Development News

With multiple local train stops, boutiques, restaurants and entertainment all within walking distance, Manayunk seems to have everything a walk-happy city resident could want. So why does it seem everyone in this Northwest Philadelphia nightlife destination drives? Turns out, the neighborhood was missing one important necessity: a nearby grocery store. This week marked the opening of Main Street Market, a full-service corner grocery providing 'Yunkers access to local coffee, meats and cheeses, and more upscale products than you are likely to find at your average city bodega. Owner Rob Nydick says his inventory walks a fine line.

"We realize there is a very wide demographic in Manayunk, from young professionals to people who have been living there their entire lives so we didn't want to alienate or exclude any of those demographics," says Nydick. "We do have some higher end stuff, imported products, some higher end cheeses. But we also have groceries and staple items. We didn't want to pigeonhole ourselves as being a gourmet shop or a quick stop, we wanted to be as well-rounded as possible."

Nydick and business partner Richard Rivera are no stranger to food sales in Manayunk. The pair own Belvedere Restaurant Group, the company responsible for Terrace Tap Room, Agiato and Agiato Bread Company, all in the Manayunk area. Like many Manayunk properties, the building at 4345 Main Street used to be a retail store. Now, the L-shaped space utilizes two entrances and bifurcates the deli counter from the dry goods, creating an easy flow for foot traffic.

"The building allows us to have entrances on two streets, which gives us great visibility," says Nydick. "There aren't many buildings on Main Street that are that size and that shape so it was a really good fit for us."

Source: Rob Nydick, Main Street Market
Writer: John Steele

With its shimmering glass facade, distinctive shape and LED display, University City's Cira Centre has cemented itself as a larger-than-life landmark in the Philly skyline. So when the Cira Centre opened its lobby space to restaurant development with Rae, the swirling, seasonal tastes and 200-bottle wine cellar graced many headlines. But over the last four years, its popularity waned. It seemed the restaurant's style couldn't keep up with its tony, trendy home. Now it's time for one of Philadelphia's premier tastemakers to take his turn at Cira. This week, Philadelphia's Iron Chef Jose Garces brings his gastrointestinal stylings (and his corporate offices) to 30th Street with JG Domestic, a tribute to all-American ingredients.

"American cuisine has its roots all over the world, so from a culinary standpoint I'll be drawing inspiration from a host of cultures and cuisines," says Garces. "This restaurant will celebrate domestic produce, meat, poultry, seafood, wines, beers and spirits. Our primary focus is creating dishes that honor the ingredients themselves, however we choose to prepare them."

With such high-concept creations as Distrito and Village Whiskey, the flavors in the decor are equally as strong as the flavors on the plate. Garces called on Jun Aizaki of Cr�me Design Collective in Brooklyn, NY, who has worked on all previous Garces restaurants. As JG Domestic's space is large for a restaurant, the challenge was creating intimacy. Complete with pictures of farms where ingredients come from, a "living wall" of plants and real trees growing in the middle, Garces  offers a counterpoint to the sleek modernity of the Cira Centre, bringing freshness to both his cuisine and design.

"Jun's work is wonderfully textural and helps to make the restaurant feel as though it's organic to the space, even though none of my restaurants have gone into new buildings," Garces says. "In fact, many were restaurants before, and it's a testament to Jun's skill that you would never know that."

Source: Jose Garces, Garces Restaurant Group
Writer: John Steele

When Mayor Nutter endorsed Penn Praxis' Civic Vision for the Central Delaware waterfront plan in 2008, he sent the City Planning Commission and other organizations on some early action projects to get things rolling. Just two years later, the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation is making the rounds with local community groups presenting renovation plans for connecting streetscapes. It turns out a waterfront proposal doesn't get very far without a way to get to the waterfront.

Delaware Avenue's dividing barrier I-95 separates Front Street from the Delaware River. But as urban decay has struck the river lands, it has also hit 47 connecting blocks, leaving pathways to the waterfront dark and uninhabitable for pedestrians. This week, DRWC held a meeting with the Old City Civic Association, unveiling improvement plans for a new Race Street, and creating a model for the 46 other blocks in need of repair.

