CONTEXT - Spring/Summer 2011

imagining industry

SPRING/SUMMER 2011

Workshop of the World Re-use. Re-discover. Re-invent.

In the Year 2035 THE AGILE CITY CHESTER WATERSIDE STATION

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contents imagining industry In this issue of Context, we examine Philadelphia’s industrial past, present, and future. But it’s not all smokestacks and grime.

In fact, a closer look shows that, while we may never reclaim our former powerhouses, we may be on the verge of an old/new identity. .

2 EL EDITORS’ LETTER 16 IB IN BRIEF 20 OP OPINION 20 RE REVIEW

COVER PHOTOGRAPH: JEFFREY TOTARO

14 The Workshop of the World From Disston saws to Meyer pianos, Philadelphia’s industrial legacy still looms large and proves that the city stills holds the title of “workshop of the world.” BY TORBEN JENK AND DONNA WALKER

18 Re-Use. Re-Discover. Re-Invent.

Philadelphians know a lot about green jobs, since about one in five of them have one. That’s because 20 percent of the work force is employed in the industrial sector. BY THOMAS WALSH

22 In the Year 2035

John Haak takes us on a tour of Philadelphia2035, the Philadelphia City Planning Commission’s comprehensive physical development plan, which envisions a growing base of population and employment, a healthier natural and human environment, and an array of paths for upward mobility and entrepreneurship. BY JOHN HAAK, AICP

31 UC UP CLOSE Steve Jurash teaches the city’s manufacturers to sell themselves

32 EX EXPRESSION Jeffrey Totaro’s photographs return us to a time of civic expression

41 DP DESIGN PROFILES Globe Dye Works. Chester Waterside Station.

Lofts LS.

48 NB NOTEBOOK

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CONTEXT The Journal of AIA Philadelphia CONTEXT Staff Managing Editor Dominic Mercier Contributors Rosemarie Fabian, Dustin Fenstermacher, JoAnn Greco, John Haak, Torbin Jenk, Jeffrey Totaro, Donna Walker, Tom Walsh, Amanda Weko Circulation Gary Yetter Art Director Dominic Mercier Layout and Design Dominic Mercier Publisher AIA Philadelphia CONTEXT Editorial Board Harris M. Steinberg, FAIA – Chair Penn Praxis David Brownlee, Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania Steven Conn Ph.D. Ohio State University Susan Miller Davis, AIA Sally Harrison, AIA Temple University Hilary Jay Timothy A. Kerner, AIA Terra Studio Stephen P. Mullin Econsult Corporation Michael Nairn University of Pennsylvania Rachel Simmons Schade, AIA Schade and Bollender Architects Anthony P. Sorrentino University of Pennsylvania Todd Woodward, AIA SMP Architects AIA Philadelphia Board of Directors Julie Hoffman, AIA President Keith C.H. Mock, AIA President-Elect Jim Rowe, AIA Treasurer

Mario Zacharjasz, AIA Past President Peter C. Archer, AIA Director Sonja Bijelic, AIA Director Antonio Fiol-Silva, FAIA, LEED AP Director

From the President Dear Friends, colleagues, and fellow denizens of the industrial city and her environs, The Philadelphia region is by definition industrial. While we have certainly

John C. Gerbner, AIA, LEED AP Director

had our share of the smoke-spewing,

Robert T. Hsu, AIA Director

capital “I,” that is not the industry that

Mark A. Kocent, AIA, AICP Director

life-crunching activity of Industry with a defines us anymore. What defines us now is a force and a habit that will propel us into the future with

Joseph H. Powell, AIA Director

a vigor equal to our vaunted past. The original meaning of in-

Denise E. Thompson, AIA, LEED AP Director

Latin root industria meaning, diligence. As technology grew

Dan Bosin, AIA AIA Pennsylvania Director

turing became automated, the meaning changed to the more

Robert C. Kelly, AIA AIA Pennsylvania Director

and the manufacture of goods in factories. It is the older defi-

Elizabeth C. Masters, AIA AIA Pennsylvania Director Michael Skolnick, AIA AIA Pennsylvania Director Paul Avazier, Assoc. AIA Associate Director

dustry was simply “hard work,” deriving that meaning from the to have a larger and larger impact on daily work, and manufacfamiliar idea of industry being concerned with the processing nition, however, that feels more useful in our current world.

