neighborhood innovation : Development News

A "dinosaur" of a hospital on the corner of Broad Street and Passyunk Avenue is getting a new life as part of the ongoing revitalization of the area. Purchased three years ago by St. Agnes MOB LLC., a small investment firm, the former St. Agnes Hospital (a 150-year-old building) is now Constitution Health Plaza. According to leasing and marketing director Elizabeth Daly, 18 tenants are already installed in the four-building complex and the site's occupancy is ahead of schedule.

Constitution Plaza is part of a larger trend in healthcare. Over twenty hospitals closed last year in New Jersey alone, but complexes like this one -- that offer a variety of independent practitioners in one rehabbed space -- are beginning to take the floundering hospitals' place.

"The idea is one-stop shopping for the community, for any of your medical needs," explains Daly. "Somebody will be able to come to one building and go to different practitioners."

Constitution Health Plaza takes facilities management, security, utilities, real estate concerns, and other operations off its tenants' plates, with the aim of providing more cost-efficient medical care just in time for the influx of patients newly insured under the Affordable Care Act.

Plaza residents include a location of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Kindred Hospital, and specialists practicing dermatology to nephrology to psychiatry. And the facility is joint-commission certified, notes Daley -- the Kindred location has acute care inpatient capabilities, so a critically ill person can stay longer than 24 hours. While there are a lot of targeted options and the building is currently at about 75 percent occupancy, the complex doesn’t yet offer adult primary-care services. It’s a provider the plaza would definitely like to attract, along with dental care and an orthodontist.

The renovation plans kept some of the building’s original marble, but included modern upgrades such as an atrium with plenty of natural light, a fresh lobby and a security desk. The different floors are color-coded for ease of navigation, especially important for patients who might not speak English; the facility also boasts an attached 425-car parking garage.

A multi-million dollar exterior upgrade added outdoor security cameras, extensive new lighting, and a large high-definition video signage board advertising the health plaza's services as well as other community happenings.

"On the exterior we really want it to be a landmark along Broad Street," says Daly. "South Philadelphia is very unique neighborhood, and it’s pretty exciting for us to be right in the middle of where the revitalization is taking place…it’s complemented each other: [the]] investment in the building and people’s enthusiasm for the East Passyunk corridor."

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Elizabeth Daly, Constitution Health Plaza

A major upgrade is coming for Germantown Avenue's Vernon Park -- and it should be completed by this summer. On Friday, March 20, 8th District Councilwoman Cindy Bass will join Deputy Major Michael Diberardinis and representatives from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the Philadelphia Water Department, and the Fairmount Park Conservancy to break ground on the renovations.

Green 2015 (which launched in 2012), the project’s umbrella, is "an initiative to upgrade the quality of the public environment at our smaller neighborhood parks and recreation centers," explains Mark Focht, Philadelphia Parks and Recreation’s first deputy commissioner for parks and facilities. "We’ve worked really closely with members of [City] Council to have them select sites in their districts that have great citizen involvement, but needed some help or support."

Improvements to Vernon Park will include better walkways, new play equipment and the addition of adult fitness equipment so parents or grandparents can work out while the youngsters play. The make-over will also feature new benches and picnic tables.

"The other significant thing is we’re completely upgrading the lighting in the entire park, so all the paths will be re-lit with very high-quality lighting," says Focht. And compared to other Green 2015 participants (including Grays Ferry’s Stinger Square Park, another renovation currently underway), "Vernon is a little unique because we have these three major monuments in it…they’re great architectural and sculptural features in the park."

The current upgrade will include cleaning and new lighting for these landmarks.

The $1.2 million dollars for the project came mostly from the 8th District council office, to the tune of $850,000, with Parks and Recreation furnishing the remaining $350,000. The work will take place throughout April, May and June, and will not restrict access to Center in the Park or Vernon House. Only about half of the park will need to be closed completely, around the northern and western edges where the current playground is.

"We’ve committed to the Councilwoman and the neighbors that it’ll be done in time for their jazz concert series" in July, Focht insists.

The Vernon Park groundbreaking ceremony will take place on Friday, March 20 from 2 - 3 p.m.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Mark Focht, Philadelphia Parks and Recreation

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
 

Temple University alum Ariell Johnson first started to imagine opening her dream business when the independent coffee shop across from her favorite comic book store closed down. That was over a decade ago, before she graduated in 2005 with a degree in accounting.

