Planning new life for the ‘Lower Schuylkill’

Phila­del­phians are fa­mil­iar with the pic­tur­esque Schuylkill River Trail, and, farther south, the grit­ty stor­age tanks at Su­no­co's Phila­del­phia re­fin­ery. But there's a vast stretch of the Schuylkill that many peo­ple drive past, but few ac­tu­al­ly see.

The city says that six miles along the riv­er's banks, from University City to Phila­del­phia International Airport, is prime for com­mer­cial de­vel­op­ment and accounts for 68 per­cent of Phila­del­phia's un­der­u­til­ized and va­cant in­dus­tri­al land.

It's home to refineries, utilities, freight rail, scrap yards, and remnants of industries that grew up on rail lines that passed through the area.

This "Low­er Schuylkill" is the last un­planned tract in the city, said Alan Green­berg­er, dep­u­ty mayor for eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment. "In a city that's out of land, but for this, we should be thinking long and hard about what we see happening there."

The City Planning Commission, Commerce Department, and Phila­del­phia Industrial Development Corp. are fi­nal­iz­ing a Low­er Schuylkill mas­ter plan to trans­form the 4,100 acres into an­oth­er Route 202 cor­ri­dor — a hub for businesses, tech­nol­o­gy start-ups, in­dus­try, and re­search spun out of near­by universities and med­i­cal schools.

The goal is to cre­ate jobs that were lost when companies including U.S. Gyp­sum, National Heat & Power, M.A. Brud­er & Sons (MAB paints), DuPont Co. Mar­shall Lab­o­ra­to­ry, and Brey­ers Ice Cream Co. downsized, relocated, or closed.

They left be­hind emp­ty buildings and large parcels from the 34th Street Bridge and Grays Ferry Avenue to the air­port and the Navy Yard.

The mas­ter plan for the Low­er Schuylkill, which will be re­leased this fall, envisions new city streets, an ex­ten­sion of the Schuylkill River Trail to the west bank, and con­struc­tion of a pe­des­tri­an walk­way across an old Conrail bridge.

One goal will be to link the campuses of the University of Penn­syl­van­ia, Drex­el University, Children's Hospital, and the University of the Sciences south to Bar­tram's Garden, part of the Fairmount Park sys­tem, and be­yond.

The dom­i­nant in­dus­try on the Low­er Schuylkill has been pe­tro­leum refining, beginning with At­lan­tic Refining Co. in 1866 and now Su­no­co Inc., which owns 1,400 acres on the riv­er and is in negotiations with the Car­lyle Group to sell its Phila­del­phia re­fin­ery.

"We've assumed at this point that the refining com­plex remains refining," said PIDC president John Gra­dy. "Our pri­or­i­ty is focused on trying to sup­port the tran­si­tion of that fa­cil­i­ty as a re­fin­ery to new owners."

The plan will fo­cus ini­tial­ly on three areas.

One is cre­a­tion of a re­search and in­dus­tri­al cam­pus around Bar­tram's Garden that will con­nect with a bi­cy­cle, jogging, and walk­ing riv­er trail north to ac­a­dem­ic campuses in University City.

PIDC has ac­quired about 50 acres on ei­ther side of Bar­tram's Garden as a start­ing point to at­tract young growing companies that need space to ex­pand.

"In­stead of going to the suburbs, we want them to stay here," Gra­dy said. "We'd like the west side of the Schuylkill to be the new Route 202 cor­ri­dor, and to have it con­nect ul­ti­mate­ly to the air­port and the Navy Yard."

An­oth­er fo­cus for re­de­vel­op­ment is 300 acres that are va­cant and owned by Su­no­co, north of a Phila­del­phia Gas Works plant on Passyunk Avenue. Known as the "north yard," the tract has large­ly been remediated and cleared and would be suit­able for manufacturing, dis­tri­bu­tion, re­search and de­vel­op­ment, ware­house stor­age, and lo­gis­tics, city planners say.

"You have a site here with rail, barge, and existing pipe­line ac­cess. How can you le­ver­age that in­vest­ment to at­tract more pro­duc­tion and refining ac­tiv­i­ty?" Gra­dy said.