Philadelphia is, as it has always been, a hive of often hidden hard work and diligence. We are still very much defined by our “industry.”

Benjamin Franklin gave a great piece of advice in his Autobiography with regard to industry which he counted at number six

David Thornburgh Public Member

in his list of the 13 Virtues and their Precepts: “Lose no time;”

John Claypool Executive Director

unnecessary actions.” We have taken this advice to heart and

Editorial and Project Submissions Editorial and project submissions are accepted on a rolling basis. Contact the editor at dominic@aiaphila.org.

For advertising and subscription information call AIA Philadelphia at 215.569.3186.

he said, “be always employed in something useful; cut off all there has never been a time in the history of our city and our world when these words were more worth laying claim to than now. We truly do not have time to lose in our efforts to make our city, our region, our planet, a better place to live for ourselves and our future generations. We know the way to do that

The opinions expressed in this journal or the representations made by advertisers, including copyrights and warranties, are not those of the editorial staff, publisher, AIA Philadelphia, or AIA Philadelphia’s Board of Directors.

is to build on our golden history of industrious diligence and on

Copyright 2011 AIA Philadelphia.

All rights are reserved. Reproduction in part or whole without written permission is strictly prohibited.

ing of the unimaginable hard work that is in front of us as we re-

Postmaster: send change of address to AIA Philadelphia, 1218 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147.

a resurgence of the rough and tumble brio of “brotherly love.”

The articles in this issue of Context take us through a history of the more traditional meanings of industry in Philadelphia to an essay that asks us to go to the very edge of our understandbuild our infrastructure and attitudes to live more lightly upon the earth.

Denizens, we are “employed in something useful,” for ourselves and the world. We are industrious.

Regards, Julie E. Hoffman, AIA @archaerie 2011 Philadelphia AIA President

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editors’ letter

EL

Much to Offer IT’S FUNNY. WE SIGNED ON TO EDIT THE INDUSTRY ISSUE because we so admire the handsome buildings of Philadelphia’s industrial past. As architects, we find it easy to look beyond the graffiti and abandonment when we take the train to New York City or drive around the river wards. We see magnificent brickwork, steel windows, and big skylights that have been scooping light into the interiors before the word “daylighting” was invented.

Little did we know that, interesting as that is, there is a whole world of manufacturing in our city about which we knew very little. The statistics are impressive. Twenty percent of all jobs in Philadelphia are in the industrial sector. Of that industrial work force, 70 percent live within two miles of their jobs, an environmentally conscious credential that few other sectors can match.

Let’s not paint too rosy a picture, though. Manufacturers, architects, developers, builders, and people in just about every walk of life have been hurt by the recession and the economic uncertainty that has followed. As individual architects, most of us have limited knowledge of or impact on the financial intricacies of the problem. But we as individuals and as a group have much to offer the present and future industrial city. Our first step is to learn more about the industrial city of Philadelphia.

In this issue, you see in the profile of Steve Jurash and in Tom Walsh’s article that there are plenty of manufacturers and industrial buildings that are providing value to their neighborhoods. Torben Jenk and Donna Walker show that this should not surprise us; Philadelphia has a long history of innovation and industrial entrepreneurship. John Haak describes the planning efforts under way to capitalize on Philadelphia’s industrial legacy. In her opinion piece, Kiki sees Philadelphia poised to be the greenest industrial city in America. And, finally, you are taken back to a time of monumental civic expression by Jeffrey Totaro’s beautiful photographs of the PECO Chester Waterside Station.

So read on and experience industrial Philadelphia and environs – past and present. Imagine with us what the future industrial Philadelphia might look like.