As a self-described "geeky" woman of color who loves comics, Johnson says she’s a rare breed. She got serious about opening Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse, her coffee shop/comic book store/community arts hub, in the last few years. She looked in a few different neighborhoods for the perfect spot, including Lancaster Avenue in West Philly and South Philly’s Point Breeze, before finding her 3,000-foot space at the corner of Frankford Avenue and Huntingdon Street.

Frankford's burgeoning arts corridor and mixed neighborhood demographic -- families, single young professionals, recent college grads, artists -- convinced Johnson it was the right place for Amalgam. And among a lot of "fun quirky little shops," tattoo parlors and galleries on the avenue, there still aren't any comic book stores.

"For what I’m doing, I thought it would be a great fit here," she explains.

Amalgam’s future home is a mixed-use building with apartments attached to a commercial space. Johnson says the latter has been standing empty for over ten years. Its history is unclear, but some of the leftover equipment they’ve found, along with an old painting abandoned there, hint that it had another life as an Italian restaurant. 

"We’re in the process of getting renovations done," notes Johnson. "The space is not nearly finished."

To that end, she’s running a crowdfunding campaign through March 3 with a basic goal of raising $5,000 and a dream goal of $30,000, which will help cover renovation of the plumbing, electrical and HVAC systems, as well as installing Amalgam’s coffee bar and kitchen. (If Amalgam can meet that crucial $5,000 goal, it’ll be guaranteed to receive those funds, plus any money raised beyond that.) 

Ultimately, Johnson, a Maryland native who now lives just one street away from her shop, will draw on a range of professional experience to make Amalgam a reality: her business and accounting know-how, a history in retail, and even experience as a barista and self-taught chef. The space will be a haven for comic-book lovers and the wider community, with places for browsing, sipping and snacking as well as conversation, book signings, film screenings and other events.

Johnson will carry industry staples like X-Men and The Flash, but is particularly dedicated to showcasing comics featuring women and people of color after years of being an ardent fan, but rarely seeing anyone who looked like her in the pages she loved.

"Not seeing yourself reflected in different forms of media is damaging," she explains, especially for children. "I want to actively fight against that."

Because of the variables of construction, Johnson says it’s too soon to know an exact date for Amalgam’s grand opening, but she hopes to have it up and running as soon as late spring.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Ariell Johnson, Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse
 

Last year, when Flying Kite checked in with Philly’s Mighty Writers, a largely volunteer-powered group helmed by director Tim Whitaker, it had just nabbed a $75,000 grant from the Knight Foundation, which it planned to put toward opening a brand-new location in the heart of the Italian Market. That space will house a bilingual program called El Futuro.

Mighty Writers, now in its fifth year of serving youth ages 7 to 17, opened its original space at 15th and Christian Streets, and then a second one at 39th and Lancaster Avenue. Its programming includes mentoring, homework help, after-school sessions, writing classes and SAT prep.

According to Whitaker, former editor of Philadelphia Weekly, Mighty Writers launched a bilingual roster specifically geared toward Philly’s Mexican-American community about two years ago. Attendance at the 15th and Christian location has been enthusiastic and now Mighty Writers is on the cusp of opening a new space in the Italian Market, to better serve participants right in their own neighborhood.

Mighty Writers is hoping to close this week on a building two blocks north of Washington Avenue on 9th Street. The one-story space boasts about 2,500 square feet, with plenty of room for a variety of programming and new offices. After a few renovations, the group hopes to welcome youngsters there as soon as late February.

"There will be workshops for all, though focusing mostly on the Mexican community," says Whitaker. Workshop leaders will teach in both Spanish and English. Currently, Mighty Writers has five full-time employees, two part-timers and dozens of volunteers.

There will also be a daily after-school academy from 3 - 6 p.m., evening writing workshops and additional programming on the weekends.

Whitaker is particularly excited about the new location, flanked by fruit stands, a fish market and racially diverse businesses.   

"It’s really right in the middle of everything, which adds a lot for the kids to write about, a lot for them to see," he says. "It just feels like it’s the right place."

