Penn's Landing Park Site Plan rendering
The Delaware River Waterfront Corporation (DRWC) is continuing its planning for next summer’s Art Place-funded placemaking project at the Penn’s Landing’s marina, while developing detailed plans for the future for this significant site at the center of Philadelphia’s Delaware River waterfront. These plans are the next step in a deliberate public planning and development process following the completion of the Master Plan for the Central Delaware in 2011 and its adoption by the Philadelphia City Planning Commission in 2012. To tackle Penn’s Landing’s unique opportunities and challenges, DRWC engaged internationally-recognized firm Hargreaves Associates to lead a team of consultants to develop a site plan for public space and development with detailed cost-estimates which would inform a public financing strategy we hope the city will implement following the completion of the plan.
On Tuesday, October 15th, DRWC took the first step in sharing details of this plan with our stakeholders through a large public meeting at Festival Pier on the Delaware River Waterfront. The meeting attracted over 300 registered participants, who heard from Mary Margaret Jones, principal-in-charge of Hargreaves, as well as DRWC planning committee chair, Marilyn Jordan Taylor, DRWC board member and Deputy Mayor Alan Greenberger, and Thomas Corcoran, President of DRWC. Among the exciting plans for the site are:
-- A cap over I-95 and Columbus Boulevard between Walnut Street and Chestnut Street to allow for the creation of network of park spaces from Front Street to the river’s edge
-- Renewed public spaces ringing the Penn’s Landing Marina
-- A new bridge crossing Columbus Boulevard at South Street.
-- Development on Penn’s Landing at the Market Street site (between Columbus Boulevard and the Delaware River and Market Street and Chestnut Street) and around the Marina (between Walnut Street and South Street and Columbus Boulevard and the Delaware River).
The full presentation by Hargreaves Associates can be seen here.
Many Philadelphia media outlets covered the presentation, and some of the coverage can be seen below:
DRWC will share phasing and financing strategies in its next public meeting in January 2014, a presentation that will include the full plans for a Penn’s Landing public space network and development. DRWC expects to begin implementation shortly thereafter, including moving the financing plan forward and advancing the initial phases of development around the basin.
At the same time, we expect to have short-term wins building toward the summer Art Place experience. DRWC is planning a winter place-making project which will leverage many of the same materials we will use around the basin next summer. We expect to share greater details in our next update.