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May 12

Inquirer casino resource package (some in PDF form)

Mayor Nutter on Foxwoods site

By Kellie Patrick Gates
For PlanPhilly

SugarHouse and Foxwoods casino interests say they are going forward with plans to build at their riverfront sites. They will not discuss alternative locations, nor terms that could persuade them to move.

"Moving is not an option," said SugarHouse spokeswoman Leigh Whitaker.

"There have been many attempts to push relocation, and we're not moving. We're there," said Foxwoods' Maureen Garrity.

But in this long-running game of slots chicken, a group of elected officials and community activists are not blinking, either.

Be it through legislation or lawsuits, protests or the discovery of protected species or ancient artifacts, they pledge to convince the casino operators that opening day will come sooner and easier if they move to locations in Philadelphia away from Delaware Avenue/Columbus Boulevard.

And while the casinos won't talk of any sites beyond those that they've chosen and the state Gaming Control Board endorsed, lots of other locations have been floated during the past two years by community activists, local and state politicians, and the Philadelphia Gaming Advisory Task Force, which identified 11 locations in 2006 (see PDFs below).

Support for airport site

Among the most popular: The airport, a site that is too close to Harrah's in Chester under existing rules, but would be viable if legislation crafted by Sen. Vince Fumo and representatives Bill Keller and Michael O'Brien is adopted in Harrisburg.

"I think the airport could certainly accommodate the casino - one or both," said Hillary Regan, a neighborhood activist from Northern Liberties. Regan likes the idea for the same reasons the legislators do: It is surrounded by parking lots and industry, not neighborhoods. It is reachable by I-95, I-76 and SEPTA. And people at airports generally have a lot of time to kill.

An airport location would "minimize the cost to local people and maximize revenue coming in from other places," Regan said.

Regan also thinks the former PECO power station in Port Richmond would make a good site. It is at least 1,500 feet from neighborhoods, the building boasts beautiful architecture, and the grounds need to be environmentally cleaned up. "Let's put it in a place that can use economic development," she said.

But the casinos say they have already chosen the best sites, and they intend to stick with them.

"We chose our site based on its size, location, access from I-76 and I-95, visibility from the Ben Franklin Bridge, and the attractiveness of being along the river," Whitaker said. "Locating along the river has enhanced the design of our project by allowing for a public waterfront promenade, public green space, and the ability for Philadelphia residents and visitors to enjoy outdoor activities while taking in a great view of Camden and the Ben Franklin Bridge."

The better the location, the more money the casino brings in, and the greater benefit to the community, Whitaker said. She also pointed out that there are no neighbors on two sides of the project, and said Delaware Avenue would serve as a buffer between the casino and the residential neighborhoods.

Foxwoods' Garrity said that when the casino looked into getting into gaming in Pennsylvania, it looked at sites across the Commonwealth. The proposed South Columbus Boulevard location isn't just the best in the city, she said, it's the best in the state. "It's highly visible, it's on the water between two bridges, it's in a commercial area," she said. "I-95 buffers the community, and it's location is close enough to Center City that there is synergy with other tourist attractions and the sports complexes," she said.

Critics say that if people will travel to Las Vegas to visit casinos that are in the middle of a desert, they would go anywhere to gamble, so the waterfront isn't necessary.

Both Garrity and Whitaker strongly disagree.

Both casinos plan non-gambling destinations - restaurants and cafes, for example.

"In Phase III, we're looking at a spa, a meetings and conference space, and maybe condos," Garrity said. "The waterfront makes these things attractive even to people who don't gamble."

The waterfront also allows any developments on the Philadelphia side to benefit from the ball park, concert space and other attractions on the New Jersey side, said Garrity, who imagines water taxis motoring back and forth.

Many of the people who live in the neighborhoods near SugarHouse and Foxwoods don't see it that way. They fear increased traffic and crime, noise, and depressed property values. And many feel completely left out of the state process that resulted in legalizing casinos and deciding on their locations.

One pro-casino group of Fishtown residents, Fishtown FACT, vocally supports SugarHouse and its chosen location. FACT leaders say the casino will bring jobs and otherwise boost the economy and improve the neighborhood. The neighborhood will profit from the casino's profits through a community benefits agreement, they say.

Garrity, of Foxwoods, said she believes the anti-casino and move-the-casinos crowds are vocal minorities of Philadelphia residents. "We obviously want to have a good relationship with our neighbors, and we believe that is entirely possible," she said. But Foxwoods is more than a South Philadelphia issue, she said. "The number in opposition is far outweighed by the number who would receive tax relief from it," she said. "This is a Commonwealth issue."

The Philadelphia factor

The proposed casino locations have deeply affected how politics plays out in Philadelphia.

Prior to Mayor Michael Nutter taking office, city council and the mayor's office were often at odds on the casino issue. While Councilman Frank DiCicco took developers on tours of alternative sites, former mayor John Street wanted construction to begin as soon as possible. Street agreed with Gov. Ed Rendell that casinos would provide vital tax relief and, in the waning days of his administration, the casinos received permits and reached agreements with the city that in theory would allow them to move forward.

Street had no problem with the locations, but his Planning Commission chair, Janice Woodcock, did not like them. At a heated city council rules committee meeting last June, DiCicco asked Woodcock whether as a planner, she would recommend a waterfront site for the casinos, and specifically whether she would recommend the Foxwoods and SugarHouse sites.

Woodcock said perhaps one waterfront casino would be workable, but not two of them. She could not recommend either Foxwoods or SugarHouse, she said, because both are too close to neighborhoods and Foxwoods has traffic-related issues. The Pinnacle site might have been a good one, she said.

(Pinnacle Entertainment wanted to build on Delaware Avenue between at Susquehanna Avenue and Beach Street. That was one of five sites and five applications that the state's gaming control board considered when it chose the two Philadelphia sites. The other rejected sites: Riverwalk at a former incinerator site on Delaware Avenue at Spring Garden and TrumpStreet at the former Budd site, Fox Street and Roberts Avenue. It should also be noted that the Planning Commission ultimately reviewed and approved the plan of development for both current waterfront sites.)

Soon after taking office, Mayor Nutter ordered a review of all casino-related decisions made by the city that preceded him. His administration revoked a key permit that SugarHouse needs to build on riparian lands along the river (that's now the subject of a state Supreme Court case). His legal team is looking for a way to renegotiate a tax agreement with Foxwoods.

In a recent interview, Nutter said Foxwoods' location problems are much worse than SugarHouse's.

"Sugarhouse has its challenges, but I think that there may be more opportunity to mitigate some of the traffic concerns at that location than at the Foxwoods location," he said.

Nutter would not discuss the airport or any other specific alternative sites for Foxwoods, but he said that his staff has looked at other sites, including some that are owned by the city, or quasi-city agencies. He said it is too premature to say whether the city would put up any money to cover what Foxwoods has already spent on its current site, as a means to persuade them to move.

His team "has not had any conversations or contact with SugarHouse people with regard to siting," he said. He noted that various parts of the administration are dealing with issues related to the site, however, including the riparian rights question.

In part, Nutter said, he's spent more time focusing on the Foxwoods site than SugarHouse's because "they had not been granted anything at the time I came into office. SugarHouse had already received their Supreme Court ruling."

That would be the ruling that awarded SugarHouse the Commercial Entertainment District zoning it needs to build on the site. The state Supreme Court ruled that the city and city council had been stalling on the issue. Since Nutter took office, the Supreme Court also ruled that Foxwoods should have CED zoning for the same reason. City Council asked the court to reconsider, since Council was reviewing a proposal to grant Foxwoods its CED. Last week, the court said it was standing by its decision. Council is reviewing its options.

Can Foxwoods be re-sited? "Anything is certainly possible if people want to work together to accomplish a particular goal," Nutter said. "It has a lot of components and it's immensely complicated. But if an agreement could be reached with the city, the General Assembly, the Gaming Control Board, it certainly seems it would be possible."

Battle of wills

The mayor is talking about persuading Foxwoods to move voluntarily.

Governor Rendell says persuasion is the only way - casinos cannot be forced to move. "Resiting would be close to impossible under the law," said Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo. "The governor had early in the process offered the license holders an opportunity to re-site of their own volition, and they turned him down cold."

Rendell's letter included alternate site suggestions and money to abandon the existing sites, Ardo said, and the casinos' refusal convinced him there was nothing more to be done, Ardo said. These days, Rendell is just tired of the delays, and wants construction to get underway. "The continued lack of progress is frustrating," Ardo said.

A spokesman for the Gaming Control Board also said casinos could not be forced to move. When asked if they could move, with their current licenses, if they chose to, he said it was an untested premise, and the answer would not be clear unless and until one of them tried.

Persuading them to try - with carrots or sticks - has been the method those who want the casinos elsewhere have focused on so far. About a year ago, Fumo offered money. Mostly, though, activists and legislators alike have seized on opportunities to fend off construction.