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Tim Whitaker, Mighty Writers

Three years ago, the nearly five-acre expanse of the John B. Kelly Elementary School grounds got the attention of the neighbors. The Kelly Green initiative, led by the Hansberry Garden and Nature Center in southwest Germantown and an enthusiastic coalition of volunteers, wanted to transform the barren grass-and-concrete lot into an educational, eco-friendly community space.

Now, according to project leader Dennis Barnebey, a Hansberry board member, the initiative is on the cusp of securing dollars from the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD). And thanks to a graduate class at Philadelphia University dedicating a semester to the project, they are also closing in on final plans for an affordable upgrade.

Kelly Green was jumpstarted in spring 2012 with a service grant from the Community Design Collaborative and a 2014 practicum at Philadelphia University that also focused on the site. But as it turned out, none of those plans were "shovel-ready." As Barnebey explains, they lacked specific construction details, measurements and precise cost estimates, and the estimates they had were far beyond the project’s fundraising power.

But the students at Philadelphia University "are convinced it doesn’t have to be that expensive," says Barnebey of the concrete plans the class will produce. They’ll capitalize on "the whole idea of naturalizing a space, as opposed to architecturally designing everything perfectly." That means a range of options, like building up hills for slides, sand areas for playing, and using a playground floor of crushed bark instead of an expensive porous soft-surface finish.

“For Philadelphia University, it’s an opportunity to get their hands on something real, not just in a book, and hopefully provide a model for other places," he adds. "They’re looking at ways this could be done affordably."

For now, thanks in part to volunteers from Penn State’s Master Gardener program, the site boasts a beautiful new student-planted garden with about fifteen beds for flowers and a huge range of vegetables. Local volunteers helped maintain the site over the summer, and last year, workers in a job-training program through Restorative Justice at the Mural Arts Program provided a new shed, picnic tables, and a garden fence with bird houses and butterfly boxes.

"Having that develop in the way that it has and seeing what can happen in that desert back there has helped change people’s minds [and] get more people on board," says Barnebey of the progress so far.

As for water management, the school site hosted a PWD representative in the first week of January, who, according to Barnebey, confirmed that Kelly Green is an ideal candidate for a Stormwater Management Incentive Program Grant. If they’re successful, that could mean up to $100,000 per eligible acre for new stormwater infrastructure, a boon for ongoing landscape efforts. 

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Dennis Barnebey, Kelly Green
 

Why stop at stormwater? The Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) is about to bring a total overhaul to the streets of Yorktown. With help from an $800,000 grant, the neighborhood is getting stormwater planters, new bus shelters, bike lanes, wider pedestrian islands and ten new ADA ramps.

PWD has been in conversation with the Yorktown Community Development Corporation and its partners since 2012 about the initiative, known as the Yorktown Green and Complete Streets project. They see it as a holistic effort that goes beyond greening. 

Ariel Ben-Amos, transportation liaison for PWD's Green Infrastructure Partnership Program, calls it the Water Department’s "triple bottom line." Adding a mile of bike lanes to the existing Philly network, as well as two new bus shelters (one at 11th and Girard, the other at 12th and Master), and 27 stormwater-catching planters along 12th and 13th Streets, "impacts people not only from an environmental perspective, but from a social perspective, and makes sense economically as well," he explains.

In addition to the investment in good stormwater infrastructure -- which helps relieve the city's over-burdened combined sewer system in compliance with the Clean Water Act -- the project will make it easier for people to walk, bike and access transit in the neighborhood, giving the whole area a boost. The new bike lanes will run on 11th and 13th Streets from Girard to Cecil B. Moore Avenues.

"One of the great things is that as you invest in neighborhood greening, you’re also investing in the homes and the values of the neighborhoods as well," adds Ben-Amos.

Jessica Noon, who manages the Green Infrastructure Partnership Program, says PWD knew the design it had "wasn’t something that we could fund on our own"; they applied for a grant through PennDOT and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development’s Multimodal Transportation Fund. The $831,360 PWD received was a piece of $84 million distributed to 86 projects state-wide, and PWD will contribute an additional $300,000 of its own matching funds for the project.