"These improvements make Race Street an interesting place to go, not just a normal street that you walk on to get to the waterfront," says DRWC master planner Sarah Thorp. "The Race Street Connector is a perfect pilot project. We wanted to add some things that we might be able to replicate in other areas of the waterfront."

The proposal calls for painted bike lanes, lit underpasses, and an LED-illuminated pixel array, allowing for announcements and public art. The project will lead pedestrians to the Race Street Pier, a park project slated for May 2011. Tonight, DRWC hosts their second community meeting for the Delaware River master plan. With a pathway design in place, the future looks bright on the Delaware.

"One of the reasons we chose this park is because it is pretty close to the center and to areas with a ton of foot traffic, rather than starting at the ends, which are more isolated," says Thorp. "Its location toward the center of the waterfront, we feel, is a great place to start."

Source: Sarah Thorp, DRWC
Writer: John Steele

When Community Design Collaborative (CDC) Executive Director Beth Miller ran into volunteer Scott Page at Reading Terminal Market two years ago, a chat about their favorite Amish pastries turned to what was next in industrial redevelopment. Page mentioned a partnership between Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation and the City Planning Commission to create an industrial reuse strategy. CDC's Infill Philadelphia project was already on the lookout for opportunities to lend a hand and this project seemed like a perfect fit.

In February, Infill Philadelphia launched its Industrial Sites initiative, a design proposal contest searching for three types of industrial redevelopment. The Neighborhood anchor focused on creating an incubator for new industry. Mixed-use focused on creating new industry side-by-side with housing. And the Making Connections challenge coupled industry with environment to create an industrial campus and riverfront amenity in one. Three volunteer design firms unveiled redevelopment proposals to the design community in May. On Tuesday, CDC released a publication to show off the projects to the rest of the city.

"Industrial redevelopment is one of those problems that seems unsolvable," says Miller. "There are so many older buildings out there and nobody quite knows what to do with them. We thought this was a good strategy to showcase a new generation of urban industry."

The Industrial Sites initiative is the third phase for Infill, an ongoing redevelopment advisory project that has worked on affordable housing, commercial corridors and food access. With their new publication showing what they can do, Miller hopes to draw inspiration for her next project.

"We hope to make this an ongoing thing through our service grants, so non-profits can apply to us to address an industrial site in their neighborhood," says Miller. "We've already gotten two or three applications like that so we hope to continue that work on a case-by-case basis."

Source: Beth Miller, Infill Philadelphia
Writer: John Steele

In Philadelphia, the Center City District has become a household name. With its jump-suited juggernaut keeping the streets clean and planning publications that are leading the direction of Philadelphia's potent downtown, hometown accolades are never in short supply. But it's always nice when outsiders let you know that your work matters on a national level. Last week, D.C.-based International Downtown Association announced CCD's Philadelphia Retail Marketing Alliance as the recipient for its Downtown Pinnacle Award in Marketing and Communications. Also announced last week, Harvard's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation acknowledged CCD's Public Spaces Initiative in its inaugural Bright Ideas program.

"It was an honor to be considered for this award," says Public Space Collaborative leader Bill Hughes. "Everyone in the collaborative really takes pride in what they are doing and this really validates everything that we do and the fact that we work as a team in Center City to create a positive environment."

Both projects used technology in new ways to organize varied information, helping Center City's planning and improvement efforts run more smoothly. The Philadelphia Retail Marketing Alliance created a partnership between Center City businesses, which directed all marketing resources toward the same goal. CCD created a website, PhiladelphiaRetail.com, that brings all the information needed to conduct business in Center City together in one location. With the Public Spaces Collaborative, CCD staff used handheld computers to record and map potholes, broken windows and graffiti, getting alerts to the right agencies. 