An entire Supreme Court battle hinges on whether the city had the right to grant SugarHouse riparian rights, or had the right to revoke the permit. Foxwoods says it doesn't need riparian rights, but the waterfront legislators disagree, and promise a battle there, too.

SugarHouse is also waiting on an Army Corps of Engineers decision on a waterway encroachment permit they need. The process requires a historical review, and local historians discovered the site was once home to a Revolutionary War fort. Native American artifacts have been unearthed at the site, and local historians have joined former East Coast tribes in lobbying for more exploration. The historians are not anti-casino. Most do not mind the proposed site, in fact, so long as the artifacts are removed before construction. But others who want the casinos stopped or moved are also advocating for more archaeology.

After a recent hearing at City Hall, Rep. Michael O'Brien noted with obvious delight that the threatened red bellied turtle was entering breeding season. There is turtle habitat on SugarHouse's site and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission has told SugarHouse that no work can be done in the water there, with the exception of pile driving, between May and October.

Anti-casino activists with Casino-Free Philadelphia have held protests and other events - even going to the homes of casino investors.

The theory behind all of this, said Daniel Hunter, co-founder of Casino-Free Philadelphia, is that the delays will cost the casinos so much money that they would rather move elsewhere. "There's a unified effort, from government officials to the deep grassroots," Hunter said. "No developer should want to be in a hostile environment. It's bad business."

Whitaker said she understands that some people are unhappy with the way in which casinos were brought to Pennsylvania and the way the sites were selected, but SugarHouse did not make up the rules - it has only followed them.

The tactics aimed at convincing SugarHouse to move may have convinced them to dig in deeper. If they move somewhere else, someone else will be displeased and "it starts all over again," Whitaker said.

Regan agreed that any site near a neighborhood would encounter NIMBY issues and protests.

That's why the airport is a good site, say the local legislators who wrote the bills that would re-open the location issue.

Legislative approach
Under the current draft of that legislation, set to be introduced in both the House and Senate this week, the casino developers, city and state officials and neighborhood residents would work together to choose two alternative sites. The Gaming Board would hold hearings, and within 120 days would issue a report containing a list of alternative sites. Foxwoods and SugarHouse would then have 30 days to respond. The bills also would remove the rule that no casino can be located within 10 miles of an ongoing slots operation - that's what would open up the Philadelphia International Airport as a possible site.

The proposal gives the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board a lot of options, including revoking the licenses of SugarHouse and Foxwoods, and re-opening the application process so that any other entity could apply for one of the two licenses, said Christopher Craig, Fumo's senate counsel.

That is not the legislators' intent, Craig said, but was inserted into the bill as a means of forcing SugarHouse and Foxwoods from their current sites.

"This is to give the board a hammer to compel the casinos to be a lot more open minded about moving to a venue with more support from the community," Craig said.

The bill would create a huge legal mess, said Whitaker. When the gaming control board chose the successful applicants, it considered their proposed locations, she said. "There were three unsuccessful applicants. If (the gaming control board) is now coming back and saying those sites are bad sites, but you can keep those licenses and move to another location, that's unfair," she said. "You've now changed the rules." Whitaker predicted lawsuits.

The courts route is always possible, Craig conceded, pointing out that the current sites are also mired in the courts. But Craig said such a lawsuit would not hold up in court, because while site was a factor in the board's decision to pass up the Pinnacle, Trump and Riverwalk proposals, it was not the only factor. The board noted that Pinnacle has a casino in nearby Atlantic City that would compete with a Philadelphia site; that Trump was having financial stability issues; and that the Riverwalk site was small and, as a city-owned site, had other complications, Craig said.

The original gaming legislation said there would be no casino located within 10 miles of any other casino. Moving a casino to the airport would put it closer than that to Harrah's in Chester.

A Harrah's spokesman did not return calls for comment. Craig said that legally, Harrah's would be out of luck. Current legislation promises that the tax structure will not change for 10 years, and that there will be no additional casinos. But it says nothing about changing the mileage preclusion zone, he said. One could argue that such a change is not a good idea as a matter of practice, he said, "but we're not worried about a lawsuit."

"It is a fundamentally bad idea in any circumstance to change the rules in the middle of the game," SugarHouse’s Whitaker said. "It sends a terrible message to any business person looking to do anything in Pennsylvania: If we decide three years down the line we don't like you, we'll just change the law. Why would anybody come here and do business?"

Garrity said that Foxwoods invested "hundreds of millions of dollars, all on the good faith and reliance that the city and state said they would do what the current legislation says they will do."

Casino-Free's Hunter said his group supports the proposed legislation, although it falls short of Casino-Free's goals because it does not require a cost/benefits analysis of casinos.

The governor has promised a quick veto of the proposed bill. Craig and O’Brien aide Mary Isaacson said their bosses are optimistic that they can garner enough votes to override a veto. While the location of the casinos is an especially hot topic in Philadelphia, legislators from across the state are interested in getting them built as soon as possible, for the revenue they will bring, Craig said.

Besides, he said, the legislation will likely be bundled with other proposals that will have enough support to override the governor.

Contact the reporter at kelliespatrick@gmail.com

• Bill draft.doc
• GamingTaskForce_Intro.pdf
• GamingTaskForce_SiteEval1.pdf
• GamingTaskForce_SiteEval2.pdf
• GamingTaskForce_TranspEcon.pdf

April 16

Previous coverage

By Thomas J. Walsh
For PlanPhilly

The ghost of Ed Bacon loomed like one of I.M. Pei’s Society Hill towers in a crowded conference room atop Three Parkway on Tuesday and at ornate City Hall chambers Wednesday during lengthy meetings of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission and City Council. Just the way the legendary planner would have liked it.

Bacon’s name and planning work was invoked at least a dozen times by advocates and opponents alike during two detailed debates about re-zoning for the proposed Stamper Square project, between Front and Second streets at Pine. The hotel-condominium development would soar above the surrounding neighborhood, filling what is now a long vacant tract that was once home to the troubled NewMarket.

In the latest of a series of proposals going back 20 years, the commercial re-zoning would allow the construction of a 15-story luxury hotel with 150 rooms and 80 condos. The Planning Commission says the design is “consistent with and respectful of neighborhood context, provides a high-quality design using appropriate materials, and provides significant public benefit, namely the ‘green mid-block path’ that continues the neighborhood’s long-established greenway network.”

Nonetheless, the staff’s recommendation to the commissioners was to ask City Council to hold off on final passage of the remapping ordinance. The idea is to give the Planning Commission more time to approve a binding agreement – or a deed restriction – to make sure the developer builds what is approved, and to establish a one-year sunset provision for the re-zoning. After much discussion and comments from more than a dozen Society Hill residents and officials, the commission accepted the staff’s recommendation.

So much for holding off.

On Wednesday, City Council's Rules Committee heard more pro and con arguments concerning Stamper for four hours before quickly approving councilman Frank DiCicco's amendment to allow for a rezoning of the 1.3 acre property from C-2 to C-4. The amendment could go to the full council for ultimate approval as early as next week.

On Tuesday, Planning Commission Chairman Andrew Altman and Vice Chairman Alan Greenberger agreed with the idea of a sunset clause for changes in zoning. Developers should not receive de facto “entitlements,” they said, or the immediate ability to re-sell property where the value went up due to the zoning changes.

“What the planning staff has proposed is an important point,” Altman said. “In some ways the re-zoning is sort of an imprecise tool in terms of what we want to accomplish.”

What the new commission wants to accomplish is broad, but early efforts have been consistently hamstrung by hitches in the city’s tortuous procedural systems and complicated jurisdictional structure. In this case, the role of the Historical Commission was in question.

“City Council has given full jurisdiction to the Historic Commission [for the Stamper Square project,]” said John Gallery, executive director of the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia Tuesday. The latter has not yet acted, he said. Gallery told city council Wednesday that the Historic Commission would not likely get to the Stamper issue for several months. He cautioned council on approving zoning changes prior to Historic Commission check off. 

“I think the Planning Commission really needs to give serious consideration to how ... it coordinates with the Historic Commission. [You] should not be acting prior to the Historic Commission making a decision. We see developers coming in all the time, saying, ‘Oh, the Planning Commission approved it.’ This is premature coming here. ... You are asked to approve zoning. Zoning is a tool. In recent years, the Planning Commission gave excessive zoning changes to any developer who walked in through the door.”

It wasn’t the first time Altman and his colleagues were scolded for the real or perceived sins of past commissions. And it was just so very far from being the last time. “Is it a new day or is it business as usual?” On Tuesday, Gallery asked. “You can answer that question today.”

