PlanPhilly: Planning Philadelphia's Future

A Philadelphia Police Officer associated with the 2nd District has pleaded guilty to stealing from a supposed panhandler. Kevin Workman has been sentenced to three years’ probation for stealing from a woman he thought was a panhandler. She was actually an undercover police officer. Workman was arrested for taking $350 from the woman, and must [...]

Fisker Automotive Inc., which this week said it was laying off 26 workers at a former General Motors plant in Wilmington that was being readied for the manufacture of hybrid cars, said Thursday that it was unclear when production would begin there, given protracted talks over financing with the U.S. Department of Energy.

Fisker Automotive Inc., which this week said it was laying off 26 workers at a former General Motors plant in Wilmington that was being readied for the manufacture of hybrid cars, said Thursday that it was unclear when production would begin there, given protracted talks over financing with the U.S. Department of Energy.

As local residents packed into a tiny room at the Guerin Recreational Center in South Philadelphia, a sense of anticipation filled the air.

“This meeting represents a change in culture,” said Mark Keener, an urban designer and member of the Community Design Collaborative.

The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia held its second public meeting Feb. 1 to unveil its conceptual plans to make South Philadelphia more bike-friendly as a part of its Safe Streets for Healthy Neighborhoods initiative. Thirty members of the public gathered to listen and give feedback.

Susan Dannenberg, a member of BCGP, presented the roomful of eager faces with two options: a low-cost “quick-start” plan that would create a bike priority street and a “complete streets” plan that will require more funding.

Of all the low-cost measures, the most well-received were bike priority signs signifying bike traffic, speed humps specially designed to not ruin bike tires and not interfere with parking, and painted parking lines to encourage cars to park closer to the curb.

“It’s all about what will be most affordable and beneficial for the area,” said Bryant Carter, 34, a cyclist and resident of 11th and Wolfe streets. “I think markings on the street are the best way to go.”

The more extravagant measures under the “complete streets” plan were met with debate. For example, Dannenberg stated that “street trees” have been proven to reduce storm water accumulation and slow down traffic, making the roads safer for both bikers and motorists alike. However, many people at the meeting were concerned that trees would conflict with parking on some blocks.

“We contemplated removing parking, but realized this is not an option,” Dannenberg said.

Steven Cucinotti, an avid biker and member of the Queens Village Civic Association, said that the community won’t respond well to having things taken away or imposed on them.

“There’s going to be confrontation no matter what, so we have to tread softly,” Cucinotti said.

In order to gain public approval, he recommended starting small by painting lines and green lanes rather than suddenly adding speed bumps and trees to the neighborhood.

“We want to encourage biking in the area, but we need to involve people in the community,” Carter said in agreement.

So now the next step is heading back to the drawing board.

“The designers will take all the feedback [from the meeting] and develop a design to show the city,” said Sarah Clark Stuart, campaign director for BCGP. “The final conceptual designs will be presented at a big public meeting in April.”

Remember when it was a big deal if a mall had a food court? Now there’s word that Plymouth Meeting will apparently be the first enclosed mall in the United States to get a health-care center. That’s according to mall owner Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (NYSE:PEI), which says the 23,500-square-foot center should be open by September. It is a partnership with the operator of Mercy Suburban Hospital in nearby East Norriton, the Mercy Health System. Primary care doctors, specialists and others will have offices at the Montgomery County site...

I'M NOT a perfect Catholic. When Mrs. Paul had a monopoly on meatless Fridays, I sometimes managed to get my hands on a burger. Once, at confession, I lied about a sin, which must amount to purgatorial perjury. I've missed Mass, sassed the sisters behind

A 7-inch iPad is an idea that has been floated on the rumor mill and by analysts before, but the prediction was made once more by Ezra Gottheil of Technology Business Research. The analyst told Computerworld that he expects Apple won't introduce a Kindle Fire-sized iPad at the March event when it is expected to introduce the iPad 3. But Gottheil says it could come later this year. Amazon.com is the only company to successfully produce a 7-inch tablet device, the Kindle Fire, and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was pretty adamant that the approximately 10-inch size for the iPad is the ideal.

This winter has been a shifty one. One day is fair, the next, well, not particularly wintry. If the weather trends continue, spring cleanup this year should be a snap. No storm damage to worry about, for one thing; no ice dams on the roof, no clogged gutters, no overtaxed furnaces trying to keep up.

This winter has been a shifty one. One day is fair, the next, well, not particularly wintry. If the weather trends continue, spring cleanup this year should be a snap. No storm damage to worry about, for one thing; no ice dams on the roof, no clogged gutters, no overtaxed furnaces trying to keep up.

The value of Facebook's private shares have jumped by 10 percent since it filed for an initial public offering last week, giving it an estimated valuation of more than $100 billion. That market valuation is higher than a number of more established Silicon Valley technology giants, such as Hewlett-Packard, which has a market cap of about $58 billion. But Menlo Park-based Facebook is far behind the Valley tech company that is most valuable public company in the world, Apple. The iPad and iPhone maker's market cap has actually increased by about $100 billion, or the equivalent of one Facebook valuation, since co-founder Steve Jobs died in October...

