On October 1, the
Delaware River Waterfront Corporation (DRWC) and Mayor Michael Nutter formally opened DRWC's third permanent pier park.
Pier 68 -- located at the end of Pier 70 Boulevard -- offers an exciting new place for Philly’s fishing enthusiasts to cast a line into the Delaware (just be sure to get your
PA fishing license). Designed by
Studio Bryan Hanes, the firm behind the
Civic Commons plans in Parkside, the half-acre Pennsport pier joins the Race Street Pier (2011) and Washington Avenue Pier (2014).
Construction on the new park began last winter; the recreational fishing component was very important to the neighborhood.
"There is a very big demand for fishing along the river," explains DRWC President Thomas Corcoran. Until recently, people who wanted to drop their hooks "had to walk out on dilapidated piers which were not at all that safe, some of which were privately owned."
Pier 68 remedies that, with a third of the structure dedicated exclusively to fishing.
The pier also includes a feature similar to a popular one on the Washington Avenue pier: an "Aquatic Cut" -- a four-and-half-foot deep cut into the pier surface that lets visitors see into the tidal world. A "microcosm of the Delaware River’s pre-industrial ecology," according to DRWC, the cut will let students and visitors view a wide assortment of native aquatic plants be covered and then revealed by the tide every day.
Other features include an entrance deck that spotlights repurposed maritime bollards.
What’s a bollard?
"It’s what the ships tie up to," says Corcoran of the salvaged wood’s origins on piers of the past.
The new space also boasts a tree canopy that shields the pier from the parking lot and traffic to the west, and picnic tables on the pier’s southern edge.
Pier 68 is another milestone in the regional
Circuit trail project, with the Washington Avenue Pier and Pier 68 serving as bookends to the southern part of the developing Delaware River Trail. Ultimately, it’ll be a part of the
Spring Garden Greenway and the greater
East Coast Greenway.
Two years ago, DRWC built a demonstration section of what the finished Delaware River trail would look like at Spring Garden and Columbus -- a 28-foot-wide bi-directional bike path separated from a pedestrian path, with landscaping on both the road and river sides featuring cutting-edge stormwater management.
The pier project was the result of a major public/private collaboration between DRWC, several design teams,
Bittenbender Construction,
Hydro Marine Construction, the
Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the
William Penn Foundation, and a
Wells Fargo Environmental Solutions for Communities Grant, administered through the National Fish and Wildlife Service.
Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Thomas Corcoran, Delaware River Waterfront Corporation