to fit the grid. But given the Rendell administration's commitment to gaming, it's likely the current designs would be grandfathered.
Along with the proposed zoning changes, the report's priority list includes the creation of a new park at the city's Festival Pier, and refurbishment of Penn Treaty and Pulaski Parks.
When PennPraxis first embarked on the study, many expected that its report would recommend some dramatic, made-for-prime-time project, such as a Big Dig-style proposal to bury I-95 in Center City and build over it.
Though that project is listed among the plan's many long-term goals, the grid extension has supplanted a Big Dig as PennPraxis' signature proposal. "Extending the grid may seem simple and easy, but it is a grand idea in itself," Steinberg said. "We decided that this was not the place for theatrics. The plan is really more about reproducing Philadelphia's DNA."
Although Steinberg won't officially present the new waterfront plan - officially titled A Civic Vision for the Central Delaware - until the PennPraxis public meeting at 6 p.m. tonight at the Convention Center, Philadelphia developers are already lobbying against it.
Real estate attorney Michael Sklaroff, who represents several developers, has criticized the plan for failing "to consider the economic realities" of building on the river. In September, he sent a letter to the Planning Commission warning that the grid proposal would be "a disastrous showstopper."
The letter was signed by several former city planners and developers, including John Westrum, who heads the city's new Zoning Reform Commission, which is rewriting the zoning code. The signatories fear the city will seize private land without adequate compensation.
But City Councilman Frank DiCicco, who was a key advocate of the waterfront study, countered that "the city couldn't take their land even if it wanted to."
"What we're saying is, 'Let's have conversations about zoning up front, rather than on the back end,' " he explained.
Such ideas were enthusiastically embraced during the public meetings PennPraxis organized over the last year. About 4,000 residents helped formulate the study's goals.
Philadelphia was one of the first American cities to recognize that obsolete port land could be converted for recreational use, but it lost momentum after creating Penn's Landing in the late 1960s. Other cities transformed acres of landfill into highly desirable waterfront housing.
It was Mayor Rendell who set the waterfront on its big-box course. Impatient with planning, he personally courted developers to build on the water. Street also tried wooing developers. He gave up after the head of Penn's Landing Corp. pleaded guilty to shaking down developers.
While the PennPraxis blueprint focuses on the central riverfront, it is also a plea for a thoughtful, preemptive approach to planning.
"To achieve these goals," the plan says, "Philadelphia will need to use tools it has not often used over the past 30 years, as it has largely handed over the role of public planning to the private sector."
Plan's Highlights
Key PennPraxis recommendations for the waterfront include:
Building 11 new or improved parks.
Creating a riverfront bike trail.
Extending the city street grid to now-industrial sites.
Narrowing Delaware Avenue to create a pedestrian-friendly boulevard.
Changing zoning to discourage superblock structures and to require traditional urban buildings.