While at this point it’s not possible to make any guarantees about the timeline for completion, Ben-Amos says PWD could begin construction as soon as August, with an early goal of completion by the end of 2015.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Sources: Ariel Ben-Amos and Jessica Noon, Philadelphia Water Department
 

Creating a new trail is about more than just drawing up an idea and laying down the surface, says Chris Linn, who manages the Office of Environmental Planning at the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC). But a grant from the William Penn Foundation -- $7 million over three years -- will enable DVRPC and its partners at the Circuit Coalition, a consortium of almost 70 organizations, including non-profits, foundations and various public agencies in the greater Philadelphia region, to move forward with ambitious plans for local public space.

Launched in 2012, the Circuit Coalition, which has already worked to build 300 miles of multi-use trails connecting urban and suburban centers to nearby parks and waterways, hopes to complete 450 more miles by the year 2040. (For a map of Circuit trails and their status, click here.)

According to a DVRPC statement, $1.6 million over three years from the William Penn Foundation will also go to Circuit partner Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, raising public awareness for the Circuit’s network of trails, which, when completed, will be "the most comprehensive regional trail network in the country," says Conservancy president Keith Laughlin.

Most of the DVRPC William Penn dollars will go toward engineering and design of new trails.

"Before any trail project can be constructed, you have to prepare engineering drawings, and they’re not cheap," says Linn.

They include things like grading, retaining walls and bridges -- and these are just a few of the issues trail designers in our region contend with.

Does the trail meet a road? The Circuit needs to interface with PennDOT on proper signage, crossings and lights. Does it follow a disused railroad or cross a former industrial site? You have to check with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and deal with soil contamination from things like coal, heavy metals, PCBs or other toxins.

And who owns the land?

"You can’t just walk out and build a trail on land that’s owned by a private person or a company or a railroad, so you have to secure the right-of-way," explains Linn.

These are all issues that are anticipated, met and resolved in the design and engineering phase of a trail, which Linn estimates at about 20 percent of the total cost of any given project. So the Penn Foundation grant is no small thing for the Circuit’s vision. With so many miles of Circuit trails throughout nearby counties vying for design or completion, it’s pretty competitive when it comes to funding.

"When we have money in hand, we want to fund projects that we know aren’t going to get hung up on problems, and if a project is designed, we know what we’re dealing with," Linn insists. "[A well-designed trail] basically moves to the front of the pack in terms of being eligible or being desirable for any kind of construction funding."

"Philadelphia is blessed with some great parks," he adds, but it’s "glass half empty" in some ways, because many parts of the city don’t have easy access to large parks or trails.

DVRPC and the Circuit want to change that within 25 years. 

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Chris Linn, Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission

"Camden High School has been a project that has been talked about for years," says New Jersey Schools Development Authority (SDA) spokesperson Kristen MacLean. In December, a $50 million commitment from the state towards renovations for the site marked an exciting step forward after several tumultuous years.
  
The SDA has invested over $260 million in Camden projects to date (including five news schools). A 2008 capital plan that included Camden High got tabled when the auditor of New Jersey determined that it wasn’t in compliance with state statutes, and Governor Christie, then newly in office, suspended the plan until it could be corrected.

“We really sort of scrapped everything at the SDA [and] started looking at the projects for their needs and making a system to prioritize those needs that was very much in line with the statutes,” says MacLean of the organization’s response.
 
By 2011, that included a list of the state’s highest priority school projects, numbering about 150. SDA then developed a new capital plan to address the top ten most urgent jobs on that list, and Camden High School was one of them.

In June 2013, the School District was taken over by the state, and MacLean says the new superintendent brought "a whole new way of thinking about this project as well." 

According to a December 2014 statement from Governor Christie’s office, an Interagency Working Group -- made up of members from the SDA, the New Jersey Department of Education and Camden School District -- worked on defining the best way forward for Camden High. Camden City School District spokesperson Brendan Lowe confirms that while its graduation numbers have seen small increases in recent years, Camden City High, which has about 800 students, still has a graduation rate of about 50 percent.
 
“We need to improve the performance of the school in general and certainly the physical building, the quality of the facility, plays a role in school culture"” explains Lowe.
 
Would it need an entirely new building?
 
No, the Working Group concluded.

"There’s a great attachment to the school in the community and the building has pretty good bones," insists MacLean. So the new dollars will go toward an addition/renovation project, as well as improved programming.  
 
Lowe says more money from the state of New Jersey -- the exact amount depends on the design -- will make construction possible. The state expects to issue a call for design services early this year.
 
Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Sources: Kristen MacLean, The New Jersey Schools Development Authority; Brendan Lowe, Camden City School District. 
 

For West Philly's People’s Emergency Center (PEC), a special partnership with their teenage Community Connectors and the Public Workshop meant an opportunity to serve two major aspects of their mission: keeping locals informed, and activating problematic spaces in a positive way.

The vacant lot at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lancaster Avenue has long been a troubled place, but the youngsters of Community Connectors, an outreach and community organization group, worked throughout the summer to design and build a new picnic table and an attention-getting bulletin board to revamp the site.

"PEC works on getting information to people who don’t have internet," explains Meg Lemieur, a spokesperson for the PEC’s Community Development Corporation. Some people may have access to the web on a phone, but many don’t have it on a home computer.

So how do you keep residents informed about community events without Twitter and Facebook? You rely on the old school way of spreading the word.

The Community Connectors' bulletin board, constructed with the help of Public Workshop, is an all-weather bright orange box with PEC-provided plastic sleeves for anyone who wants to post information there. A November event celebrated the installation.

"It was a freezing-cold day and we had forty or fifty people come out anyway," recalls Lemieur. "There was a large cry-out for more of these [bulletin boards]."

So PEC is setting its sights on placing a second one at another vacant lot one block east; a spring 2015 installation is planned. In the meantime, the Connectors and Public Workshop have provided a fence to protect the lot, keeping it safe and clean for a roster of events like those already underway at the 42nd and Lancaster site. (These projects and events are funded by LISC Philadelphia, ArtPlace America and the Surdna Foundation.)

"There’s a lot of energy around making safe spaces in the neighborhood," says Lemieur. Projects like this help, "but it’ll be an ongoing process."

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source. Meg Lemieur, People’s Emergency Center
 

Julie Stapleton Carroll of the Germantown Community Charter School Coalition says the group saw it as "a good sign, and not just serendipity," that their application regarding the former Germantown High School site was the very first of 40 scheduled to be debated at an initial round of hearings with the School District’s Charter Schools Office (CSO).

Going first was also a little nerve-wracking, of course, Stapleton added. She’s a very active figure in local education: along with spearheading the Coalition, she’s vice president of Germantown United CDC and CEO of Principled Schools, Inc.

More than 50 Germantowners -- wearing customized green t-shirts to show their support -- attended the December 8 hearing at 440 North Broad Street. The presentation was limited to 15 minutes and did not include many details of the proposed charter school’s educational program.

“We didn’t go deeply into our curriculum," explains Carroll. "We just wanted to paint a picture of how we came about and who we were and what we wanted."

The Coalition got its start in spring 2013 through GUCDC, just as the school was facing closure by the District. It has 25 partner organizations including Philadelphia University, Germantown Life Enrichment Center, the Germantown Artists Roundtable, the Germantown High School Alumni Association and multiple neighbors’ associations, along with support from State Representative Stephen Kinsey.

While the group awaits its second CSO hearing, Carroll fills Flying Kite in on the school’s proposed educational model. While she insists it won’t be a vocational tech school, the Coalition's proposal will meld rigorous academics with a "project-based" occupational focus on the hospitality, tourism and construction trades.

This makes sense to local stakeholders given Germantown’s burgeoning tourist district and 400+ years of history, including numerous nationally notable sites dating from the 17th and 18th centuries.

"Tourism is a huge industry," says Carroll. "Germantown is at a tipping point really in where the local commercial corridor is going to go."

The charter school would cater to grades six through twelve. For the first three years, students would have weekly classes on "career exploration" topics geared towards understanding these industries, along with tips for job interviews and personal conduct.

Ninth through twelfth-graders would undertake more in-depth studies in their chosen focus areas, including work with local institutions.

"Our hope, our vision as the school grows, is that we can attract both a restaurant and a small boutique hotel to co-locate with us," adds Carroll.

Carroll predicts that second hearing will occur in late January. Representatives will answer questions about the application from a hearing officer and have the opportunity to make a final statement. The School Reform Commission has 75 days from the December 8 presentation to decide the school's fate. 

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Julie Stapleton Carroll, Germantown Community Charter School Coalition
 

When Temple University architect Margaret Carney first toured the campus, something struck her as unusual.

