Great Expectations

I am really excited about a world class waterfront in Philadelphia to rival other major cities such as Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. I am often embarrased in our current waterfront situation (all along Columbus Blvd) when I am showing out-of-town visitors our waterfront area.

Don't forget to mention Baltimore in our discussion of what a waterfront does for a downtown, a sports team's revenue, tourism, day time shopping, and evening entertainment.

You can take a water taxi to Fell's Point from points along the downtown area of the Baltimore harbor at the Aquarium, the Science Center, the Malls, or the park along the south where the hill top has beautiful vistas.

There are private gated condos in the old factory buildings, but key here, the edge of the water to the land is anchored by a walkway of brick and decking for boat mooring (private) and restaurant seating, intersperced with public parks, usually small, that border museums and attractions.

Any crime issue is dealt with by an impressive array of surveillance cameras and quick response by state of the art equipped and trained police. State and city police work well together when policing the city.

Baltimore is smaller, so the task was less daunting, but only slightly. The whole harbor represents a private/public partnership that includes boosters from the state, the city, and long term institutions with the new business created.

Wealth was generated all around. Old industry, such as rail portals, made room for the Camden Yards Orioles' Stadium, a real gem.

The neighborhoods around are served up jobs, health care, and a grid of social services.

There's no worry that the state won't support Baltimore's needs, such as for mandatory kindergarten, which is the law. The partnerships formed in the creation of the Harbor pinned together diverse metiers, such as law firms, politicians, social workers, businesses that had capital, banking and finance institutions, the gamut. Note also that this partnership was and is always, always bipartisan, and not dominated by any single party or single industry or interest.

They were motivated by making Baltimore a modern economy and a great place to be. In many ways, Philly has all of those ingredients.

They just need to be mixed together in this civic project mix.

There are some state owned moorings for ships designated for tourism visits, but those ships are privately owned by LPs or LLCs.

I'm thinking of the tall ships. The USS Constitution is government owned, but the mooring is city owned.

Anyhow, the point is that a mix of types of waterfront that is richest offers the most interest. Too much public land is not good. Too much private land is not good.

It has to be felt that it belongs to everyone. I remember taking a senior real estate law partner to lunch at the Baltimore Harbor. He claimed he never sat in the amphitheater to watch a performance. I dragged him down there, and he sat among the common folk, a mix of lunch crowd, blue collar, tourist moms and schoolkids, and he had a blast.

He was afraid it wouldn't meet his dream for the city. I reassured him that his firm, which did a some work for a few businesses and franchises on the Harbor, did good stuff, and that people love these businesses as much as the jugglers and comedians. I think he was really afraid that the city could never be what he remembered and loved, which to him was a place to buy an ice cream cone with Mom, or walk around with your future wife and get a look at the ships coming and going. I knew somehow I had to show him that he made it what he loved and then some.

He was gruffly beaming. Did he have buy in? You betcha.

Compare to Philly -- all commercial piers, piers in terrible shape, corrupt process, closed door proceedings at all times, unless someone simply invites themselves to the table and won't leave.

Few if any moorings, marinas, mostly all of one size, whereas in tiny Baltimore, you can dock a tall ship, a mid-size Naval vessel from anywhere in the world (then the county presents its crew in formal regalia, very cool). You have docks for little paddle boats, water taxis, rec boats, motor and sail, high end, to blue collar guy.

It's a party goin' on.

It's a blast.

And yes, it's a commercial working harbor, even right up to the Inner Harbor. Look at Domino's Sugar.

Baltimore gets that the recreational and commercial uses of the Inner and Outer Harbor work together.

Not so in Philly, were the unions cry at every proposal to use even a single pier out of dozens of empty piers for something that doesn't require a longshoreman.

Why not let the Philly World Trade Center be exempt from the 19th century height requirement? (See today's article in the Daily News about the couple that was attacked by vagrants living in the vacant lot slated for the project).

www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20071113_Ronnie_Polaneczky___NEIGHBORHOOD.html#recent_comm

is where the article can be found on the vacant lot that is slated to be a high rise but instead, thanks to the city, is a source of neighbor tormenting trash, blight, and crazy addicts who sleep there.

It seems to me that City Council passed this height ordinance without taking into consideration what it would do to projects in the pipeline. It's almost as though Council is trolling for dollars to get them to retract their arbitrary height restriction. I don't recall anyone complaining about the Rouse buildings' height, or that "height issues" were the pressing issues facing Council.

More than crime? More than bad schools? Council is fixated on superfluousness.

Here's the blurb from the article:

"The land is owned by Waterfront Renaissance Associates, a subsidiary of the New York-based Carl Marks Group, which has controlled the site for 20 years.

In 2003, WRA announced it would develop the site as the Greater Philadelphia World Trade Center, a high-rise complex of offices, residences, retail businesses and garage parking.

The project would cost $700 million and accommodate 13,000 new residential tenants and office workers.

At the time, it was hoped the project would boost international trade in Philly the way that 285 other world trade centers around the globe have for their own regions.

Things haven't gone as planned.

WRA says that's because, in March 2006, City Council passed a new height-restriction ordinance - a zoning change that WRA calls a "mistake" - that has put the kibosh on WRA's plans for soaring towers. So in February, WRA sued the city and others it claims have ruined its investment. Right now, the only commercial activity on the property is a storage business on its northern end."

This structure won't prevent the grid from reaching the waterfront. I say go ahead and let them have unrestricted height with the proviso that the neighborhoods can weigh in to request a height in keeping with the status quo for the city.

We need the jobs and economic momentum such a project generates. It's a mortal sin to gum up the plans of any investor bringing jobs and capital into the city, and will trigger greater urgency to finalizing the community/city/zoning plans for the waterfront.

Instead of quibbling over casinos, instead of diddling over height restrictions, the city should have the vision that PennPraxis has and get to work on what is next, and get busy on preserving a park like setting in between the designated anchors.

Lead, follow, or get out of the way, Council.

Carl Marks, meet Karl Marx, and his reps on City Council. They never met a capitalist they liked.

Pennpraxis must forge ahead to claim the green space needed by getting buy in from the sites that need a clean, green surrounding area (picture Chicago's waterfront and its relationship to the high end offices, shops, and condos -- the whole area is a park instersperced between the buildings along the edge of the lake).

I'm certain that Donald Trump will want that for his condo tower in Northern Liberties on the water. Take a look at the Trump Tower, now going ahead full speed:

www.trumptowerpa.com

This can't be sited among old demolished or crumbling, vacant lots. It needs parks and greening all around to work.

I hope Nutter seizes upon this to leave his mark for a civic space that is worthy of his vision for Philly.