Drexel University's new
Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation has launched an ambitious cross-continental educational partnership that imagines a new future for the Lehigh Viaduct in North Philadelphia. They are also tackling a neglected power station (built in the 1920s) and a largely vacant 300,000-square-foot building that covers almost 1,000 feet of waterfront.
The Lehigh Viaduct and these nearby buildings are the perfect focus for an intensive planning project, says Harris Steinberg, executive director of the Lindy Institute and a professor of architecture and interiors at Drexel's
Westphal College. The largely abandoned sites have "a lot of connections with work that’s being done in this country as well as around the world, particularly in Europe, around repurposing former industrial infrastructure," he explains.
Steinberg, formerly of the
University of Pennsylvania, has a lot of experience in this area. For the last fifteen years, he has worked with groups like
PennPraxis on addressing the waterfront, including 2006-2007's
Civic Vision for the Central Delaware public planning process, which engaged over 4,000 people in 13 months. That project included the power station and viaduct the Lindy Institute is focusing on now.
The planning process occurred right before Mayor Michael Nutter came into office, and his administration used that work to create a master plan in partnership with the
Delaware River Waterfront Corporation.
The Lehigh Viaduct is a raised embankment connector that runs into the heart of North Philadelphia, from the Port Richmond rail yards to the Girard Avenue interchange at I-95. This overgrown industrial remnant is off-limits to the public. While the Conrail-owned track -- which currently has just one active rail line left -- is not likely to see significant redevelopment right away, Steinberg still insists it’s "a longer-term possibility" to compile a publicly accessible plan for the future.
That will be done via tours, charrettes and workshops, including “
Creative Transformations: Lessons from Transatlantic Cities,” a free public discussion that took place at
Moore College of Art on February 26. It featured a panel of local and international experts, and was hosted by Drexel, the
William Penn Foundation and the
German Marshall Fund of the United States. Fifteen students and two faculty members from Germany's
TU Dortmund University recently arrived to collaborate with a group of urban design students from Drexel.
"Can it become an amenity as opposed to just an element that divides Port Richmond and Kensington?" asks Steinberg. He hopes the workshop events, running in late February and early March, will give "some more ideas on potential reuse with some economic viability to it. The high-level question we’re asking is how do you repurpose these industrial assets which are not easy to transform, but could have an incredible catalytic impact on the regeneration of those neighborhoods?"
Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Harris Steinberg, Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation at Drexel University