"I was surprised to see how little open space there was," she recalls. "When you think about a campus, the open space that is the core and heart of the campus is generally the most memorable spot."

That’s why she calls a large proposed green space at Temple, part of the university’s Visualize Temple plan, "a real game-changer for Temple and really for North Philadelphia."

The quad is proposed for the city block between 12th and 13th Streets, and Norris and Berks Streets (Polett Walk on the Temple campus); it will be close to the size of Rittenhouse and Washington Square Parks.

While Temple doesn’t have plans to expand beyond its footprint, the opportunity for this new green space is an exciting one for the university and the local community. Temple has the challenges of a city campus, explains Carney. Instead of an overarching master plan that would be easier to enact in a less populous zone, Temple has had "more organic growth as city blocks became available."

Though the space hasn’t been formally designed yet, Carney can already point to a multitude of possible uses, from walking, biking, picnicking and lawn sports to festivals, farmers' markets and commencement itself (the finished green could hold as many as 10,000 spectators).

The area is also an essential part of the overall campus landscape plan that will soon go public -- that plan has a special focus on stormwater management thanks to partnerships with the Philadelphia Water Department and Temple researchers.

So, in addition to being a social and recreational gathering space, the new quad will be engineered as "a workhorse in terms of stormwater management," explains Carney, with the capacity to help manage runoff from nearby sidewalks and buildings for impact beyond the lawn.

Of course, the whole thing is still years away. There are currently two science buildings on the proposed site -- outdated biology and chemistry labs from the 1960s. Before stormwater engineering and landscaping plans can be completed (which will take about a year), those science buildings need to be demolished. They will be replaced with a new interdisciplinary facility in another location, which could be built by 2019 if fundraising, design and construction proceed according to plan.  

That means the new park could be open by late 2020 or early 2021.

Five or six years might seem like a long time, but in the life of a university, it’s right around the corner. Carney hopes the park will be a major boost for the experience of students, faculty, staff and neighbors alike.

"There’s a lot of excitement about this space," she insists.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Margaret Carney, Temple University 

When this year’s call for applications for the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) IMPACT Awards of Greater Philadelphia came in, staffers at Center City’s Community Design Collaborative (CDC) saw a big opportunity.
 
GSK has been awarding these $40,000 grants annually for about twenty years -- that’s almost $6 million for 150 local nonprofits focused on some aspect of improving community health and quality of life in categories such as Diet and Exercise, Education, and Family and Social Support. In 2014, GSK added a new category: the Built Environment.
 
Collaborative leaders knew they couldn’t pass up the chance to apply, and this fall they learned that they were among eight organizations (out of a pool of about 100 applicants) to win a $40,000 grant. (GSK partnered with United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey for the 2014 round of Philly grants.)
 
"Community health and wellness is definitely one of the themes we could address," says Collaborative Executive Director Beth Miller of pursuing the program. It was the first time the Collaborative had applied, and it was "a super-duper honor" to be chosen, winning alongside organizations such as the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and the University City District.
 
The recognition is an important boost for an organization like the Collaborative, explains Miller. While completed blueprints, groundbreakings and openings always grab the most press, the vital legwork behind those milestones can be hard to notice or articulate. The group doesn’t provide finalized architectural plans and it doesn’t assist in the construction of the projects it works on, but its design-related services, including community outreach and discussion, public charrettes, conceptual designs and cost estimates -- all key to luring investors and developers -- serve as a vital bridge from neighborhood needs to actionable plans.
 
The GSK grant will benefit a range of efforts in 2015, including five new community health and wellness projects. These are yet to be determined, but, as Miller puts it, they’ll "bubble up" from the local organizations involved.  
 
The dollars will also aid a revamp of the organization's website; the new site will include a gallery of past projects and a package showcasing the work the organization has done to galvanize new futures for 18 public schoolyards.
 
Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Beth Miller, Community Design Collaborative

The intersection of 10th and Vine Streets has been a sore spot for years in the Chinatown community -- the construction of the modern Vine Street Expressway razed countless homes and businesses, effectively splitting the neighborhood in half. But the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC) got exciting news in October: a $3.7 million Pennsylvania Economic Growth Initiative grant. It’s a major step toward making the Eastern Tower Community Center, planned for the northwest corner of that infamous intersection, a reality.

