Brownfield Grants Jump-Start 3 Major Projects

Food Distribution Center Relocation Gets Green Light

by Tony West

The Food Distribution Center has been freed up to move from its South Philadelphia location to a site on Essington Avenue across the Schuylkill River, thanks to a package of grants and loans given the City by the US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development.

Two other major brownfield projects in North and West Philadelphia were funded at the same time. A total of $16.5 million from the Brownfield Economic Development Initiative will stimulate long-awaited commercial and retail development in all three areas.

US Sens. Arlen Specter and Bob Casey worked together to clear the way for these outlays, which exceeded by similar projects in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania led the nation in BEDI grants last year.

“Restoring these blighted sites will help revitalize our cities and be a great impetus for future cultural and economic growth,” said Specter.

Casey promised, “I will continue to fight to ensure Pennsylvania receives its fair share of Federal funding for vital projects.”

Northern Liberties’ northward expansion has run into a major roadblock at the site of the old Schmidt’s Brewery at 2nd Street & Girard Avenue, where developer Bart Blatstein has been unable to overcome daunting brownfield challenges for a decade. The City will spend $7 million of BEDI money to create a walkable streetscape and trigger retail construction where dust now blows between Front and 2nd Streets.

Completing this project will likely foster intense growth in nearby South Kensington and Fishtown, which are already feeling the stirrings of new prosperity.

In the Mill Creek and Walnut Hill neighborhoods along W. Market Street, $5.5 million will be directed into the commercial and retail component of Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell’s dogged rebuilding of an entire neighborhood. Blocks of high-quality new Philadelphia Housing Authority residential construction are already in place and a school and community center are in the works. Finishing work on the Market Street El could be the capstone in a huge turnaround in neighborhoods long buffeted by poverty and decay.

The $4 million spent to rehabilitate the Essington Avenue property for the Food Distribution Center will have a powerful long-term impact on the Port of Philadelphia, which will be able to add the current FDC acreage on Packer Avenue to its land bank for growth. That’s crucial to the entire region’s economy. If Philadelphia can attract its fair share of ballooning global trade in the next 10 years, $1 billion worth of new business may pour into the Delaware Valley — if the docks are there to unload it.

Philadelphia and HUD have had a star-crossed relationship in recent years. HUD was disappointed because PHA had failed to take care of politically-connected developer Ken Gamble and retaliated by throttling that agency’s Federal funding, despite its high ratings. Bipartisan ire on the part of Pennsylvania’s two Senators ultimately led to the toppling of HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson in March.

HUD’s new Secretary Steve Preston, yet to be confirmed by the Senate, may take more positive approach to Philadelphia’s needs.