"This is another nice accolade to have under our belt," says PRMA leader Ivy Olesh. "We work with so many different landlords and developers and retailers and brokers, it's nice to say that this project is something that is nationally recognized."

Source: Ivy Olesh and Bill Hughes, CCD
Writer: John Steele

It's hard to imagine a game cooler that pool. Everyone from Tom Cruise to the Rat Pack have famously chalked up. But for a sport known for scotch, suits and smoke, Philadelphia's billiard halls instead attract the young college set to brightly lit amusement centers or back-room, quarter-vended tables. A new project from architecture/interior design firm DAS Architects looks to bring billiards center stage, giving the game's classic cool the home it deserves.

On Friday, the Philadelphia Historical Commission approved a proposal from Philly developer Paul Giegerich to redesign the former Beneficial Bank building at 1200 Chestnut Street into an upscale billiard hall. The project would feature a circular, second-floor bar overlooking the action below, board rooms transformed into banquet spaces and a rooftop lounge with a retractable glass roof. The proposal goes before the Center City zoning board this week, trying to sink the 8-ball on this high-concept development.

"A lot of vagrants have used the porch as a place to hang out," says DAS principal David Schultz of the long-vacant building. "Everybody is, I think, excited that there is going to be a positive use for the building, that we are bringing life back to the building and will help improve the neighborhood."

1200 Chestnut is a historic space, designed in 1916 by famous Philadelphia Museum of Art architect Horace Trumbauer, so architects are limited in their alterations. DAS will add LED light fixtures and green roof elements like reflective roof tiles for the outdoor lounge, but hope to bring understated design elements from its last bank building renovation, Union Trust steakhouse, to the stately design of Trumbauer, an achievement Schultz says he wouldn't change if he could.

"One of the benefits of this space is that it doesn't require any meaningful changes," says Schultz. "We will beautify the existing space while maintaining its architectural elegance."

Source: David Schultz, DAS Architects
Writer: John Steele

These days, sustainability is everywhere, and no one understands that reality more than Brandywine Realty Trust's Executive Vice President and General Counsel Brad Molotsky. Charged with keeping Brandywine's assets green, Molotsky's current specialty may not have existed 10 years ago. Today, some buyers are attracted to certifications like LEED and EnergyStar as a way to save energy, making sustainability efforts a priority. Brandywine has gone from four EnergyStar Certified properties in 1999 to 29 today. This week, the Radnor firm added three more to that list, receiving the EPA's top certification for ts 401 Plymouth Road, Plymouth Meeting; 5 Eves Drive, Marlton, NJ; and its 3 Barton Skyway, Austin, TX projects. 

"There is a lot of good data that the EPA publishes to suggest that if your building is EnergyStar Certified, it will consume 35 percent less energy, which is significant," says Molotsky. "Are people paying attention to this? Not yet but I think the brokerage community is coming around to this, and tenants are getting smarter about it."

As certain municipalities begin to mandate publication of sustainability information, Molotsky says, certifications like EnergyStar will become increasingly valuable as the U.S. moves toward more sustainable building assets.

"You are going to see this in New York, for instance, this January where every building over 50,000 square feet will be required to measure and publish their EnergyStar score," says Molotsky. "What's that going to do? All these buildings will be measured against each other, creating a natural competition and people will start paying attention."

Source: Brad Molotsky, Brandywine Realty Trust
Writer: John Steele

Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey announced last Tuesday that Pennsylvania would receive $47 million in federal transit and infrastructure grants as part of the Federal Transit Administration's State of Good Repair program. As SEPTA updated its hybrid bus fleet two years ago, the lion's share of the funding went to Pittsburgh's Allegheny County Port Authority for a clean diesel fleet of their own. But SEPTA didn't come away empty handed, receiving $8.1 million for two infrastructure improvements a long time coming.

The first grant will revamp SEPTA's Parkside Bus Loop, helping reconnect this West Philly neighborhood. But the second, more universal improvement will aid in future upgrades. Using $6.4 million, SEPTA will install an asset management system to aid in record-keeping as many of Philadelphia's transit assets come up for repairs.