When Barnes & Noble began its hunt last year for 100,000-square-foot-plus space to house its Nook development division, it was slim pickings in Palo Alto, writes Mary Ann Azevedo on Silicon Valley Structures blog. (While hardly a startup in the traditional sense, the company only recently entered the e-reader/tablet marketplace with its Nook products thus making it a startup of sorts in that space). In the end, the bookseller and e-reader/tablet maker ended up signing a lease for a nearly 208,000-square-foot building on Hillview in Stanford Research Park, where VMware used to be, as I reported in this week's Business Journal...

In Silicon Valley, the club of $1 CEOs is small, but it includes many household names: Hewlett-Packard's Meg Whitman, Oracle's Larry Ellison, and the Google guys, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt, writes Eli Segall on Silicon Valley BizBlog. Add one more to the list. At his request, Facebook’s 27-year-old CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, will take a $1 base salary starting Jan. 1 of next year. This week’s Business Journal looks at the $1 CEOs, and why there's no reason to start a charity fund anytime soon for them.

Chinese tech giant Huawei grew by being a "fast follower," John Roese, general manager of the company's North American R&D division, told me when I visited its Santa Clara campus recently, writes Diana Samuels on Silicon Valley BizBlog. The company, best known for making telecom equipment, looked at what its competitors were doing and followed them producing product at a lower cost. As I wrote in this week's Business Journal, Huawei has significantly ramped up its presence in Santa Clara over the last couple of years.

There was no official word about why trading of Alibaba Group Holding's Hong Kong listed unit's stock trading was halted on the Hong Kong exchange Thursday, but it's believed that it will soon announce a deal with Yahoo. Reuters cited unnamed sources who said the Chinese Internet giant run by Jack Ma plans to take its Hong Kong-listed unit, Alibaba.com, private. The news service said that a deal hasn't been finalized yet with Yahoo but the plan is to use borrowed money and internal cash as well as an asset swap to buy back most of a 40 percent stake that Yahoo owns in Alibaba Group.

The business: Local Food Systems creates B2B networks that connect local food warehouses, distributors and processors with high-volume buyers such as supermarkets, food services and large grocery chains. By automating and streamlining supplier business processes, this enables local food businesses suppliers to scale up to large buyers. Local Food Systems has built this supplier automation on technology from SAP AG. How it makes money: Local Food Systems charges the suppliers an installation fee for the process automation, and also gets a percentage of every transaction that the B2B network facilitates.

The Business Journal this week published a list of Silicon Valley electrical contractors, ranked by the total number of electricians based in the region. Information was obtained from company representatives. Here is a sneak peek of the top five. In order for a company to be considered for the list, the total number of electricians in the valley must be provided. The top five electrical contractors reportedly have over 2,000 electricians employed in the valley. The top five have over 4,500 electricians employed companywide...

A South Bay attorney has been sentenced to seven years in prison after he was convicted of defrauding investors of $1.1 million. David B. Prince ran an investment scheme from mid-2005 to early 2007 and defrauded more than 30 victims, prosecutors say. He was arrested in 2010 and, following a three-week trial, a federal jury convicted him last October of five counts of wire fraud. U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer sentenced Prince on Wednesday, citing Prince's status as a lawyer and the "extremely vulnerable nature" of his victims, according to the office of Melinda Haag, U...

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk unveiled his electric car company's third vehicle Thursday night —a sport-utility vehicle with "gull-wing" doors that he plans to start selling next year. The vehicle is the second that Tesla plans to assemble at the Fremont factory where Toyota and GM used to make cars. Orders are being taken but pricing and driving range figures were not provided. The SUVs qualify for a $7,500 federal tax credit that is aimed at encouraging electric vehicle sales.

Exchanging Glances | Rob Lybeck, Eyes on the Street Flickr group

Open Studio Night at PAFA

Friday, February 10, 5:30-8pm. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Hamilton Building. PAFA’s studios will be open to the public for the evening, allowing the public to meet students enrolled in PAFA programs and check out their work. Student artwork will be for sale to benefit Neighborhood Foods, a community development organization focused on urban agriculture.

Til Death Do Us Part: Love Stories of Laurel Hill

Saturday, February 11, 11am. Laurel Hill Cemetery, 3822 Ridge Avenue. Hear the stories of love and death at Laurel Hill, on a walk through the cemetery landscape. Dress for the weather, and be warmed by the tales as well as wine, chocolate and a fire after the tour. $20, $18 for students and seniors, $17 for members. Register and purchase tickets online or by calling (215) 228-8200.

Love Train

Sunday, February 12, 2:30pm, Starts at SEPTA headquarters, 1234 Market Street. Tour a special Valentine’s Day tour of the Love Letter Project, 50 murals painted by ESPO (Stephen Powers) along the El. Tour will be followed by cake and champagne at SEPTA headquarters. $25, advance ticket purchase advised.

Imagine you're in charge of an old postindustrial city with little open land and a perennially anemic economy. Then a vast district you never knew existed is discovered. It's like a scene from an experimental Czech novel: Pass through a secret door and there's a ghost street grid, handsome buildings from a grand era just out of reach, empty warehouses as big as tankers, and ships as grand as castles. Most of all, a broad waterfront, as close to the sea as your city is likely to get.