Representatives of Stamper Square’s development team, Bridgeman’s Development LLP and Starwood Hotels, were on hand at both meetings, including an architect and a lead lawyer. Amid dozens of renderings and drawings, Bacon’s master plan for Society Hill, engineered in the late 1950s and early ’60s, was cited twice. The project includes a green space that would be open to the public and connect Front Street with Second Street via a garden pathway. It would be similar to the well-known Three Bears Park and continue the greenway that Bacon designed to meander through his revitalized neighborhood.

Also, the developers insist that having a high-rise cheek-by-jowl with signature Philadelphia brick row homes is consistent with Bacon’s Society Hill Towers, along with condos on or near Washington Square and more recent buildings on the river, like the Dockside development. Recent long-term plans from PennPraxis, which include tall buildings up and down the Delaware River waterfront, were also cited, showing structures that would dwarf the Stamper Square hotel tower.

But Gallery said he was old enough to have been there, done that, and knew what the plan was from the Bacon days (Bacon was head of the Planning Commission for two decades, from the late 1940s to the late ’60s). Gallery said there were allocations for only two high-rise locations – the food distribution center (Society Hill Towers) and Washington Square.

“You have no plan here,” he said. “It’s spot zoning.”

The community is split over the issue. Normally, it’s the opposition that has the upper hand during public meetings about development issues, but a surprising number of residents in favor of the project also spoke for their allotted two minutes.

Tania Rorke, immediate past president of the Society Hill Civic Association, said she was in favor of Stamper Square and that Bridgeman’s “did everything they could” over the course of more than 50 meetings with residents. She said the officers of SHCA are split down the middle on the issue.

But Benita Fair Langsdorf, also of the SHCA, said the group’s zoning and historic preservation committee is overwhelmingly against the plan.

And that’s how it went for two days. Impassioned speeches for both sides took the microphone, but the years that have passed were showing. There was no yelling, no chanting or stomping of feet. Just the words of the well-heeled and articulate members of one of the most historic neighborhoods in the country, one that is situated among a decaying South Street retail district and a slowly changing waterfront.

“What we’ve got today is a big empty hole in the ground,” said one resident. “We’ve had that for 10 years.” As for Ed Bacon’s plans, he said he was no expert, but that “I’m sure none of those plans involved a big empty hole on the ground for 10 years.”

Paul Boni, an attorney and another member of SHCA, said the project was listed for consideration by the Historic Commission last week and was pulled from the agenda the day before. “I don’t know why,” Boni said. “But I think they first wanted it to go the political route” by making an end-run around the commission and going straight to City Council. A lawyer for the developer denied the accusation.

After Wednesday's council action, Boni said there may be legal challenges to council's potential approval of a zoning variance for the Stamper Square project.   

The Irish on Walnut

Also before the commission Tuesday was an “information only” presentation by Castleway Properties LLC, an Irish developer with an ambitious skyscraper hotel project for the 1900 block of Walnut, encompassing Moravian Street (and possibly privatizing it) and reaching back to Sansom and 20th streets.

Final specs, approval for the demolition of two historic buildings, financing, partnerships with neighbors and other pieces of the overall picture are months away or longer, but it was an example of something Altman wants to see more of. “This is something we are very much looking forward to,” he said. Bringing projects forward early when they are in the pipeline, especially massive ones that will impact many residents and businesses, establishes the lines of communications and gives the public a formal means of input, he said.

“The northwest corner of Rittenhouse Square needs revitalization – it’s the dead spot on the square,” said Castleway’s Mark King, while delivering a 20-minute overview in a crisp brogue. A “tall, slender, elegant building” would rise on the back end of the development which “steps back up into the city” as you look upon it from the horizon. Western-view drawings of its silhouette illustrate how the tower would accompany the taller Two Liberty. The building, King said, is “not imposing” and “doesn’t impose on the square.”

Plans for the front of the building, next to 1901 Walnut, call for a height that is less than half that of the hotel portion. The development calls for 150 condos and high-end retail on Walnut Street.

To “strike” Moravian Street in that block is what the developers would prefer, but that would need approval from every single of the nine neighbors that share the street there, just to get the ball rolling.

Altman and Greenberger, in a scenario that is becoming familiar, asked direct, if polite, questions. Good cop, bad cop they are not, but persistence is proving to be slightly devilish in its details. Where are you on circulation, traffic impact and collaborations with the Streets Department? Altman asked. “Our desire is to have an agreement with [the Center City Residents Association] that will show effects of overall conditions.” Said Greenberger: “Can I strongly suggest that you figure out restrictions” and that you work with staff?

Here, too, Altman suggested that the re-zoning process be tied to a specific project (Castleway was heard before the Stamper Square presentation). There is a time frame for performance, Altman said, and to avoid “some sort of entitlement into perpetuity” on the site, an agreement needs to be struck that is a sort of template for these kinds of issues.

Trying to fundamentally change the way the Planning Commission does business, within the “gray area” leading up to a new zoning code and the accustomed, ingrained means of navigating the city’s ways seems like a catch-22 to new observers of the body. Developing this much space with this many moving parts on the 1900 block of Walnut “is obviously a very bold project,” Altman said. “When are you coming back?”

Answer: By mid-June.

Hotel at 15th & Locust

A new limited service Starwood brand called the Aloft Hotel, aimed at the business traveler, is slated to be built at 1501 Locust Street. The Planning Commission staff recommended approval with some design caveats, which was accepted by the commissioners. The recommendation was forwarded to the Zoning Board of Adjustment for a hearing later April.

Contact the reporter at thomaswalsh1@gmail.com

April 14
By Alan Jaffe
For PlanPhilly
 
Invite a couple of hundred people to become critics, and you’re bound to get mixed reviews.
 
That’s what the Kimmel Center and PennPraxis heard tonight from citizens who had been invited to respond to proposals by students of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of the Arts for redesigns of the public portions of the performing arts building.
 
The students’ ideas ranged from the whimsical (a huge rock-climbing wall) to the possible (a sidewalk café) to the inspired (a rooftop oasis with a translucent aqua floor).
 
The reactions ranged from excitement to apprehension to rejection. But it was obvious that the proposals offered much to embrace and build upon.

 
Kimmel officials began the conversation about enlivening the center’s public spaces last fall, explained executive vice president Natalye Paquin.  While its Perelman and Verizon Halls have drawn crowds and a degree of success since the building opened in 2001, it had never realized the goal of becoming a cultural mecca for events that are not performance-driven, Paquin said.
 
So the Kimmel partnered with PennPraxis, the Penn Project for Civic Engagement, and the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Great Expectations program to initiate a “dynamic dialogue” with city residents about the overall space, she said. Four public discussions, involving about 200 people, were held in January to develop guiding principles for rethinking the exterior and interior spaces. That input was combined with online suggestions to serve as the foundation of the undergraduate and graduate students’ redesigns.
 

Cafe Corner

“Tonight’s ideas are preliminary,” said PennPraxis executive director Harris Steinberg, “and they are part of an ongoing dialogue about achieving excellence in design, with the Kimmel at the heart of it.” The goal is to make the building “a beacon and an icon” for future audiences, but the ideas may take years to achieve, he said.
 
One group of students attempted to humanize the Kimmel’s public spaces, seeking ways to make portions of the grand center more intimate. Among the group’s more dramatic suggestions was a stairway that wrapped around the Perelman Hall and around a new elevator to the rooftop. The garden at the top was transformed into a sculptural playground. Comfortable lounge seating was introduced in the Commonwealth Plaza for lingering and wifi use. Large graphic signs and maps directed visitors to the seldom-visited corners of the Kimmel. A new entrance was created at Spruce and 15th Streets, and glass was added along Spruce to invite passers-by inside.
 
The second group of students tried to reconnect the center to other forms of art. A tower was erected in the middle of Commonwealth Plaza with stairs that connected to the tiers of the building. The plan also called for the creation of small performance spaces, a reflective pool on the rooftop, and a hanging mobile in a glass enclosure at Broad and Spruce.
 
The third group added sensory dimensions to the center. The rooftop floor would be glass, with water flowing underneath and into a seven-story water wall. A vertical garden with plush greenery and a rock-climbing wall to “invigorate the entire body” were among the other creative suggestions.
 
In smaller group discussions, the audience offered their critiques.
 

Humanize Perelman stairs

Many applauded the proposals to open a second entrance to the Kimmel and increase the use of glass on the ground floor to bring the inside out and the outside in. “I like anything that brings in more light,” said Sheila Rosenbloom.
 
But Rosenbloom was concerned about the cost of some of the student ideas, and she wondered if any of the young planners had attended events at the Kimmel that attracted large crowds. The proposals for new furnishings and architectural additions might work for daytime audiences but would be intrusive in the evening, she said. “The space has to accommodate the primary purpose – the concerts.”
 
