Crews begin tearing down cement archway on Penn’s Landing built for ill-fated sky tram to Camden

Crews have started tearing down the towering cement archway near Penn’s Landing’s Great Plaza amphitheater that was built almost two decades ago to anchor an ill-fated tramway to Camden.

A.P. Construction Inc. of Blackwood began demolishing the never-used tram tower on Friday, the day that a statewide ban on such work aimed at fighting the coronavirus was lifted, said Almaz Crowe, a spokesperson for the Delaware River Waterfront Corp.

The tower and a South Jersey sibling had been built in 2002 as part of a plan championed by former Mayor Ed Rendell involving a complex that was to have been built by mall developer Simon Property Group with a historic carousel, the Please Touch Museum, and a Cheesecake Factory restaurant.

But after the tower was built — at what is said to have been a cost of about $16 million — Simon pulled out of the plan, leaving each side of the Delaware River with its own useless vertical slab.

The DRWC, a city-affiliated nonprofit that manages development along central Philadelphia’s Delaware River waterfront, began fielding bids from contractors to demolish the tower in September.

A.P. Construction was selected for the job with a $700,000 bid, Crowe said. Work is expected to take two months with coronavirus-related safety protocols in place, she said.

The tower sits on a 7.4-acre section of Penn’s Landing for which the DRWC is soliciting development proposals involving high-rise dwellings and a possible hotel.

Proposals are also being reviewed for a new enclave of low- or mid-rise residential buildings on a separate 3.7-acre section of Penn’s Landing bounded by Spruce and Lombard Streets that is now mostly occupied by a parking lot.