Envisioning a Centennial District in western Fairmount Park

Not much disturbs the red-bellied turtles slowly carrying on, as turtles do, around Centennial Lake. Wind puffs down George's Hill, rippling murky water, buffeting the crust of lily pads. A stately row of rehabilitated historic houses across Parkside Avenue stands watch over lonely pond and empty field.

Half a mile to the east, gleaming Memorial Hall - now transformed into the home of the Please Touch Museum - rises above grassy parkland. Half a mile to the west sits the Mann Center for the Performing Arts.

These sparsely settled plains - also known as west Fairmount Park - are a new frontier, an underutilized prairie that once represented the future of the city and, indeed, the nation. Nearly 10 million people visited this grassland during the great Centennial Exhibition of 1876, mesmerized by its visionary displays of technological innovation.

Now, with the Please Touch poised to open Saturday, plans are very much alive to revive that legacy of engagement and turn this 700-acre section of park into a thriving Centennial District - an engine for recreational, commercial and residential renewal.

If the threatened red-bellied turtle can return to the park, why not visitors?

"There's this energy coming together," said architect Alan Greenberger, new head of the city Planning Commission. "There's talk about management of the district. All the right things are happening. When Please Touch opens, there will now exist this major place in an area where people think of ballfields."

Greenberger's firm, MGA Partners, completed an area master plan in 2005 for the Fairmount Park Commission. "We describe the Centennial District as the third day in Philadelphia," he said, alluding to the stays of visitors to the city.

What makes the concept alluring, what drives the planning, according to city and institutional officials as well as area residents, is the presence now of three major institutions in a historically rich landscape and neighborhood.

The reopening of Memorial Hall - the only large structure left from the 1876 world's fair, and home of the Philadelphia Museum of Art until it moved across the Schuylkill in 1928 - has brought the idea back into public consciousness.

About a decade ago, Alexander "Pete" Hoskins, then president of the Philadelphia Zoo, came up with the district idea; he reiterated it in 2003, when the Please Touch Museum announced that it would renovate and occupy the increasingly dreary Memorial Hall.

With the zoo and the Mann Center within a mile of a renovated Please Touch, the makings would exist for a unique locale, a park district that would draw innumerable family visitors, he argued.

The problem, in the words of Nancy Kolb, Please Touch president and fan of the Centennial District: "There is no there there."

The master plan prepared by Greenberger's MGA Partners for all of west Fairmount Park recognizes the lack of venues as a major issue in establishing a district.

"With the zoo, the Mann and Please Touch clocking in at 1.7 million visitors, with the likelihood of more - that's a big deal," Greenberger said. "But the Centennial District is so big, no one thinks of them as connected."

The master plan suggests a number of measures to address the problem. There are now discussions, for instance, about establishing a complex devoted to sophisticated children's theater on Belmont Plateau, a half-mile north of Memorial Hall. (That area was served by a theater that thrived in the 1950s and early '60s. It was torn down a decade ago.)

Another proposal would expand the Horticulture Center near Montgomery Avenue. A Ferris wheel could be added to that complex; smaller attractions are already quietly establishing themselves.

Ohio House on Belmont Avenue, the last remaining state building from the Centennial Exposition, has been renovated and is operating as a cafe. The pond at the Japanese House and Gardens has been spiffed up. The Negro League Memorial Park is taking shape across Parkside Avenue near the Mann. The High School of the Future on Girard Avenue west of the zoo is open.

For its part, the park has completed work on a promenade the length of Parkside Avenue. Work will begin early next year on construction of a 5-kilometer loop to link all venues and serve as a host trail for the many charitable activities and other events that require a 5K route. The park is also installing signs to help visitors around the often-confusing landscape and twisting roads.

Transportation remains daunting - distances are huge. SEPTA has reintroduced the Girard Avenue trolley, but regular mass transit to, from and inside the district is deemed essential to success.

Area business and residential leaders are urging a Regional Rail stop at 52d Street and Lancaster Avenue, and the zoo is discussing the possibility of a stop in its backyard. Buses might be rerouted to serve venues. Within the Centennial District, the master plan envisions tram service.

"Transportation to this area is a critical issue," said Vikram Dewan, president of the zoo. "Right now, there are limited public transportation options to the area."

Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) has introduced legislation to bring $45 million in federal aid to support district capital improvements. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D., Phila.) has introduced similar legislation in the House.

The master plan foresees a need for $200 million in capital improvements over 20 years. The Mann, zoo and Please Touch are already engaged in capital campaigns to fund $200 million of their own projects. City bond money is funding the 5K loop; city and state money paid for the Parkside promenade. Traffic studies are also forthcoming.

Whether those improvements will create more of a sense of a cohesive "destination" remains to be seen.

Residents of East and West Parkside are participants in the planning, officials said. Community leaders have helped pave the way for a just-opened shopping center, anchored by Lowe's and Shop-Rite, on 52d Street - the first to open in West Philadelphia in decades.

But while residents say they strongly support the district, there is concern that longtime and low-income residents might be squeezed out by gentrification.

"It is categorically not going to happen to West Parkside," said Lucinda Hudson, who leads the Parkside Association. "We are going to make it absolutely clear that the residents who are here are going to stay here.

"We don't want to see just a revitalized park, but a revitalized residential side."

Robert Cousar, executive director of the East Parkside Community Revitalization Corp., said that with more than 500 vacant lots and a population that has plummeted in 30 years from 10,000 to 3,500 today, East Parkside certainly needs revitalization. His group has worked out a tax-abatement plan that would both attract development and offer security to longtime residents, he said.

"The Centennial District provides a new opportunity to bring us back to the forefront, to get us some attention," he said. "There's plenty of room to bring new people in without forcing people out."

Park, institutional and community leaders agree that revitalization of neighborhood and park must move in tandem. Parkside cafes and amenities, for instance, will support visitors to the Centennial District; successful park institutions will bring tangible neighborhood benefits - programs and jobs.

"For one side to achieve, the other has to achieve," said Marjorie Ogilvie, president of the Business Association of West Parkside. "Everybody's concern is that if we get all the development in the park and it doesn't bring the community along, then shame on all of us. It has to be both sides of the street."