Identifying herself as a psychologist, Ruth Harvey emphasized the need for spaces and uses that would take advantage of “interactive qualities,” and “not interactivity with a computer.” The rock-climbing wall was one of the few activities proposed that “people could do together.” Rather than reflective, meditative interior spaces, the Kimmel needs to create opportunities “where people can involve themselves with each other, and make connections with each other,” she said.
 
Marsha Moss was opposed to the proposed tower for Commonwealth Plaza, a vertical structure that would “undermine the integrity” of the building, which she described as “a work of art.”
 
Josepha Gayer, an opera singer, agreed that the tower was “imposing,” but she liked the idea of stairs emanating from the tower that linked the many levels of the interior. Other participants in the group discussions liked scaled-down versions of the students’ visions.
Large graphic signs would interfere with the architecture of the Kimmel, many said, but most agreed that more signs are sorely needed.
 
“I’ve been here 100 times,” said Beth-Ellen Kroope. “But I’ve only gone up to the roof once – on a tour,” because it is so hard to find. “We need easy access,” she said.
 

Water and vegetation elements

Thomas Morr liked the proposal for a water wall, but not seven stories high. He suggested a smaller version behind the bar to “create visual interest in that space.” Marsha Moss suggested a “meandering, human-scale” stream of water would be more appropriate.
 
A younger member of the discussion group, Donald Maley, cast his support for the “bolder ideas.”
 
“To me, they are more exciting. Speaking for the 20-something crowd, I like the large, bold outdoor signage” proposed by the students, which would inform him when there is a concert he’d like to attend while he was walking home from work.
 

Spruce Street facade

Maley’s friend and peer, Clinton Randall, noted that 70 percent of the Kimmel space is not used. “It’s not about adding, but repositioning what’s already here,” he said. “I like the idea of subtle modifications, which help people realize there’s more space than they’re using.”
 
A still younger participant, 10-year-old David Bulack, would like the Kimmel to add more stores to the retail space and add more color in the windows. Colors, rather than signage, could lead guests through the building, suggested his mother, Patty Bulack.
 
“We should think of this space as a hotel,” said Morr, “with many uses that can accommodate many kinds of interests.”
 

Plaza tower

Adding a closing note to the group discussion was Jack Nixon, who revealed that he is the director of engineering for the Kimmel Center. “There needs to be something to do when you get here,” besides attending a concert, Nixon agreed. “We realize there are things that need to change – and can change. There are some relatively simple things, like better seating and more programming. Anything that attracts people into the building is good.
 
“I’d like to think that this is going to be here in 100 years.”
 
Over the next three weeks, the Penn and University of the Arts students will incorporate tonight’s public feedback into a process book that will be presented to the Kimmel Center for its consideration. The contents will be made available online at www.planphilly.com.
 
 

Rooftop playgrounds

Contact the reporter at alanjaffe@mac.com

• KimmelDesignPrinciples_web.pdf

March 31

 
By Alan Jaffe
For PlanPhilly
 
Over the last 18 months, the city has had a case of “civic engagement” fever. The symptoms are a rash of Sharpie-wielding facilitators, an outbreak of breakout groups, a yen for cold cuts and cookies, and contagious debates on the future of Philadelphia.
 
• PennPraxis asked communities to rethink what can be done on the Central Delaware Riverfront.
• Great Expectations sessions were organized by The Inquirer to figure out how to make us the next great city.
• Multiple city agencies and organizations led Green Plan discussions on how to improve the environment.
• The City Planning Commission set up a circuit of Imagine Philadelphia roundtables as the first phase in drawing up a new comprehensive plan.
 
And there are more requests for your presence coming down the pike. Anyone with a mind to share an opinion has had a choice of soapboxes and a variety of willing ears.
 
But what is behind the recent spate of invitations and concern for public input? Just how much longer will people show up before they sink into civic engagement fatigue? And why does the city seem so damned democratic lately?
 
Athens, Rome, Philadelphia

Coordinating the civic engagement programs for both Great Expectations and PennPraxis has been Harris Sokoloff, director of the Center for School Study Councils at the University of Pennsylvania. Sokoloff traces the framework of that work to the senates of Athens and Rome.
 
“In every decision-making process we have where people come together in some sort of equal terms, we use some form of deliberative model,” going back to those early republics. “The tools we’re using are different; the ideas are still the same. It’s still a matter of: people get together, find a way to identify the issues, what the pros and cons are, the different ways of understanding the issues and the different forms of action, and use that in the decision-making.”
 
As in ancient Rome, “power politics” always play a part, Sokoloff adds, but there are ways to keep the process transparent and the public an important partner.
 
Beverly A. Harper traces her involvement in modern civic engagement to the early 1970s. Harper is founder, president and CEO of Portfolio Associates Inc., the agency that managed the series of Imagine Philadelphia meetings held in neighborhoods around the city over the winter.
 
Back in the ‘70s, Portfolio Associates conducted a study for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation that examined how and where citizens could become involved in the transportation planning process. The agency surveyed the 50 state transportation departments around the country, then took an in-depth look at four departments’ experiences with civic engagement.
 
“We found that in the Boston area there was almost a billion dollars in projects that had been stopped because of public involvement,” which occurred at “a very late stage in the projects,” Harper said.
 
“Involving the public early in a realistic way – and realistic means letting them know all of the different factors that will go into the decision-making – does help a project have a smoother development,” she said. “If you involve them early enough and know the kinds of issues and concerns that they have, you can do things to mitigate some of those concerns.”
 
Civic involvement programs continued into the 1980s, according to Harper, then trailed off for the next 10 years or so. The resurgence in Philadelphia is the result of several factors, she said.
 
“I think that part of it has to do with federal guidelines related to the National Environmental Policy Act,” the 1970 measure that required federal agencies to prepare Environmental Impact Statements before taking action and then sharing the information with the public. “Many government-funded projects and public agencies use those guidelines to identify the projects where they need engagement,” Harper explained.
 
Another reason for greater public involvement is governments’ limited funds and resources, she continued. “So one of the ways to help identify what should be done, and how it should be done, is by engaging citizens.”
 
The third factor is increased sophistication on the part of the citizenry, Harper believes. “Thanks in part to the Internet, they can find out what’s going on. When there are things they don’t like, they know how to get involved and who they should be contacting.”
 

Sokoloff’s plunge into the deep end of civic engagement came in 1995, in partnership with Inquirer editorial page editor Chris Satullo. Each year Sokoloff and Satullo took on a new topic that included civic engagement initiatives, from national to local issues, on everything from health care to the needs of a particular school building.
 
Over the past year, their collaboration on Great Expectations was part of a larger effort, the Penn Project for Civic Engagement, which also included the Delaware waterfront project led by PennPraxis executive director Harris Steinberg. Sokoloff, Satullo and Steinberg had worked together four years before on the attempt to find a developer and the right development for Penn’s Landing.
 
Sokoloff said the civic trend is due to the realization on the part of government leaders and agencies that “those who must be involved in supporting or solving a problem or challenge ought to be involved in naming and framing the problem, and in helping to find a solution.”
 
Newark Mayor Cory Booker, for example, recently acknowledged that he can’t do anything without the support and involvement of other people, Sokoloff said.
 
“The leaders can no longer say ‘do this’ and it happens,” he said. “Issues are too complex; the solutions are too complex. Everything requires adaptation. …It requires a different kind of citizen involvement and engagement, and that’s why you’re seeing all these community forums.”
 
The Right Model
 
There are many models for conducting civic engagement, Sokoloff said, and he doesn’t claim to have the best one, “though we try to make it better and are constantly revising it.”
 
In too many cases, the process takes the form of an expert- or advocate-driven discussion. “An expert gets up in the front of the room, makes a presentation, and has a question-and-answer period. Or there may be a group of people who have developed an agenda and all they want to happen is for all the people to bless the agenda,” he said.
 
Liz Gabor, a real estate manager at the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, was a participant in two civic engagement efforts in recent months. The Imagine Philadelphia session, she said, was an “organic” interchange in which neighbors were asked to brainstorm solutions to city problems. “People were imaginative and came up with very good ideas.”
 
But Gabor said her experience in the Great Expectations did not seem as productive. “We were told, ‘read this report and comment on it.’ It was too guided.”
 
Another participant in both the Imagine Philadelphia and Great Expectations sessions found them equally constructive. “I heard similar comments at each meeting and a consistency in what people were saying,” said Jo Ann Desper, a senior consultant for a healthcare services company. “They were both good, open forums.”
 
Public involvement means more than meetings at which participants offer opinions and possible solutions, Harper said. “That is one tool that you can use to get reaction and input. There are lots of others that can be used,” including surveys, focus groups, and online interaction.
 
The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission is in the midst of a public outreach effort for its long-range strategy, entitled “Connections – The Regional Plan for a Sustainable Future.” An online survey is underway through the end of March that will help refine planning in the areas of transportation, land use, economic development and the environment. The survey will be followed by planning exercises, focus groups and public workshops.
 