Kiki Bolender, AIA, LEED AP, and Rachel Simmons Schade, AIA Guest Editors

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Steve Jurash AS HEAD OF THE URBAN INDUSTRY INITIATIVE, STEVE JURASH SELLS THE IMPORTANCE OF PHILADELPHIA’S MANUFACTURING SECTOR, AND TEACHES MANUFACTURERS TO SELL THEMSELVES

Steve Jurash views everything through the prism of wooing potential converts. As president of the Urban Industry Initiative, sometimes that means selling the importance of Philadelphia’s manufacturing sector to city officials. More often, though, it means helping those manufacturers learn to sell themselves.

“I’m often surprised at not only what they don’t know,” says Jurash, a former marketing consultant, “but at how they don’t realize that there’s anything to know.”

Marketing 101 — whether selling widgets or gadgets — means being ever vigilant about new markets, constantly searching for ways to innovate, and always remembering to up-sell to the customers you already have.

As is the case with many small businesses, that urgency is often lost upon the 1,300 or so manufacturing companies who call Philadelphia home.

“The real entrepreneurs came two or three generations ago,” Jurash says. “The current generation has become entrenched in just doing the job. If they lose market share, they take it on the chin or they close their doors.”

Enter Jurash. Eleven years ago, the then43-year-old was happily semi-retired — after selling the advertising firm he started upon graduating from Rutgers in 1983 — when context | SP/SU2011 | 6

PHOTOGRAPH: DUSTIN FENSTERMACHER

By JoAnn Greco

up close

the city came calling.

“I had specialized in marketing industrial clients and they wanted to know if I could help teach those skills as part of the newlyformed Urban Industry Initiative,” Jurash recalls. Manufacturing companies were, he discovered, “desperately in need of what I had to offer.”

Using time-tested marketing strategies like “ideation,” Jurash showed manufacturers how to innovate either by introducing new products to their customer base or adapting current products for new markets.

One industrial caulking gun manufacturer partnered with an out-of-state tool manufacturer to make a new product: a powered caulking gun. A maker of professional cast iron baker’s scales realized that if it introduced a line for home use, coated in decorator colors, retailers like Williams Sonoma might be interested.

In three years, through moves like these, UII created 263 new jobs and $16 million in new investment, Jurash says. But the marketing guru’s own days were limited, since the program’s Pew-funded monies were about to run out. Jurash left the nonprofit, only to find himself reinstated a year later — this time as its president.

“I said to the board, ‘We can’t continue looking for money with our hat in our hand,’” he recalls, “so my idea was to create a money-generating arm.” In addition to filling the coffers of UII through traditional funding sources, Jurash created the Manufacturing Alliance of Philadelphia as a dues collecting trade association for manufacturers. MAP plays a vital role in connecting its approximately 120 members to each other.

Now, a company who buys its ball bearings from an outfit in Ohio can learn if a similar manufacturer is doing business right in its

own back yard.

The Alliance also puts members into contact with government organizations that award grants and contracts. Success stories range from locating a $10,000 grant for one member looking to purchase new machinery, to negotiating with the Philadelphia Water Department on behalf of a company receiving incorrect bills, to helping several manufacturers find industrial spaces that fit their expansion needs.

Jurash has made this kind of liaison-building a priority since 2006 when he kicked off MAP by bringing together CEOs from the largest City manufacturers with City Council members.

“This had never really happened before,” he says. “The City of Philadelphia really considered manufacturing to be dead.

They didn’t realize how vibrant it still is. We were able to tell them that it was, in fact, the fourth or fifth largest segment of the city’s economy.”

In a town notorious for its large swaths of abandoned industrial tracts, it’s easy to understand the disconnect.

“Sure, the days of belching smokestacks are gone, and no one really wants that,” says Jurash. “But that was never the Philadelphia picture, anyway. Instead what we had, and still have, is an economy of niche companies like cabinet makers.” (Well, mostly. The region’s dominant manufacturing sector, at 16 percent, remains metal fabrication, according to Jurash.)

The thing is, Jurash continues, these guys are hard to find. They’re deeply embedded in our neighborhoods and so we walk past them everyday without really noticing.

“Half these places look abandoned, they have no signs, the garage doors are pulled down,” says Jurash. That intimate but often

UC

invisible connection to the neighborhood extends to the employees — Jurash says about 70 percent of manufacturing workers live within two miles of their factories — and to the residents.