"A lot of our infrastructure dates back to the early 1900's and were taken over from other private companies," says SEPTA CFO Richard Burnfield. "What the FTA was trying to focus on is knowing what you have out there in the field before you can make an assessment as to what your overall needs are, coming up with a plan for when things should be replaced."

The system will help SEPTA keep better records so when funding is available, the authority can make a more organized, more compelling case for further federal dollars as the fleet is upgraded.

"Right now, we do a very good job of managing our assets so while the records are not as computerized as we'd like them to be, we have so much knowledge within our engineering staff that I feel we make excellent decisions," says Burnfield. "But I think this will help us going forward so we can do a second check on things as our staff reaches retirement."

Source: Richard Burnfield, SEPTA
Writer: John Steele

Along the post-industrial corridor of Northern Delaware Avenue sits an abandoned trolley garage where Philadelphia's oldest transit assets were once serviced. So when architectural salvage firm Provenance decided to relocate to accommodate more retail customers, they couldn't think of a better location than a garage that once restored rolling symbols of Philadelphia's past.

"We feel that a lot of the material that is pulled out of the city is part of the fabric that makes this city cool," says Provenance partner Scott Lash. "We're hoping that people will start looking at stuff that was probably put in other buildings at the time their buildings were built."

The team at Provenance has expanded in the last year, offering flooring and many salvaged items for home and garden projects. While the floor is still concrete and the showroom still has a warehouse feel, Lash believes the place has a much more retail feel, with more organization and better lighting, allowing easier browsing.

With the new space, Provenance hopes to offer home improvement classes and First Friday events, like the Happy Hour they hosted on October 1. Making connections in the tight-knit Northern Liberties neighborhood, Lash believes, will stimulate foot traffic and draw not only DIY weekend warriors but also artists and designers looking for vintage pieces and custom home projects.

"We hope to be doing art work in our space on a permanent basis," says Lash. "We want to display painting, old architecture and elements from buildings we've torn down because we feel like that brings out some interesting ideas."

Source: Scott Lash, Provenance
Writer: John Steele

When it comes to sharing experiences, Barney Leonard just can't help himself. As a veteran of corporate communications, Leonard has spent his career blogging and filming for profit. After five years searching for a home in Chester County, Leonard and his wife stumbled on a piece of land with views of the Brandywine River, nestled in the wooded seclusion of Pocopson Township near Chadds Ford. They decided to build their dream home and they decided to build it green. Leonard began chronicling the experience on a blog, 60BraggHill.com, named for the lot, in order to make some extra revenue and gain community support. This week, after three years of well-documented battles with state and federal regulators and Mother Nature herself, construction began on 60 Bragg Hill, the most sustainable property in Chester County.

"We decided that, not that we are tree huggers, but if you are going to start from scratch, why not be smart and use green building techniques," says Leonard. "What we didn't realize is how difficult that would be to do. We just broke ground but it took a long, long time."

As his project ran into several roadblocks, the blog became increasingly dramatic, gaining hundreds of weekly readers. For one thing, the wood from their property had been pillaged by loggers, leaving only stumps and remnants that had to be collected for construction. The property nudged up against the natural habitat of the endangered Bog Turtle, living in nearby wetlands. It wasn't easy being green, especially with an audience. But eventually, local construction companies began helping out, hoping to show off their sustainable abilities, and community support kept pressure on the powers-that-be. Today, Leonard firmly believes that without the blog, he never would have gotten this far.

"I will say this: the government agencies who issue permits and environmental groups who provide clearances for land disturbance tend to be highly conservative and overly cautious because these issues are new," says Leonard. "I want to go through this so maybe it will be a little bit easier for the next guy."