The public meetings have dimensions beyond surveys, Harper said. They serve as an educational tool that shows participants how the next person thinks, and they provide “directly and subtly an empathy and understanding of the position that the agency or organization has in trying to come up with a plan, knowing that everyone is not going to be of one mind.”
 
Those differing views are a vital component of civic engagement. A diverse group of participants is a primary goal in calling the meetings. “I was very pleased with the diversity of the Imagine Philadelphia sessions,” Harper said. “It was diverse in lots of different ways. The meeting in West Philadelphia had lots of young people, and I thought that was terrific. In the Northeast, there were lots of Eastern Europeans, but they were from different ethnic groups. I’m very happy with the cross-section we achieved” over the course of the nine citywide meetings.
 
Sokoloff also seeks a diverse group of participants. “The idea is always to make the group as inclusive as possible – by gender, ethnicity, race, and different levels of expertise,” he said. “The more diversity, the richer the conversation.”
 
While different viewpoints are sought, the civic engagement sessions organized for Penn’s design department or the meetings for the City Planning Commission did not specifically invite developers to the table.
 
But they would not have been turned away, either. “For Imagine Philadelphia, we wanted to hear from ordinary citizens,” Harper said. Developers may have attended, but they would have probably been there in their roles as residents. “The only people we explicitly invited by letter were elected officials.”

In the Central Delaware engagement process, separate meetings were held with developers to gather their input and expertise. “That’s where you say, ‘We’re going to have a closed session with developers.’ And when you do that, you let people know you’re doing it,” Sokoloff said. “It is a matter of transparency, but I like to think beyond transparency to co-production – the idea of experts working with citizens.”
 
Too Much of a Good Thing?
 
Even an engaged citizen may need to rest his voice occasionally. To prevent civic exhaustion, Harper suggests more collaboration among agencies. Portfolio Associates is currently undertaking public research into two projects – one looking at ways to ease traffic congestion on the west side of the Ben Franklin Bridge and the other exploring an extension of the PATCO line along the waterfront – with a combined questionnaire and meetings that will ask stakeholders about both issues.
 
“This is to recognize that people’s time is valuable. I think we need to do a little bit more of that,” she said. “So that you’re not asking the public to come out too many times.”
 
A more serious problem arises when organizers of civic engagement create “unrealistic expectations about how much say people will have in a project. I think it’s something you have to repeat early and often – that this is just one of the factors you use in the decision-making process,” Harper emphasized. “I think it is incumbent upon organizations who are managing this process to be truthful with people about what their involvement is going to mean.”
 
There must be an implementation mechanism in place, she said, to show participants their input had a result. If there is no implementation, “I think that hurts other efforts,” she said.
 
The new Philadelphia Police Commissioner, Charles Ramsey, conducted his own form of civic engagement, a round of six town hall meetings in the six police districts, when he took office earlier this year.
 
“The commissioner had said he wanted to get the public’s input for developing a plan for Philadelphia,” explained Lt. Frank Vanore, of the police public affairs department. “He knows about policing, but he didn’t know Philadelphia. He was following a format he did in Washington, D.C., where he held town hall meetings to create his strategy.”
 
According to Vanore, Commissioner Ramsey took notes at every meeting in Philadelphia and shaped a plan to fit each neighborhood. The result? “Some of those things the people said went verbatim right into his plans.” The commissioner’s Crime Fighting Strategy was then posted on the police department’s website for town hall participants to read.
 
Every municipal or regional issue does not require public involvement sessions, Sokoloff said. “You don’t want to do it with every decision. … You’d get stuck. You don’t have time to do it all. There’s so much that has to be done quickly.”
 
The problems that require the most “citizen adaptation” are those that call for citizen participation, he said.
 
But keeping the public engaged through rounds of meetings is “a real challenge,” Sokoloff said. “It’s a possibility that they will get fatigued. I think it’s less likely to happen if what comes out of the engagement – the action steps, policies, proposals, whatever – is responsive to the citizen voice.
 
“The minute you engage the public in this kind of conversation, you have a responsibility to tell them what you heard, what you did with what you heard, and how what you heard impacted your decisions,” he said.
 
“People need to know their time is being well spent. They need to know they’re making a difference.”
 
Desper, the healthcare services consultant, hasn’t tired of civic engagement after participating in two projects. “The more of these the better, as far as I’m concerned. They are a wonderful example of our government working the way it should. They are opening up opportunities for what citizens want at a very basic level.”
 
Contact the reporter at alanjaffe@mac.com

Inga Saffron's take on high-rise hopes 

Feb. 21

By Matt Blanchard
For PlanPhilly

Call it a deluxe ruckus: Bitterly divided residents of tony Society Hill look poised to reject a luxury hotel development slated for Head House Square.

Named “Stamper Square,” the plan envisions a 150-room boutique hotel operated by Starwood Resorts, and another 77 condominium units, housed in two towers on the vacant NewMarket site. Unable to agree this week, the Society Hill Civic Association said it will decide on Wednesday night whether to oppose the project.

While most neighborhoods might find it hard to reject a $300- to $400-per-night hotel with condos selling for more than $1 million apiece, opponents have their reasons. After 10 months of negotiations with developer Marc Stein, it is the building’s 15-story height that has brought the matter to a crisis.

Because it exceeds the area’s 35-foot height limit, the 166-foot Stamper Square needs Civic Association support if it hopes to secure a zoning variance. Stamper's chances were hurt when the board's zoning subcommittee voted 10 to 3 against.

Should Stamper go down, it will be the latest in a long line of failures at NewMarket, a 1.5 acre site that appears to need an exorcist as much as it does a developer.

Named for a shopping mall that struggled almost from its opening day in 1975 until its demolition in 2002, the NewMarket site is today a large hole. Neighbors rejected a supermarket for the site in 1996 but signed onto a plan by actor Will Smith to build a hip “W” hotel there in 2000, a plan that fell apart when the hotel backed out the following year (Another W plan is now slated for 12th and Arch).

Stein, developer of the proposed Bridgeman’s View skyscraper in Northern Liberties, made what he said was a final effort to win over Society Hill at a hot-tempered meeting in the Old Pine Church on Wednesday night. Over 100 people were in attendance.

“It’s been a long ten months,” Stein told the crowd. “Either I walk after [this meeting], or I come back and build something else.”

That something else, he suggested, was a by-right development that would not require the neighborhood approval (Read: it will fill every available inch of the zoning envelope and might be ugly).

The ensuing debate revealed a neighborhood profoundly alienated from its bustling neighbor, South Street (called a “garbage pit” by one speaker), and fiercely suspicious of developer promises.

It also revealed a minor identity crisis:

Is Society Hill a full part of Center City that should welcome wealthy hotel visitors and high-density urban living? Or is it a strictly low-rise urban village that must guard against tall buildings even on a vacant lot?

“We are almost like a village within a city,” argued board member Benita Langsdorf, who opposed the project for violating height limits. “We moved here because we are a different kind of community.”

Paul Levy, head of the Center City District, adduced the example of Ed Bacon’s Society Hill Towers to defend the project:

“This neighborhood began with high rises.  It was always designed to be both modern and historic … And it’s the high density buildings that bring the people,” Levy said. “Some would like to see townhouses, but it’s been 20 years, and where are those townhouses?”

A “potential treasure”

Design-wise, Stamper Square is a collaboration of two architecture firms, locally-based H2L2 and the global giant Gensler. Advocates say its genius lies in the site plan, which places the 15 story towers on Front Street where renderings suggest they will not be visible from most locations in Society Hill.

That site plan also includes a mid-block passage – inspired by Ed Bacon’s greenways – between 2nd and Front. Stein has offered to make a sculpture garden of the passage, which appears to be the hotel’s main entrance.

All 412 parking spaces will be in an underground garage, and stalls will be set aside for the project’s adjacent neighbors. The actual units are contained in two conjoined towers, glass with irregularly spaced vertical panels, rising from a brick base.

Thirty nearby neighbors signed onto a statement of support for the project, calling the proposed passageway “a potential treasure in our community”. Others hailed the project as a high-class balance to the déclassé clientele of South Street.

Doubts

Doubts about the project came from the board’s own zoning committee.

Paul Boni, noted anti-casino lawyer, argued there was only reason why Society Hill was being asked to consider so large a project: The owners paid too much for the site and want to recoup.

According to The Inquirer, the Chawla brothers of Sant Development bought the site from Will Smith in 2005 for $10.5 million – three times what Smith had paid just five years before.

Boni extolled the neighborhood’s 35-foot height limit as a “blanket of protection,” and accused Stein of simply bluffing when he said 15 stories was his final offer.

“He’s already come down,” Boni said. “What confidence do you have that this developer can’t come down further? ... We don’t want to kill the project. We want to give the civic association the ammunition to bargain harder.”