Another UII program, the Port Richmond Industrial Development Enterprise (PRIDE) — funded by a hefty fee that amounts to 20 percent of the real estate tax paid by commercial property owners — links 53 manufacturers in a one-square-mile area with neighbors. Together, they work towards common goals like cleanliness and safety. An industrial district, PRIDE has received more than $2 million in grants to launch improvements like creating a common staging area for noisy, street-clogging trucks, widening sidewalks throughout the area, hiring security and maintenance forces, and installing security cameras.

Jurash has a lot more ideas – such as a partnership with Drexel University to provide online entrepreneurial courses — but, his main goal remains advocating for and cementing appreciation for what he calls “our rich tapestry of small, diverse manufacturers.”

Much of that lies in the hands of city officials, he says — whether it’s through tax breaks, smoother relationships with L&I, or a more cohesive plan for industrial land use and allocation.

“These guys are facing the most intense global competition in history,” he says. “We all have to understand the value of these operations and their very specific needs.”

JoAnn Greco is a writer in Philadelphia whose work on design and planning has appeared in Metropolis, Planning, Urban Land, The Next American City, and ArchitectureBoston. context | SP/SU2011 | 7

OP

opinion

The Agile City

By Kiki Bolender, AIA, LEED AP What kind of a city is Philadelphia, and what kind of a city does it want to become?

This is a city where you can go to a Super Bowl party and meet someone who runs a tanning operation in Philadelphia. And we’re talking about tanning hides, not about pale city folk risking skin cancer to be brown on the beach. You can belong to a rowing club and find that one of your fellow athletes retired from teaching to take over the family business with her cousins. They manufacture industrial scales here in the city.

Philadelphia wants to be the great industrial city it once was; it’s in our red brick DNA. But powerhouses like textile manufacturing – Stetson hats, army uniforms, ladies’ hosiery – are not coming back. Still, Philadelphia could be on the brink of a new / old identity, where industry (traditional and newly defined) is an important part of our future wealth and well-being.

This is a city where we pride ourselves on toughness, but we need to turn that toughness in new directions. Greenworks Philadelphia, the Mayor’s action plan for sustainability puts it well.

“Becoming environmentally smarter is not a choice but an imperative. Greenworks Philadelphia demands work, lots of it, from all of us. But we Philadelphians have never been scared by hard work. And we know that someday soon, through our efforts, the workshop of the world will be transformed into the greenest city in America.” (p. 81) We have never been scared by hard work.

This is not a city of sissies. We can make this the greenest industrial city in America.

In his new book, The Agile City: Building Well-Being and Wealth in an Era of Climate Change (Island Press, 2011), James S. Russell argues that, “our cities can and must adapt at a scale and speed that is unprecedented.”

“Barriers aplenty obstruct a future that must value innovation, adaptability, and diverse scales of economic endeavor. But many context | SP/SU2011 | 8

are cultural and political, not financial nor technical.” (p. 5) He calls on citizens to “…take charge of their community’s future by understanding the processes that make communities dynamic and adaptable. The future seems so challenging only because we’ve allowed our adaptive skills to atrophy. We’ve accepted the idea that communities grow, mature, stagnate, and decline by economic forces as immutable as the tides.” (p. 12) But we are bucking that trend in Philadelphia. Just look at the success of the Manufacturing Alliance of Philadelphia. They are certainly not letting industry stagnate or

redefine existing areas that are historically single use – either all residential or all industrial – but to offer possibilities for renewal in specific transitional and buffer areas.

Traditional definitions remain in the code for light, medium, heavy and port industrial uses, with these areas protected to maintain and expand the city’s industrial base – important for employment and tax revenues. New classifications of IRMX (Industrial Residential Mixed Use) and ICMX (Industrial Commercial Mixed Use) encourage ways of living that are of great interest to more and more urban dwellers. Residential uses, including lofts in former industrial buildings, will be permitted in certain areas to mix with artists, artisans

The members are forming industrial partnerships, sourcing parts locally from one another. They have new marketing tools in their toolboxes, and they are joined by new, first- generation artisans, many of whom are leaving New York to do their creative work here. decline. The members are forming industrial partnerships, sourcing parts locally from one another, and adapting their processes to create new products. They have new marketing tools in their toolboxes, and they are joined by new, first- generation artisans, many of whom are leaving New York to do their creative work here.