Source: Barney Leonard, 60BraggHill.com
Writer: John Steele

When Levi Strauss created his first work pants for Gold Rush workers in 1873, he fastened his stitches and buttonholes with hard, brass buttons and rivets for strength. Ever since, these brass denim appendages have symbolized the toughness of the American worker. So when the Fairmount Park Art Association approached Irish artist John Kindness to create a monument to Philadelphia's role in U.S. labor rights history, Kindness created seven brass work button tables, each representing a famous moment in Philadelphia labor history.

The monument, unveiled at Elmwood Park in Southwest Philadelphia last Friday, is part of a city-wide movement called New Landmarks, an effort to involve local citizens in the process of creating public art projects. When asked at various community meetings what sort of piece would best represent the Elmwood Park neighborhood, the vastly blue-collar Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood asked for a monument to the working man, to celebrate the history and the sacrifice of labor unions in the U.S.

"In Elmwood Park, they were very clear that they wanted to honor the working class because this particular park had actually been created for workers in industry because Westinghouse and General Electric and Hog Island Shipyard were all right there," says FPAA Executive Director Penny Balkin Bach. 

Each button table was molded out of brass and made to honor a famous event in history. Working with the Friends of Elmwood Park, Kindness, the son of a Belfast shipyard worker, created each table to be not only an urban history lesson but to make the park a gathering place for working people once again.

"These tables call attention to issues that are still going on today around the United States and across the world," says Balkin Bach. "It really calls attention to the really groundbreaking work and the debt that we all have to unions over the course of these many years."

Source: Penny Balkin Bach, FPAA
Writer: John Steele

In science fiction novels and books about the future, a few technologies are boilerplate: flying cars, meals in pill form and the ability to teleport instantly from place to place. National commuter rail company Amtrak took another step toward teleportation on Tuesday with its announcement of a high-speed rail vision plan. In Tuesday's news conference from University City's 30th Street Station, with Governor Ed Rendell on hand, Amtrak officials laid out their goal to create a line with average speeds well over 130 mph, saving passengers between one and two hours on average.

"Amtrak is putting forward a bold vision of a realistic and attainable future that can revolutionize transportation, travel patterns and economic development in the Northeast for generations," says Amtrak President and CEO Joseph Boardman.

The plan, entitled A Vision for High-Speed Rail in the Northeast Corridor, proposes a full build-out to be completed by 2040. Its construction, Amtrak says, would create more than 40,000 full-time jobs annually over a 25-year period, building new track, tunnels, bridges, stations, and other infrastructure. Predictably, the cost for such a project is high, $4.7 billion annually over 25 years. But Amtrak's feasibility studies peg the Northeast as a "mega-region" capable of drawing the type of rail traffic to make such an investment profitable. And with some premier legislative voices like New Jersey's Frank Lautenberg and Massachusetts' John Kerry already voicing their support, we may be teleporting out of 30th Street Station sooner than we think.

"Amtrak's High Speed Rail plan will create jobs, cut pollution and help us move towards a modern and reliable transportation system network in the Northeast," said Kerry in a recent statement. "As countries around the world continue to build out their transportation systems, we
cannot afford to fall further behind. This is an important down payment on the massive commitment necessary to bridge our infrastructure gap." 

Source: Joseph Boardman, Amtrak
Writer: John Steele

Walking down your neighborhood grocery aisle could have you believe your food traveled from around the world; that Mama Celeste brought her frozen pizzas straight from an Italian kitchen or that Log Cabin Syrup was tapped in a redwood cottage in the Pacific Northwest. In fact both those brands and many of your favorite foods are produced by the same local company. Pinnacle Foods, headquartered in Cherry Hill, NJ,produces everything from pickles to pretzels to cake mix, all from the same tidy corporate offices. But with its newest brand acquisition, frozen vegetable manufacturer Birds Eye Foods, Pinnacle had outgrown its current facility. This week, after a summer spent renovating a former Cherry Hill steel mill, Pinnacle dropped the curtain on its new corporate center.