A flawed process?

In the end, board president Richard de Wyngaert declared that his conscience would not allow him to vote on the changing project after four hours of wandering argument. By a close vote, the vote on Stamper Square was postponed to Wednesday.

For board member Steve Weixler, who favored the project, the Stamper Square affair is one more reason why the city should take planning decisions out of the hands of community groups and return that power to trained professionals in the City Planning Department.

Calling the evening’s debate “subjective, personal, unfounded and unfriendly,” Weixler said proponents who had cheered for the project at 6:30 p.m. had by 10 p.m. grown tired and left.

“Eventually people got so tired they desert the process.” He said.
“This underscores the need for government and serious planning to step up in this city… Government needs to stop this process.”

Contact the reporter at blanchard.matt@gmail.com

Foxwoods aeriel view

Jan. 29

Rendell calls council stance gutless

Casino-Free Philadelphia challenges the governor

By Kellie Patrick Gates
For PlanPhilly

   Philadelphia still faces a lawsuit that was filed after its Commerce Department gave SugarHouse Casino a permit to build on riverbed land - even though the city revoked that permit last week.
   "We really think it's a moot point since we revoked the licenses," said Maura Kennedy, a spokesperson for Mayor Michael Nutter. The city filed a brief with the Supreme Court stating as much shortly after Nutter announced the permit decision Friday.
   But state Rep. Mike O'Brien - one of the cadre of local legislators who filed the lawsuit in late December, said the case is not about whether a permit exists, but who has the right to grant one. The legislature does, he says, and the city does not. The city disagrees.
   When making last Friday’s announcement, Nutter criticized the administration of former mayor John Street for its handling of the permit, saying errors were made and the decision was rushed.  But Nutter's legal staff agrees with Street's -- and SugarHouse's -- that a 1907 law gives the city the right to make the call on riparian rights.
    "The city does have a right to decide, it was just done improperly," Kennedy said.

Sugarhouse aeriel view

 Historically, the right to build a project the size of SugarHouse on riverbed land - also called riparian or submerged lands -  has been granted through an act of the state legislature. But tradition holds that only a legislator representing the district where a project is located introduces that legislation. None of the local contingent were anywhere close to doing that for SugarHouse when the casino's attorneys found the 1907 law and applied to the City Commerce Department.
    The legislators and their legal experts maintain that newer laws - including the Administrative Code of 1929 and the Dam Safety and Encroachment Act of 1978 - override the old law.
  "The initial cause for action no longer stands, (but) the overriding principle of law does," O'Brien said, and thus the lawsuit will go on.
    In another twist, SugarHouse officials are now using the lawsuit filed when their revoked riparian rights license was issued to argue that the license should stand.
  "We have been advised by our legal team that the City’s action to rescind our submerged lands license is contrary to law given the pending litigation surrounding that license," said Greg Carlin, chief executive officer of HSP Gaming, the company developing the casino.
    Nutter anticipates the Commerce Department will take a second look at whether SugarHouse should have a license to build on riverbed lands. SugarHouse has 30 days to appeal the revocation, and that appeal would launch the process, Kennedy said. She said there would be at least one public hearing.
  SugarHouse executives don't think they should have to appeal the revocation, because they believe the permit should stand. They filed a brief with the Supreme Court detailing these arguments.
  Spokeswoman Leigh Whitaker said SugarHouse has not yet decided whether it will file an appeal, anyway. "We're exploring all of our options," she said.
   Philadelphia's other proposed riverfront casino, Foxwoods, may also find itself in a riparian rights battle - even though officials say they do not need to build on the submerged lands. 
  

   Foxwood's changed its original proposal by pulling in a promenade, and so, officials have said, they no longer need riparian rights.
  But some state and local leaders disagree.
  In fact, the very day that Nutter announced SugarHouse's submerged lands license had been revoked, City Councilman Frank DiCicco introduced city legislation that would give Foxwoods the zoning it needs to build. But DiCicco's proposal contains several conditions that Foxwoods must meet first, and one of them is that they are granted riparian rights, via the state legislature.
  DiCicco's spokesman Brian Abernathy said last week that Foxwoods first proposal, which required riparian rights, was a better design and the one that was approved by the Gaming Control Board.
   Abernathy predicted that Foxwoods wouldn't like the conditions on the proposal, which must make it through committee and then be read twice more before city council before it could be adopted. He was right.
  Foxwoods spokeswoman Maureen Garrity said in written statements that the riparian rights condition and the others are unlike anything that council has demanded of a zoning applicant up to this point, and therefore unlikely to hold up in court.
   "We believe very strongly in our legal position, and we believe the City will have a difficult time in abandoning the position it has consistently taken in this case and in its last two filings with the Supreme Court," she said.
   It was the Supreme Court that gave SugarHouse the zoning it needed, saying that the city had intentionally stalled for too long. That ruling prompted DiCicco to submit the zoning proposal, in hopes that the city would retain some power in the matter.  The zoning is necessary before Foxwoods can move very far, because the zoning permit is a prerequisite of others. Foxwoods has not received any of the permits it needs yet, but "we're working with (the state's Department of Environmental Protection) to determine the appropriate permits for our project," said Garrity. Foxwoods is also working with the city's water and sewer departments, she said.
   O'Brien believes even Foxwoods' amended plan actually requires riparian rights. Regardless of what happens with City Council, if Foxwoods begins construction without securing riparian rights, O'Brien pledged to seek a restraining order and file a lawsuit "as soon as they put a spade in the ground."
 
Contact the reporter at kelliespatrick@gmail.com

• SuagrHouse stay order request.pdf
• 2008[1].01.24, 207 + 208, City Mootness Sugarhouse.pdf

Old and new tracks and ties at Bryn Mawr

(This is the third in a series of PlanPhilly stories examining the infrastructure projects that would accompany a re-visioning of the Central Delaware waterfront, and how they will meet their biggest challenge: funding. This previous story looked at the proposals for parks and green space in the Penn Praxis Vision, and who will pay for and maintain them.)
 

Dec. 20

By Seth Budick
For PlanPhilly

With a new dedicated source of state funding in place, SEPTA’s financial security has clearly been improved, but the implications are less obvious for future improvements to public transit service in Philadelphia.

In July, Governor Rendell signed into law Act No. 2007-44 (Act 44) establishing the Pennsylvania Public Transportation Trust Fund. The trust fund combines state funds from a number of sources into a single pool to then be distributed statewide. Those sources include a percentage of state sales taxes, Turnpike Commission funds, lottery money, and allocations from pre-existing dedicated transit funding sources. This new unitary source of funds should allow SEPTA to eliminate the annual scramble to close its operating deficit and put it on relatively firm financial footing.  The likelihood of service expansion and improvement, however, is less clear.

Impact of the new state funding system

It may be unrealistic to expect substantial expansion soon due to the fact that SEPTA’s capital and operating budgets are relatively independent of each other, and it is the latter which will see most of the impact from the state’s new funding structure. 
       
The Transportation Trust Fund provides $508 million to SEPTA’s operations in fiscal year 2008.  Of that amount, only $437 million has been budgeted by SEPTA for FY2008 with the rest held in reserve to cover operating deficits in the future, according to SEPTA’s Senior Director of Budgets, Rich Burnfield.
       
Together with other sources of funding (including trust fund money to cover lease and debt costs and Act 26 money that covers lease costs), this still represents a total state contribution of over $496 million to SEPTA’s FY2008 operating budget, a substantial increase compared to the $405 million that was budgeted in FY2007. 

While this increase seems generous, SEPTA’s capital budget has not been treated nearly as well.  Under Act 44, new funding allocated statewide to transit systems’ capital budgets amounts to $50 million, but SEPTA will see relatively little of that money this year.  That is because a good portion of capital dollars are allocated in a discretionary manner by PennDOT, and this year, owing to its substantial debt service, Pittsburgh’s Port Authority will largely be the recipient of the state’s largesse.
        
Thus, only a small fraction of the total increase of $300 million in Act 44 transit funding in FY2008 will actually be available to subsidize grand new projects for SEPTA, whether improvements of existing service, or extensions to the system. 

At the same time, SEPTA has long used funds from its capital budget, or state subsidies that could be allocated to operating or capital, to supplement its operating budget.
 
In FY2007, this consisted of a transfer of $26.8 million from the capital to the operating budget, as well as using $79 million of flexibly allocated state subsidies to close the operating deficit.  The large increase in the operating subsidy should obviate some of these transfers, though the increase in the capital budget will probably not be enough to fundamentally change the funding picture according to Don Shanis, Deputy Executive Director of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC).  “A lot of people don’t realize that without this funding they would have had to cut the system.  This allows them to maintain it.”
Using capital funds to supplement its operating budget has not come without a cost.  “We’ve been robbing Peter to pay Paul” said SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney.  As Don Shanis put it, “they’ve deferred a lot of capital projects, so the new funding doesn’t open the door for a lot of new projects.  The only way that that would happen would be a big new contribution from somewhere; either a local contribution, a state contribution, or some kind of creative financing, possibly private sector involvement.”