Different tools for our neighborhoods are available in Philadelphia’s new zoning code, currently awaiting passage by City Council.

When neighbors meet with planners over the next few years to determine how the new zoning district classifications will be applied, they will find new classifications at their disposal that did not exist in the old code.

These new districts are not meant to

and commercial uses.

Red brick factories should speak of solidity and stability, but in recent years they have too often spoken of decay. Now the citizens of Philadelphia – tough, agile and resourceful – are poised to imagine and implement a green industrial city with vibrant industry and traditional neighborhoods, and places for a new mix of the two.

Kiki Bolender is a partner at Schade and Bolender Architects. She teaches at the Citizens’ Planning Institute and is a member of the Redevelopment Authority Advisory Board of Design. She has traveled in England to study housing and industry on a Kinne Fellowship from Columbia University. She can be reached at kiki@schadeandbolender.com.

review

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Design Online

By Rachel S. Schade, AIA A blog (a contraction of the term “web log”) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. (from Wikipedia) In the gap between when we first starting editing this issue of CONTEXT and the eve of its publication, this magazine is now, for the first time, available online. HOORAY! So much of my time is spent in front of the computer screen, and I always have my browser open.

How convenient (and often distracting) to be able to find more about what you’re reading or writing about? I am curious about where we look for information about architecture - from product information (how many offices actually get the full complement of Sweets catalogs any longer?) to the latest in architectural design.

The blog is in essence a written down conversation, often more stream-of-conscience than structured essay. We’ve learned to be skeptical. There’s too much unfiltered information floating around, and we need to find sources that we can depend on for being honest and knowledgeable. But we also have access to so many more points of view than ever before. I’ve polled students and instructors, practitioners young and old, about their preferred websites. Where do you get your information about architecture? Where do you turn for inspiration? Of course it varies wildly depending age and area of interest, but I’ve assembled a list of sites that keep getting discussed.

Traditional print magazines each have a web presence, but the following are web-only sites. Check them out: Websites & blogs, as described by themselves: General news archnewsnow.com …comprehensive coverage of international news, projects, products, and events in the world of architecture and design archpaper.com …serves up news and inside reports to a niche community of architects, designers, engineers, landscape architects, lighting designers, interior designers, academics, developers, contractors, and other parties interested in the built urban environment. archdose.blogspot.com … (almost) daily architectural musings and imagery from New York City dezeen.com …bring(s) you the best architecture, design and interiors projects from around the world before anyone else (also has job listings) Green technology and design inhabitat.com …a weblog devoted to the future of design,

tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future treehugger.com … the leading media outlet dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream Philadelphia aiaphiladelphia.org …official site of AIA Philadelphia designadvocacy.org … to provide an independent and informed public voice for design quality in the architecture and physical planning of the Philadelphia region fieldnotesphilly.wordpress.com … web journal from the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, a nonprofit, membership organization whose mission is to promote the appreciation, protection, and revitalization of the Philadelphia region’s historic buildings, communities, and landscapes philadelphiabuildings.org …free public access to information on the built environment of the five-county Philadelphia area and beyond philageohistory.com … contains thousands of old maps, property atlases, city directories, industrial site surveys, and other items documenting the history, growth, and development of the city from the 1600s through today philahistory.com …City’s photo archive contains over 2 million photo records that date from the late 1800’s planphilly.com … an independent news gathering entity affiliated with PennPraxis…an attempt to actively engage Philadelphians in dialogue about the future of this great city workshopoftheworld.com ...Historical surveys of over 150 industrial sites in Philadelphia, PA Urban design planetizen.com …a one-stop source for urban planning news, commentary, interviews, event coverage, book reviews, announcements, jobs, consultant listings, training, and more Residential design remodelista.com …sourcebook for the considered home apartmenttherapy.com …including unplggd.com and re-nest. com Other ted.com …TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading.