"We’ve looked around, but we haven’t found anything quite like it," says PCDC managing director Andrew Toy of the planned 23-story building, which has a projected budget of $76 million. That’s not just because of the size and cost -- which as far as PCDC knows, is the largest ever undertaken by a Philadelphia CDC -- it’s because when it’s finished, the Eastern Tower will house an unprecedented range of services and programs.

Those include 150 mixed-income residential units (which Toy estimates will mean at least 250 new neighbors on the 10th Street business corridor), a bilingual preschool and prekindergarten program from the Chinatown Learning Center, a grocery store, a recreation and community center, programming for seniors, a computer lab, and even doctors’ offices focused on preventive care for a linguistically under-served population.

Part of the story on the project’s financing is its special status through a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)-administered program: Eastern Tower is an EB-5 qualified investment project. This is a low-interest brand of international financing that targets areas of the U.S. with high unemployment and focuses on creating jobs. And it’s not just about a financial return -- foreign investors who help create ten jobs for every $50,000 they spend can receive green cards for themselves and their families.

A grant from the William Penn Foundation helped PCDC set up a dedicated regional center to act as a conduit for these investments, and since it will continue to operate once the Eastern Tower project is complete, Toy hopes it will become a permanent gateway for development in the area.

Even local youngsters have been getting involved -- for example, the Philadelphia Suns, a neighborhood sports and volunteer organization, recently raised money for the project.

“The youth of the community are getting more and more engaged, because they see this as a real thing and they’re getting excited about having a place of their own,” says Toy. “Success has a lot of mothers.”

"It wasn’t easy and it didn’t happen overnight," he adds. But with local, state and federal support, the project is currently on track to finalize its financing by early 2015. They’re looking at "a shovel in the ground" this winter, with an official opening slated for early 2017.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Andrew Toy, Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation
 

You want to buy a house. Besides your agent and a pre-approval on a mortgage, where do you start? It’s easy to get a comprehensive look at what’s available for sale through multiple listing services (MLS) like Trulia or TREND, filtered by categories such as location, property type and price. But what if you want to rent an apartment?

In Philly, you’re often doomed to crowdsourcing your social networks, hoping a friend of a friend has space to rent, or wading through the swamps of a website like Craigslist, whose listings, once posted, can’t be updated and can get buried in a matter of minutes.

Ishay Grinberg, the founder and CEO of Boston-based Rental Beast, calls the rental status quo in Philly "a nightmare," and he wants to change that. His site is an MLS for rentals, and it’s ready to put about one million listings at prospective renters’ fingertips through its network of hyper-local real estate experts.

"About forty percent of the population rents, and about forty percent of the population will continue to rent," explains Grinberg, acknowledging the boom in home-ownership that peaked in 2005  -- and, well, we all know what happened next.

"Almost everywhere you look if you drive around, you start seeing ‘for rent’ signs," he says of Philly, where a Rental Beast team is already set up in Center City, readying an official launch for early 2015. "There’s plenty of demand to be satisfied."

Rental Beast works for renters as well as landlords and property managers, from those handling just a few properties to those handling thousands. In less than five years, the company has seen huge success in Boston, nabbing 70 percent of the city’s market share. Now its sights are set on Philly, its suburbs and the surrounding area, including central Pennsylvania, and parts of Delaware and New Jersey.

"We’re completely free for landlords of any size to list with us," insists Grinberg.

That free-of-charge model for both landlords and prospective tenants is supported by large brokerages who partner with the company for access to its inventory, and provide a portion of the broker fee when a property is leased through the site.

But the service isn’t just about aggregating and maintaining the most up-to-date, customizable info from landlords, managers, brokers, neighborhood experts and wider market data. Users also have access to tools for everything from proper pricing to drawing up the lease to finding contractors for when there’s quick turnover on a unit.

"When small landlords have a unit turn over, they don’t have an armada of maintenance people like the large managers do," explains Grinberg. For jobs like cleaning, sanding or painting, Rental Beast maintains a free database of vetted service providers.

Philly’s "good startup community" is part of the reason he’s bringing Rental Beast to the area. With the growing trend of millennials staying in the city to work or launch their own ventures after graduation, he insists it’s the perfect time to simplify the rental market.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Ishay Grinberg