 

SEPTA’s short term capital plans

Though the state subsidy to SEPTA’s capital budget will probably not be increasing dramatically, it will likely benefit from improved state funding in coming years. 

According to Rich Burnfield, SEPTA has made clear to PennDOT that it expects to receive a larger share of the discretionary pie in the future.  “Next year, when it grows another $50 million, and the year after that, when it grows by $100 million, our expectation is that we will get a share of that which we believe is more in line with what our capital needs are.”

In addition, the impending completion of the reconstruction of the Market Street Elevated will be a significant boon to other capital projects.  Over $100 million is budgeted for this program in FY2008 alone, none of which, according to SEPTA CFO and Treasurer Joe Casey, originates from earmarked federal funds.  Because federal money was not specifically dedicated to this project, other capital programs should benefit from the elimination of this drain on the capital budget. 

One of the largest of those projects is the purchase of new regional rail cars to replace a fleet that is 40 to 44 years old.  These cars, costing $2.15 million each, are expected to begin arriving in 2009, with a total of $330 million having been budgeted for their acquisition.  Another impending large capital expense is the purchase of several hundred new buses, at $508,000 each, to replace an aging fleet which will be 12 years old by the time it’s retired.  While these vehicle replacement programs lack much sex appeal, they are precisely the sort of projects that will benefit from a more secure state funding arrangement according to Don Shanis of the DVRPC.

Among the projects that have garnered the most public attention, modernization of SEPTA’s fare collection system is apparently at the top of management’s agenda.  Though it has been studied for years, moving ahead with long overdue fare modernization is “the number one issue to be addressed in the immediate future” according to SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney.  Despite public pressure to get this project underway quickly, however, SEPTA may be anxious to keep expectations from getting too high.  As Mr. Maloney put it “We’re doing a lot of work, but we can’t promise to our customers that this will come quickly, because the last thing we want is to select the wrong system and the wrong technology.”

Although it has not had funding budgeted for FY2008, the rehabilitation of City Hall Station is another high profile project that is currently in the design phase.  According to Joe Casey at SEPTA, this is also a project that is likely to benefit as capital funds are no longer needed for the completion of the Market Street Elevated reconstruction.  Conspicuously absent from a list of likely future capital projects, however, are any plans for system expansion.  Indeed the only system expansion that we may see in the near future, according to Mr. Casey, is an extension of regional rail service from Elwyn to Wawa. 

Possible longer term capital projects

This is not to say that there aren’t a number of projects that are considered high priority by stakeholders in the region.  According to the DVRPC’s Don Shanis, besides fare modernization, locally favored projects include an extension of the Regional Rail R5, extended service along the Schuylkill Valley corridor, a Paoli transportation center, extension of Regional Rail service to Quakertown, light rail on Philadelphia’s Delaware River waterfront, and extension of the Broad Street Subway to the Navy Yard and along Roosevelt Boulevard in Northeast Philadelphia.  The enormous cost of subway projects is prohibitive, however, with a Northeast extension of the Broad Street line costing perhaps $2 billion.

Mathew Mitchell, the Newsletter Editor of the Delaware Valley Association of Rail Passengers, a transit advocacy organization http://www.dvarp.org, says that by far the most cost effective project that SEPTA could undertake right now would be an extension of the Norristown High Speed Line, SEPTA’s Route 100, to King of Prussia.  A request for dedicated federal funding for this project, as well as a major expansion of service in the Schuylkill Valley corridor, was submitted, but received a “Not Recommended” rating from the Federal Transit Administration. 

According to Mr. Mitchell, this was largely a result of the King of Prussia extension being combined with a proposal for the so-called Schuylkill Valley Metro (SVM), a rail line that would have provided high frequency service from Center City to the Reading area.  The Route 100 extension “has a lot of bang for the buck, and so was folded in with SVM to leverage the cost-effectiveness.”  Ridership projections for the SVM were unrealistic though, according to Mr. Mitchell, and at a cost of $2 billion, the overall project was not cost-effective.  In addition, SEPTA requested the maximum 80% federal contribution even though “it was stated since the Clinton administration that projects with that level of federal contribution would have very low priority.”

Since the chances of the SVM receiving earmarked federal funding are “essentially nil,” according to Joe Casey, a new proposal will need to be prepared for a Route 100 extension in order for it to qualify for dedicated federal funds.  SEPTA could instead choose to fund this route entirely out of its existing capital budget.  With the increased competition that has recently been chasing scarce federal funds, many cities and transit agencies are choosing to fund new projects themselves, according to Mr. Mitchell.  SEPTA could say “let’s go ahead and do this with our own funds.”

Another project that is frequently mentioned by transit advocates in Philadelphia is the restoration of trolley service on one or more of the lines that were suspended in the 1980s and early 1990s.  Though the city still has a relatively large streetcar network, that web of trolley lines was substantially larger until recently.  The unused trolley tracks and wires that still wend their way all over town provide ample evidence of that history.

Streetcar expansion a national trend

Ironically, construction of new streetcar lines is one of the most popular forms of transit expansion occurring nationally, with cities from Tampa to Seattle getting on board.  Trolley lines have been particularly popular due to their low construction costs and the recent trend towards increasing population and investment in downtowns across the country.  Some of these new lines, most notably in Portland, have been spectacularly successful, where “they’re extending it a lot all over the downtown area, and now they’re planning to go out of the downtown” according to Railway Age Contributing Editor William Middleton.  

In Portland, the price of the new four mile long streetcar line has ranged from roughly $15 to $33 million per mile, while the vehicles themselves have been acquired for approximately $2 million each.  This reflects the notorious variability of prices for new construction which depend strongly on local factors.  In Portland, this included necessary roadwork according to Kay Dannen, Community Relations Manager for the Portland Streetcar.


BRT in Bogata, Columbia
 
This variability is especially conspicuous in the case of light rail; rail lines that use vehicles similar to streetcars, but which generally travel at faster speeds and are separated from automobile traffic.  For those lines, the construction of elevated structures and tunnels, for example, can easily result in infrastructure costs that are several times those of a street running trolley.  A somewhat cheaper alternative is Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), where buses run in a dedicated right of way, avoiding traffic.  BRT construction costs can still be high though, as in the case of a recently completed line in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley which cost approximately $23.6 million per mile to build.

In Philadelphia meanwhile, ridership on SEPTA’s streetcar lines has been relatively stagnant. Septa did recently reinstate service on one of the lines that was temporarily suspended in 1992, the #15, on Girard Ave.  In 2005, after, according to SEPTA’s Joe Casey, the city made it its #1 priority, the transit agency invested $88 million in restoring the line, even without an earmarked federal contribution.

On the other two lines suspended in 1992, the #23, which ran from South Philadelphia to Chestnut Hill, and the #56, which ran along Erie & Torresdale Avenues to Northeast Philadelphia, much of the trolley infrastructure is still intact and restoring service on those lines is a top priority of many transit advocates like Mike Szilagyi, creator of a website that documents the history of Philadelphia’s streetcars.  For the #23 in particular, “it will require replacement of a lot of track and possibly substations as well, but all that was done with the #15.”  Indeed, SEPTA has $189 million dollars budgeted for infrastructure improvements to the #23 and #56, but not until 2012 at the earliest, reflecting the fact that those projects are “on the back burner” according to SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney.

Aside from improving the fabric of the city, advocates like Mike Szilagyi argue that trolleys offer the benefits of increased capacity, longer life spans, zero emissions (on a local scale), less noise than buses, and the potential for running them entirely on “green” power. At the same time, arguments in favor of trolleys do often contain an appeal to the emotions.  As William Middleton puts it, “my personal preference to have a streetcar system should have nothing to do with what’s the best system.”  If those appeals do result in increased ridership, however, then they clearly do have practical implications.  As Mr. Middleton admits, “rail does draw more passengers.”  Generating a true cost comparison of buses and streetcars is clearly a necessity, although, according to Matthew Mitchell, “it's probably a doctoral thesis worth of work.”

While SEPTA’s improved funding is certainly a step in the right direction, a substantial expansion of service, like an extension of the subway down Roosevelt Boulevard, is clearly going to require “major leadership and will on the part of the region,” according to Don Shanis of the DVRPC.  This may also have to wait for significant changes in SEPTA’s management, says Matthew Mitchell.  “None of this is going to happen until there is a fundamental change in mindset in the company.”