It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. (founded by Philadelphia’s Richard Saul Wurman)

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Idle tooling at Globe Dye Works. Owned and operated by five generations of the Greenwood family from 1865 to 2005.

WORKSHOP OF From Disston saws to Meyer pianos, Philadelphia’s industrial history still looms large.

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The large mills and “manufactories” in the neighborhoods beyond Independence Hall hint at the history of Philadelphia’s

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY TORBEN JENK

role as “Workshop of the World.”

THE WORLD

By Torben Jenk and Donna Walker

Stoutly built of brick, stone, and huge wood beams, their large window openings brought natural light to skilled hands performing delicate operations on a bewildering array of world class goods. By 1909, there were 102,459 persons employed in the textile industries of Philadelphia producing cotton, woolen, worsted, silk, felt, carpet, hosiery, and knit goods valued at $215 million, consuming one-fifth of all the wool used in the United States both domestic and foreign.

Tens of thousands of those looms were controlled by a Jacquard, a computer punch card device, that controlled the movement of steel heddles that in turn lifted the warp threads for the passage of the torpedo-shaped shuttle that carried the weft threads left-right-left-right across the loom in a clickety-clack-clickety-clack cacaphony, thereby weaving intricate patterns into the finished cloth. One loom could use a thousand of those tiny heddles, which explains the success of multiple companies devoted solely to their manufacture, including the “Steel Heddle Manufacturing Company” on Allegheny Avenue.

Like gears in a watch, those unseen yet highly inventive and specialized tool suppliers were the critical components in Philadelphia’s massive production of world-class goods. In 2007, master weaver Harry Lonsdale demonstrated his double-headed Jacquard loom that “can weave up to 11,600 threads with a 7½ inch repeat. I could write the Declaration of Independence in fabric.”

“Made in Philadelphia” was a hallmark of world-class quality that appeared on Atlantic Refining oils, Baldwin locomotives, Belber luggage, Bromley carpets, Budd car & rail bodies, Cramp ships and submarines, Curtis magazines, Disston saws, Fels soap, Flexible Flyer sleds, Fitler cordage, Gillinder glassware, Horstmann silk and swords, Johnson printing type, Meyer pianos, Morse Elevators, Reach baseballs, Remmey bricks, Schoenhut toys, Warren-Knight survey instruments, Wetherill paints, White dental tools, Wilde yarn, Yellin ironwork, and thousands of other products.

Philadelphia’s manufacturing history long predates steam power.

Physical evidence survives of Governor Printz’s “Old Swedes Mill,” built in 1646 along Cobbs Creek (just west of the Blue Bell Tavern and north of the Woodland Avenue bridge). For over 50 years it supplied grist and flour to the earliest settlers and “the cheerful clatter of its machinery first broke the silence of a Pennsylvania forest.” The oldest surviving roadway bridge in America, built in 1697 to carry the King’s Highway (Frankford Road) over the Pennypack Creek, includes three spans, two of 25 feet diameter for the creek and one of 12 feet 9 inch diameter for the mill race which carried water from the upstream dam down to the tide line, where Peter Dale built his large mill at least one year earlier.

In 1647, four years after he arrived on the Delaware, Governor Printz wrote “the windmill formerly here before I came would never work and was good for nothing.” By 1750, windmills appeared not just on “Windmill Island” in the Delaware River opposite High/Market Street, but in Kensington just north of the intersection of Richmond and Marlborough streets, where John Kostar (a.k.a. Koster) and his son Benjamin had a “good wind-mill, with a boulting-mill, and a small brick building, with a large oven, fit for a baker, ... two setts of good stones, and two boulting cloths and chests.” A boulting mill was where meal was sifted, or flour separated from the bran or skin of the grain, or ground grain was sorted into its component parts. context | SP/SU2011 | 11

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY TORBEN JENK context | SP/SU2011 | 12

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY JAMES HOWE PHOTOGRAPHY, JAMESHOWEPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

In 1690, Philadelphia county had “four brick-makers with brickkills, nine master shoemakers, nine master taylors, two pewterers, one brazier, one saddler, one clock and watch-maker, one potter, three tallow chandlers, two sope makers, five smiths, one combmaker, one tobacco-pipe maker, three dyers, one cabinet-maker, one rope-maker that makes ropes for shipping, three master ship-carpenters, four master coopers that make abundance of cask for the sea.”

