Philadelphia's
Francisville neighborhood has a history of
best-laid-plans gone awry. The
neighborhood was originally called Vineyard after William Penn attempted
and failed to start a wine vineyard there in 1699. As the settlement
was designed to run along the early Indian trail Ridge Road (now Ridge
Avenue) its streets run diagonally, creating an odd kink in
Philadelphia's street grid. But as local activists prep Francisville
for new development, they hope to rebuild its legacy as
well as its infrastructure.
Their first order of business is The Vineyards, a 4,380-sq-ft, certified
LEED Platinum housing development beginning construction this week. A
clever play on that old William Penn story, The Vineyards brings
three-family residences in the form of pre-fabricated housing units,
each with 500-sq-ft, tenant-accessible green roofs. Officials hope housing will anchor the 20,000-sq-ft Francis Village Marketplace, a
mixed-use development project at the center of Francisville's
redevelopment plan.
"As a part of the Francisville community plan, the neighborhood set a
series of priorities and at the top of that list of priorities was to
bring back the Ridge Avenue Corridor," says 16th and Ridge Avenue
Property Owners Association President Anthony Miles. "The number two
priority was to bring back that corridor back green."
The project broke ground in June but was put on hold when officials
learned that a documentary team was interested in producing a
feature-length film based on the housing project. The documentary will follow construction officials and development teams as they prepare for the Vineyards, putting a green stamp on the Francisville legacy.
"We are actually shopping it around to PBS, Planet Green, NBC, CBS, and we'll be releasing webisodes of the documentary in January to get people excited," says Miles. "We are excited to show off what we believe is Pennsylvania's greenest and most technologically advanced homes."
Source: Anthony Miles, 16th and Ridge Avenue Property Owners Association
Writer: John Steele