Seth Budick, who recently completed a Ph.D. in Biology at the California Institute of Technology, has a longstanding interest in architecture and urban planning issues. Contact him at sbudick@gmail.com

• Figures.pdf
• Philadelphia Trolley Tracks_ Trolley Map.pdf

Nov. 14

By Alan Jaffe
For PlanPhilly

A new vision for the Central Delaware waterfront, forged over 13 months in more than 200 collaborative, occasionally contentious civic meetings, was formally introduced last night with dramatic flare and some compromise on the most disputed elements.

Inquirer coverage
Metro coverage
Daily Pennsylvanian
 
The proposal to bury a section of I-95 was softened by less drastic options. The dense riverfront street grid was proposed with a nod toward developers’ concerns. And the casinos, the hottest issue, were plotted on the plan – and then dissolved on an alternative map.
 
The audience of about 1,200 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center cheered the proposals and offered a standing ovation to the concluding video fly-over, a time-warp that transformed the current waterfront into an active, thriving scene of green spaces and well-balanced development and communities.
 
Public reaction

Approval for the plan, which was coordinated by PennPraxis, the clinical arm of the design department at the University of Pennsylvania, came from nearly every front. Mayor Street lauded the process for engaging the river ward communities and taking on a challenge that has eluded the city for decades. Michael DiBerardinis, secretary of the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, called the Civic Vision “meaningful and important.” Riverfront developer Bart Blatstein said the plan is “a great start.”
 
Dissenting voices in the audience condemned any allowance for casinos, intermittently disrupting the presentation by PennPraxis executive director Harris Steinberg, who has guided the Civic Vision through several combative meetings. Outside the Convention  Center, a six-foot skunk urged people to wear clothespins to show their displeasure with the Foxwoods and SugarHouse sites.
 
A panel of government, business and community leaders were invited to respond to the presentation, and they lent their support to most aspects of the plan. But there was a clash over the issue of funding a major I-95 reconfiguration. Rina Cutler, deputy secretary at PennDot, warned that an estimated $10 billion needed to depress the interstate at Penn’s Landing would be hard, if not impossible, to raise. Mayor Street disagreed. Initial response to large projects is always negative, Street said, but “there is plenty of money” if the public says “this is the priority.”
 
Overall, the evening was upbeat, congratulatory, and very hopeful.


Councilman Frank DiCicco, whose constituents’ fears of waterfront gaming sparked his suggestion that the city create a master plan for the Central Delaware, said the unveiling last night was “the highlight of my political career.” He thanked the William Penn Foundation for providing more than $1.6 million for this first phase of the waterfront process. He also credited Street for signing the executive order in October 2006 that charged PennPraxis with leading the effort. 
 

The mayor noted that “plan after plan failed” to make the best use of the 13-acre parcel on the Center City riverfront. “The thing that should distinguish this report from other studies is you,” he told the audience last night. “We never had this kind of community engagement” in the process before, and “what will deter it from sitting on a shelf is you not letting it happen.”
 
With just over 50 days left in his term, he urged that the plan more forward with the formation of an organization that will take up the banner and “ensure that this work has not been done in vain.”
 
Steinberg then took the podium to present the culmination of his team’s year-long labor in an eloquent, 30-minute sales pitch. With archival, contemporary and conceptual images of the waterfront beamed on two screens flanking him, and on screens in an adjoining hall for the overflow crowd, Steinberg emphasized the historical and regional context of the Central Delaware -- from William Penn’s arrival, through the riverfront’s industrial dominance, through the traffic-jammed state of things today. The initial question was, “how do we create a framework for growth?” he said.
 

PennPraxis conferred with elected officials and every civic group with a stake in the waterfront so that the “pinheads from Penn,” as he heard one resident describe his team, “would not impose their image on the waterfront.”
 

The planners relied on the values expressed by residents in that series of meetings, and on the best practices for riverfront redevelopment accomplished in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Milwaukee and Hoboken. “Man, if we can’t beat Hoboken,” Steinberg laughed.
 
What the Philadelphia team came up with was three frameworks based on movement, open space, and development.
 

Movement refers to connections across and beneath I-95 to the river, a street grid that replicates the feeling of Center City life on the waterfront, and a north-south urban boulevard.
 
A reborn Delaware Boulevard, the “spine” of the riverfront, would mean keeping a six-lane avenue for now, but eventually “skinnying up” the current road to allow for a light-rail or other mass transit line down the center.
 
The street grid would recall the 17th-century template designed by William Penn “which has guided our identity,” Steinberg said. “We need to think about extending that to the river,” not only to disperse traffic, but also as “the connective tissue” that links land parcels.
 

The audience applauded the Civic Plan’s suggestion that Septa and Patco lines be linked on a reinvented waterfront. Water ferries and water taxis are also part of the plan, as opposed to a Camden-Philadelphia tram that links the two cities.
 
Turning to the high-profile proposal of burying I-95 to reclaim the Penn’s Landing area, Steinberg offered a conciliatory tone. “Is there a way to sink it? I don’t know. There is lots more study to be done. It is something that the plan doesn’t live or die on.
 
“But if we don’t start thinking about it,” he said, “Philadelphia will miss the boat to capitalize on that potential.”
 
The open space framework in the Civic Vision foresees “a great lawn” at Penn’s Landing, “a great democratizing element of the city.”
 
Frankford Avenue and Spring Garden Streets were presented in artist’s drawings transformed into pedestrian-friendly green streets of trees, blooming medians, and bike lanes. The string of parks and open spaces along the Delaware would “do work,” Steinberg said, filtering stormwater and pollutants, and creating wetlands, wildlife habitats, tidal gardens, and a healthier city and river.
 
Land development along the water, and specifically how casinos fit into the plan, has been “the most contentious part of this project,” Steinberg said,
 
“Not an option!” an audience member shouted.
 
“Yes it is!” responded another.
 
“Bull----!” answered the first.
 
Acknowledging the debate, PennPraxis provided two options for those sites on the waterfront plan, with and without the casinos. But Steinberg said the issue is “not about what is there. It’s about how the buildings relate to each other” and surrounding streets, and whether they allow access to the waterfront.
 
Other development issues should be addressed through zoning code reforms, according to the Civic Vision. The street grid plan must be codified and buildings must “meet the street line,” with retail, commercial and “life-affirming” uses, Steinberg said. Tall buildings should be staggered along the landscape to ensure “everyone has light and air and views of the river,” he also said.
 
There is a place on the river for big-box development, too, so long as it is “done more gracefully,” Steinberg said.

The presentation ended with the video, reminiscent of the 1964 World’s Fair ride that looked ahead to the city of the future. The audience was remarkably silent as it was given a glimpse of what Philadelphia could become 50 years from now. When it ended, they rose and applauded the vision.
 
In an official response to the plan, DCNR secretary DiBerardinis, a 30-year resident of Fishtown, said the unveiling of the plan was an “important event for Philadelphia.”
 

A century ago, he said, Pennsylvania stood at a similar crossroads, with its forests decimated and streams polluted by the Industrial Revolution. But some leaders had a vision for the commonwealth that helped save its ecosystems. “We are in a similar moment in this time,” he said. Conservation and sustainable communities will become policy imperatives, and “cities that imagine a waterfront like this are the ones that will succeed,” DiBerardinis said.
 
“The plan is right. The economy of the future will be built around efficiency and sustainability,” he said.

 
To make it happen, the city must build on the collaboration of the community, DiBerardinis continued. There must be consistent city leadership to shepherd the plan forward, and it must move from a vision to a detailed planning process. Strategic investment must be made and leveraged through the local, state and federal governments, he said. And “early victories” should be implemented “so people can see the reality.”
 

Inquirer columnist Chris Satullo moderated the panel discussion that ended the evening, posing his own questions and those from the audience.
 
Blatstein, of Tower Investments, said “planning is not the enemy. The enemy is lack of planning.” He said the Civic Vision has been a “marriage of planners, developers and communities.”
 
Blatstein also said there should be no gated communities along the waterfront and there should be open and free access to the river.
 

Cutler, of PennDot, who was among the supervisors on Boston’s Big Dig project, said Philadelphia should not become too focused on a large I-95 reconstruction. “If we spend years debating if it is possible to bury 95, we will miss the opportunity to rethink what else exists there.”
 

A better choice, she said, might be improved public transit on the waterfront. Because of funding limitations, “we may have to make those choices,” she said.
 
Mayor Street said an ambitious 95 redo can happen. “It will not happen unless we say this is the kind of investment we want from the local and federal government,” he said. That will require the support of surrounding counties, who must also see that a revived city waterfront will benefit their residents. “The biggest deterrent is perceived regional differences,” he said.
 
Steinberg said the next steps in the process will be “early action projects,” such as the blazing of a bike trail from the Pier 70 neighborhood to Penn’s Landing, the restoration of riverfront wetlands, and the release of an implementation guide in the spring.
 
“This is the very beginning,” he said.

Alan Jaffe is a former Philadelphia Inquirer editor. He can be contacted at alanjaffe@mac.com