A third ef­fort will be locating land parcels for in­dus­tri­al and com­mer­cial de­vel­op­ment, closer to the air­port and the Phila­del­phia Re­gion­al Pro­duce Market. As the air­port grows, there will like­ly be de­mand for dis­tri­bu­tion facilities for air-shipped products and related sup­port services to the air­port, the city says.

The area is close to the re­gion's ma­jor job generators: the air­port, the Navy Yard, Cen­ter City, and University City.

"So you ask your­self: What's wrong with this pic­ture?" said Green­berg­er, the dep­u­ty mayor. "How come these assets, which are so close to­geth­er, are not linked by some­thing more dy­nam­ic? We've got car jun­kers, un­der­used or va­cant in­dus­tri­al land, and a rath­er beau­ti­ful riv­er snaking its way in be­tween."

The chal­lenge in de­vel­op­ing a lot of the prop­er­ty is that it is hard to get to by car.

I-95 and the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76) go around and past it. And there's a lot of rail in­fra­struc­ture that keeps traf­fic out.

"There was nev­er an in­fra­struc­ture built to pen­e­trate into these sites," Gra­dy said. "That's the stage we're at now, thinking about the investments that would have to be made to en­cour­age more pri­vate in­vest­ment and more de­vel­op­ment, and to cre­ate jobs."

"We're trying to eval­u­ate the cost and the pro­cess for moving for­ward, " Gra­dy said. "One of the key things is more road ac­cess on the west side of the riv­er, and the east side too."

"Hope­ful­ly, we won't have to build 20 miles of roads from day one, be­cause if that would cost $1 bil­lion we're nev­er going to find the mon­ey, and we're nev­er going to get started," he said. "So the idea is to make lit­tle con­nec­tions first — from University City down into the Bar­tram's Garden area. Opening up some of these parcels that we al­ready con­trol for de­vel­op­ment. Beginning to es­tab­lish some mo­men­tum and some ac­tiv­i­ty, and al­low­ing that to push farther down the west side of the riv­er."

"On the east side, as Su­no­co and Car­lyle work through the re­fin­ery, the op­por­tu­ni­ty for a 300-acre de­vel­op­ment could be a real driv­er to at­tract in­fra­struc­ture in­vest­ment if there was a large de­vel­op­ment op­por­tu­ni­ty to go along with it," Gra­dy said.

Key to any plans will be an ex­ten­sion of the Schuylkill River Trail, which is al­ready un­der way. A new half-mile trail and green­way will open June 11 on the east side of the riv­er in Grays Ferry.

Soon a board­walk will be built, on the east side, extending the riv­er trail in Cen­ter City from Lo­cust Street to just south of South Street, with a con­nec­tor onto the South Street Bridge, said Jo­seph Syrnick, president and chief ex­ec­u­tive of the Schuylkill River Development Corp.

When com­pleted, pedestrians and bicyclists will be able to cross the South Street Bridge and use River Fields Drive or Civic Cen­ter Boulevard on the west side to con­nect to the 34th Street Bridge. From there, pedestrians will be able to cross the Schuylkill again to the east and con­nect to the new Grays Ferry trail near the former DuPont Mar­shall Lab prop­er­ty, purchased in 2010 by the University of Penn­syl­van­ia.

Next will be the de­sign and con­struc­tion of a pe­des­tri­an walk­way over an aban­doned Conrail "swing" bridge that would con­nect bikers and joggers from the new trail in Grays Ferry to an­oth­er trail that will be built on the west bank and go to Bar­tram's Garden.

"That isn't far off. We could be talking two years," Syrnick said. Long-range, the Schuylkill trail will go, from Bar­tram's Garden, an ad­di­tion­al five miles to Fort Mifflin.

PIDC has met with com­mu­ni­ty groups and the feed­back has been over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive, said Thom­as Dalfo, PIDC vice president of real es­tate services.

"This area used to be more of an em­ploy­ment cen­ter. They want to see it reestablished as an em­ploy­ment cen­ter again," he said. "It used to be a place where peo­ple could walk to work, and there was a his­to­ry of peo­ple work­ing in the neigh­bor­hood. And they'd love to see that again."