Those goods moved around through “six carters that have teams daily imployed to carry and fetch.” Hannah Benner Roach’s superb research further explains “although he was a pot maker by trade, [William] Crews apparently had decided it was more profitable to deal in the contents of pots than in the pots themselves, and had set up his dwelling as a tavern or ale house” — directly across Chestnut Street from the State House (now Independence Hall).

William Penn wrote in 1701, “Get my two mills finished and make the most of these for my profit, but let not John Marsh put me to any great expense.” While unprofitable for Penn, that “Governor’s Mill” along the Cohocksink Creek (southwest corner of Germantown and Girard avenues) served generations of entrepreneurs including Sybilla Righton Masters whose “fond dreams of hope” earned her the first patent in the Colonies in 1715, “for cleaning and curing the Indian corn.” This was sold as “Tuscarora Rice” and “made into something like our hominy, and which she strongly recommended as a food peculiarly adapted for the relief and recovery of consumptive and sickly persons.” A year later, Sybilla secured a second patent with a method of weaving bonnets from Palmetto leaves, a technique surely learned as a girl growing up in Bermuda.

Burned in 1740, the renamed “Globe Mill” was rebuilt and continually improved to manufacture mustard, chocolate, flax, hemp, tow, and cotton goods. Public support for private manufacture was especially important after Independence from England, so in 1793

ABOVE: This 30-foot-tall, 50-ton steam engine drove machinery to make pipe and sheet flashing at the Tatham Brothers Lead Works. It operated from 1857 until 1930 when it was donated by Philadelphia’s largest lead manufacturer, John T. Lewis, to the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, MI. BELOW: Weisbrod & Hess Brewing Company mosaic on their bottling plant (c. 1930), now rejuvenated by the Philadelphia Brewing Company.

President Washington and members of Congress visited that mill.

During the war of 1812-15, “large quantities of heavy woolen felted goods were purchased and printed in imitation of leopard-skin, for army use,” seemingly a form of camouflage. In 1831, employment was 114 men and women, plus 200 boys and girls.

Sybilla’s husband, Thomas Masters, was equally inventive, tapping the tides of the Delaware River by building a dam across the Cohocksink Creek. Twice-daily incoming “flood” tides raised water levels by six vertical feet covering acres of marshlands. Maximum “head” or power was in the maximum difference between high and low tide, or the hour to either side of low “slack” tide. Then, this liquid force was funneled through a control gate (under today’s Laurel and Canal Streets) and entered a wooden mill race that ran hundreds of feet to the tide mill along the edge of the Delaware, turning large water wheels and the associated gearing. It was no standard workday for those millers, who like mariners, must have followed tide tables.

Masters’ original agreement to dam the Cohocksink Creek required perhaps the strangest land payment in industrial history, to neighbor Richard Hill, for “two fat Capons [chickens] on the one and thirtieth day of December in every year forever.”

The 1767 tax list of Philadelphia reveals the skills of 748 enslaved Africans including “bakehouse, brewery, brick layer, brick maker, butcher, carpenter, carter, cooper, copper smith, distillery, doctor, ferry, goldsmith, hatter, inn holder, joiner, mariner, midwife, post office, printer, rope walk, sail maker, salt chandler, smith, stone cutter,

BELOW RIGHT AND DETAIL: Gear-driven telescopic theodolite used for surveying both horizontally and vertically. Made about 1785 by acclaimed astronomer, instrument maker, professor and patriot David Rittenhouse.

Like gears in a watch, those unseen yet highly inventive and specialized tool suppliers were the critical components in Philadelphia’s massive production of world-class goods. steamboats with blacksmith Peter Browne and boat builder John Wilson. Fitch and Voight, both clockmakers, developed a variety of steam boilers and propulsion systems that carried paying passengers to Trenton for years before Robert Fulton started on the Hudson River.

A later collaborator was William Thornton (the first architect of the U.S. Capitol and the first Superintendent of the U.S. Patent Office).