"The reason for the new facility is because the company is growing and expanding," says Pinnacle VP of Corporate Affairs David Socolow. "With this acquisition, we have really reached big-company status, doing millions of transactions a year and all of those transactions are handled through this new facility. Our old facility was starting to get a little tight."

The announcement is big news for Cherry Hill, which offered business improvement and business retention grants totaling $1,102,600. This assistance was considered a major factor in Pinnacle's decision to remain and grow in South Jersey. The 57,000-sq-ft facility will allow Pinnacle to add 90 new jobs and keep an additional 130 jobs in the region. But according to Socolow, there was another reason Pinnacle kept operations close to home.

"Ultimately, we wanted to retain our existing, high-quality, well-trained workforce," says Socolow. "And also, this is a great place to attract new people. Because we are hiring to expand our company, this is a great place to attract talent in the food industry."

Source: David Socolow, Pinnacle Foods
Writer: John Steele

University of Pennsylvania's campus stretches across University City. But ever since the redevelopment of Locust Walk five years ago, the walk's endpoint at 40th and Walnut has been the undisputed hub of Quaker campus life. With gathering points like the Bridge movie theater and Marathon Grill, seminal college establishments like Smokey Joes, and massive grocery store the Fresh Grocer, the block has everything a college student could want. But with a new design competition hitting the streets this week, Penn students have the chance to give something back to everybody's favorite block.

In partnership with the University of Pennsylvania, University City District brings four design teams from the Design School and the School of Engineering to square off for the 40th Street Sustainability Smackdown. Each team has been assigned a business and must design a sustainability plan that will add renewable energy, reduce stormwater and air pollution, and work with alternative building materials. These efforts will culminate in an energy audit and creation of a comprehensive proposal for one of the participating buildings. The final review of plans and awards ceremony is set for Nov. 19.

"They are all very different," says UCD Project Manager Carolyn Hewson. "The Fresh Grocer is a larger structure that contains a garage, Marathon is  a restaurant, Metropolitan Bakery is a historic building so they all come with their own challenges."

Efforts to make local buildings more sustainable are part of the design and engineering programs at Penn and part of a concerted effort to continue development at the campus' hub. After partnering with Penn, Hewson sent e-mails to neighborhood businesses and even went door-to-door to create a buzz around the program. But if her instincts are correct, the competition will create a buzz all its own.

"Its a popular thing to do right now to have competitions to get greater interest and energy behind something," says Hewson. "And competitions within the design world yield great results and draw funding behind the winning team."

Source: Carolyn Hewson, UCD
Writer: John Steele
 

When former Library of Congress researcher Ann Tetreault decided to open a book store in Manayunk, she knew she would have to create an environment people can't get at Borders or on the internet. Tetreault created the Spiral Bookcase (112 Cotton St., Philadelphia), a new take on the neighborhood book store, where she is currently featuring a collection of rare and out-of-print books from the 19th and 20th century. When she and her fiance bought their first house, they fell in love with the Manayunk neighborhood and wanted the Spiral Bookcase to play on their varied literary interests, as well as a love for their new-found neighborhood.

"Since we both have different backgrounds--he did electrical engineering and I did the arts--the spiral was common to them both. From science and math to the arts and religion," says Tetreault. "But also Manayunk is the coming together of a lot of different people from locals to students to people from the suburbs who come and visit and we want to be inclusive to everyone there, allowing them to share their love of books."

Tetreault hopes to offer a neighborhood feel by expanding her hours, creating book clubs and participating in community events like last Saturday's EcoArts Fest. While a bookstore may seem like an old-fashioned idea in today's world, Tetreault believes that the feeling of holding a book in your hand is something that will never go away. It is that joy of first cracking a book that Tetreault hopes to bring to Manayunk.

"If you sit down with your kid with a Kindle, you lose that intimacy of having the child flip the pages and have that kind of closeness," says Tetreault. "It is a different experience browsing a selection of books than knowing what you want and going online and getting it. You can't recreate the bookstore experience with an online store."

Source: Ann Tetreault, The Spiral Bookcase
Writer: John Steele