Fulfilling the promise of the waterfront

Harris Steinberg

is executive director of Penn Praxis, School of Design, at the University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia's waterfronts are awash in possibilities.

With the important work of the Delaware River City Corporation on the North Delaware, the long-range planning at the Philadelphia Naval Business Center, and the energy that the University of Pennsylvania and the Schuylkill River Development Corp. are bringing to the Schuylkill, the idea of Philadelphia as a river city just might be starting to stick.

Add to this the public planning process for the Central Delaware - the seven-mile stretch from Port Richmond to Whitman - that my office of Penn Praxis has led since October, and you have the beginning of a veritable high tide for waterfront planning in Philadelphia.

Indeed, in the last three months, since Mayor Street signed the executive order authorizing our work, we have engaged more than 1,500 people in a broad series of public events, from forums to presentations, from riverfront walks to a fact-finding trip to New York.

Waterfront talk in Philadelphia has never been so robust.

We've heard the voices of people angered about the potential negative impact of casinos on their communities. We've also heard people call for public waterfront access and increased opportunities for leisure and outdoor recreation. We've heard people ask for enhanced connections between the neighborhoods and the river, and we've heard how important the working port is to the city and the region. We've heard the call for traffic management strategies and investment in new mass transit. And we've heard the clarion cry to balance private development with public good such as affordable housing, open space, and a high-quality public realm.

How do we do all this?

On Feb. 3, we will cast our net to seek out the best practices in waterfront design and planning we can find. We're bringing a raft of distinguished speakers and experts from around the country and here in our own backyard to a day-long series of panel presentations and discussion at the International Seaport Museum on Penn's Landing. And you are invited to participate. The day is designed to fire our imaginations with the promise and the potential for our waterfront.

We're asking the experts to help us answer the question: Where do we want to go, and how do we get there?

Here's a taste of what the day will bring. Gil Kelley, the planning director of Portland, Ore., will help us understand how Portland balances multiple uses on its waterfront, such as recreation and an active port; Connie Fishman from New York will share lessons about how the Hudson River Park went from vision to reality; and Antonio DiMambra of Boston will help us think about how to tackle large-scale infrastructure challenges such as I-95 at Penn's Landing.

And that's just the beginning. It will be a day bristling with ideas and energy - a vital step in the process of creating a citizen-driven, open and transparent vision for the Central Delaware. Later in February, in a series of public forums, this expert base knowledge will be blended with Philadelphia's waterfront values to establish a set of citizen-derived, values-based principles for waterfront development. These principles will serve as the bedrock for the civic vision that will be sketched out by a team of international, national and local designers, citizens and others in March and refined over the next six months.

Come learn with us on Feb. 3, at the Seaport Museum. Breakfast starts at 8 a.m., and we'll run until 4 p.m. Lunch will be served. The event is free, but you need to sign up at http://www.planphilly.com/

registration.

Philadelphia has often led the nation with new ideas about waterfront design and planning. From the Fairmount Waterworks to the creation of Fairmount Park along the upper Schuylkill to Stephen Girard's 1830 bequest that created Delaware Avenue as a wide, well-lit riverfront thoroughfare that supported the needs of the burgeoning port, there are many hometown examples of excellence to inspire us.

There is also much for us to learn from the successes of others. So join us on Feb. 3 for a day full of promise about the waterfront. There is a river of ideas out there about waterfront planning and design, and we're going to find those that raise all of our boats.