Mar. 17, 2009
By Thomas J. Walsh
For PlanPhilly
An ambitious expansion of the Port of Philadelphia – and the accompanying dredging of the Delaware River – south of the Packer Marine Terminal and including a large swath of the former Navy Yard, is in the works, officials from Gov. Ed Rendell’s office and other agencies told the Philadelphia City Planning Commission on Tuesday.
The first phase of the large project, on about 150 acres, would be in the $400 million range, and could be underway a year from now. Kate McNamara, special assistant to Gov. Rendell for maritime activities in Southeastern Pennsylvania, said that four finalists have been identified in a request-for-proposal process that would likely mean the dredging of the Delaware River to a 45-foot level. (McNamara was the former director of the Port of Philadelphia and Camden, as well as a former assistant general counsel of the Delaware River Port Authority.)
The finalists for what would be known as the “Southport Marine Terminal” were identified as:
1. Holt/Hamburg (a partnership of two firms)
2. MOL/TraPack (a Japanese shipping line and its North American subsidiary)
3. Delaware River Stevedores Inc. (which operates the Tioga Marine Terminal in Philadelphia; the Port of Wilmington, Del.; and the Beckett Street Terminal in Camden)
4. “Southport Development Partners” (This is a new entity, a group of “international terminal operators” and “other investors,” McNamara told the commissioners. No other details were available from the Governor’s office, but the partnership is said to be an international mix of players.)
Whoever wins the bid, it would be a public-private partnership, the Planning commissioners were told, during a 20-minute introductory, “information-only” presentation.
“Most of the proposers say they’d like to see a 45-foot channel in order to make the project viable,” McNamara said, in response to a commissioner’s last-minute question about dredging.
The geography for the terminal would consist of existing Navy Yard land and properties adjacent and north of it, currently controlled by the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development (PAID) and the Norfolk Southern freight railroad concern. (PAID, in short, is a city public authority, the finance and bond-issuance arm of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp., or PIDC, which in turn is the city’s “quasi-public” economic development agency.)
McNamara said the project for a new container terminal between Packer Avenue came about after consistent year-over-year increases in global marine cargo traffic to the East Coast, pushed in large part by higher costs and congestion at West Coast ports. “We want to be able to capitalize on that,” she said, adding that Norfolk, Baltimore, New York and Boston all have increased capacities in recent years.
The winner of the bid would build and operate the new terminal for 30 to 50 years, generating “substantial jobs, tax revenues and a big economic impact to the region,” McNamara said. The operator will also finance development of the project and provide the ongoing revenue streams.
Staff overruled on first-ever conservation district matter
Planning commissioners on Tuesday overturned the commission’s staff recommendation to deny a developer an exception to rules contained within the new Queen Village Conservation District. It was the first time a case had been brought before the commission after the establishment in 2008 of the city’s first (and still its only) conservation district.
Not to be confused with a historic district, the Queen Village Conservation District was brought about by the Queen Village Neighborhood Association. The matter Tuesday concerned Louis Zahner, owner of sites at 522-56 Carpenter Street, who was actually supported by neighborhood advocates because his parcels are in the midst of a blighted area that was originally meant to be excluded from the conservation district.
Zahner’s plans include street-level garages and building materials strictly against the neighborhood’s new code. He claimed hardship due to a lack of communication between the city’s Planning, Zoning, and Licenses & Inspections departments. After much back-and-forth, along with neighborhood testimony supporting Zahner and none opposed (aside from the Planning Commission’s professional staff), the owner was granted relief. (See accompanying video for full discussion between staff, commissioners, Zahner and Queen Village neighborhood advocates.)
Parkway, Locust plans
There was also an “information-only” presentation about a garden and landscape rejuvenation project at the Rodin Museum, with streetscape improvements at its Benjamin Franklin Parkway location.
Mark Focht of the Fairmount Park Commission and Gail Harrity of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with others, presented initial plans to tie the Rodin Museum (one of the city’s most frequented sites by international visitors) into a better, more seamless, pedestrian- and bike-friendly stretch of the Parkway from 20th through 22nd streets. Landscape improvements have been commissioned from Olin Partners, and would marry, in a fashion, the Rodin to the new Barnes Foundation museum, school and grounds, now underway across the street. (See accompanying video for details.)
Locust hotel OK’ed
The owners of the “Lincoln on Locust,” the fire-damaged building at 1222 Locust Street, were back, seeking approval for their conversion plan to turn that existing structure building into a 92-room hotel. It was approved to move forward in the process, with no discussion among commissioners. The building’s current zoning would require 47 parking spaces and a nine-foot rear space for loading. This project has no parking space or loading capacity at all.
But for most of its life – since 1893, pre-dating Philadelphia’s first zoning code by four decades – 1222 Locust has been a hotel. Because of that, and because the project aims to replace the parts of the building damaged, commissioners gave it the nod.
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Zoning Bill No.090071: Amending the Zoning Code by adding a new section entitled "Overbrook Farms Transit Oriented Center Special District Controls" (Introduced by Councilmember Jones on February 5, 2009; Presented by Martin Gregorski).
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Institutional Development District Master Plan Amendment for Drexel University (Presented by Martin Gregorski).
Planners planning plans
Executive Director Alan Greenberger started the meeting off with his customary monthly update. “We’re actually planning,” he said, cheerily. “We’re doing planning work. There’s a lot going on.” Among the ongoing projects:
The long-term plan for the Market East section of the city, being undertaken by New York-based Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects is one-third to halfway done. “We are doing that at the moment, absent further data from the casino people,” Greenberger reported. (See Feb. 24 PlanPhilly story: http://www.planphilly.com/node/8361)
The area of 9th and Berks streets in North Philadelphia, “an example of an area of the city that has a lot of assets,” is being examined in partnership with the Redevelopment Authority as a candidate for Transit-Oriented Development, akin to the current Germantown-Nicetown TOD plan (http://www.philaplanning.org/plans/gtwntoplansum.pdf). With a “robust transit station” at Temple University, a relatively new – and rare for the inner city – supermarket at 5th and Berks and other attributes, Greenberger said his staff is looking at how to parlay public properties there into a disposition plan with the RDA.
The Planning Commission’s Urban Design Division is doing a physical plan for streetscape work at 30th Street Station, cooperating with Amtrak, SEPTA, the Schuylkill River Development Corp. and other stakeholders. It follows a November presentation to the commissioners by architect Bernard Cywinski of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson on his “Station Square” outdoor project – for the public space on the 2900 block of West Market Street, between 30th Street Station and the former Post Office. (PlanPhilly: http://www.planphilly.com/node/4487)
The commission is dong its part for the city’s recent uptick in emphasis on industrial re-use. Greenberger said he’s looking for small-scale “G2” industrially zoned parcels with development around them. “We are starting to accumulate those sites with an eye toward re-zoning to improve areas,” he said.
The “Imagine Philadelphia” comprehensive plan will be unfolding in the coming months, and wrapped up into presentation in the next month or two (http://www.imaginephiladelphia.org).
The last of the councilmatic district public input hearings for the Zoning Code Commission was held last week. A request-for-proposal for a new phase of the consultancy – to actually write the code itself (not the re-mapping) – has been approved and is scheduled to begin in the summer of 2010. (See March 11 PlanPhilly story on the ZCC’s recent meeting: http://www.planphilly.com/node/8455)
Contact the reporter at thomaswalsh1@gmail.com.
PlanPhilly: Planning Philadelphia's Future