But competition from established stage coaches along both sides of the Delaware River seriously limited Fitch’s ability to raise prices and capital, so the enterprise floundered financially and those early vessels including the later Phoenix “then deemed the ne plus ultra of the art, won the admiration of all, ... repose in the mud flats of Kensington.”

Philadelphians led other transportation and motive-power innovations. The blacksmiths who served the horses and stagecoaches along the “Kings Highway” were later joined by wagon-makers who supplied both passenger and freight customers. In 1804, Oliver Evans developed the “Oruktor Amphibolus,” a self-propelled steam-

PHOTOGRAPHS AND CONSERVATION: JEFF LOCK, COLONIAL INSTRUMENTS

surgeon, tanyard, tavern keeper, tobaconest.” John Phillips held 13 enslaved, the largest of any individual, at his ropewalk. In June 1778, when the British Army left Philadelphia, three of William Ball’s African silversmiths apparently fled to freedom.

Animals were another early source of industrial power. Needing American currency after Independence, President Washington assigned David Rittenhouse as the first Director of the U.S. Mint (located on the southeast corner of 7th & Arch Streets), who in turn hired Henry Voight as Chief Coiner to codevelop horse-powered coin stamping machines. Softer copper alloys rather than hard silver were chosen for the coins because of the limitations of true horsepower.

Washington wrote on November 6, 1792, “There has been a small beginning in the coinage of half-dimes; the want of small coins in circulation, calling the first attention to them.” From 1792 to 1836, with just hand- or horsepower, $36,000,000 in coinage was produced.

David Rittenhouse is aptly called the “Galileo of America,” not just for his accurate astronomical observations and terrestrial surveying, but for the innovative mathematical instruments he built to take those detailed measures including telescopes, transits, clocks and the vernier compass. His Philadelphia home and octagonal brick observatory stood diagonally across from the Mint, where the African American Museum of Philadelphia now stands.

Henry Voight had collaborated with John Fitch to invent the first

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ABOVE: “Aerial Architecture Perspective of Cramp Shipbuilding Company”

by Adiel Martin Stern (1943). The longest building in the foreground, the Machine & Turret Shop, was demolished in 2011. It was the last survivor from this complex which employed 18,000 during WWII including women, African Americans and graduates of a local nautical engineering program.

powered amphibious dredge used between the piers.

In 1824, the Schuylkill Navigation system was open from Reading to Philadelphia including eighteen dams,23 canals, 120 locks, 17 stone arch aqueducts, one tunnel and 31 homes for toll and lock keepers. Mules could pull 70 tons of coal over 100 miles in six days. Within two decades, railroads could make the same journey in just six hours.

In June 1832, horses pulled the first passenger car on the “Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown” railroad. That was replaced six months later with a Baldwin locomotive pulling four cars at 28 mph.

In 1834, the “Philadelphia & Trenton” railroad came only to the Kensington Depot at Front and Palmer Streets because the haulers, fearful of losing their jobs, refused to allow the tracks to be extended south into the City of Philadelphia. By the end of the 19th century the Reading Rail Road and Pennsylvania Rail Road dominated their routes and grew into financial powerhouses.

Horse-drawn streetcars were replaced by electric trolleys, run by the monopolistic Widener and Elkins families whose Philadelphia Traction Company “controls the city, dominates its politics, and moves all branches of the Municipal Government in its favor with unerring regularity.” To utilize the excess power-generating capacity on weekends, and carry paying passengers, Willow Grove amusement park was built at one termination with “a ferris wheel, scenic railway, but above all wonderful concerts, eventually by bands such as Souza’s and orchestras such as Walter Damrosch’s.” context | SP/SU2011 | 14

The Kensington Screw Dock & Spermaceti Works was “the most complete establishment in the country for the manufacture of sperm oil and candles; ... together with the screw dock, in complete order, and which has been in successful operation for the last two years, having raised during this time one hundred and fifty sail, from canal boats to ships of 600 tons burthen.” Founded in 1831 by Nantucketnative Thomas Coffin and New Yorker James Mott, the brother and husband of famed abolitionist Lucretia Coffin Mott, this illustrates how manufacturing wealth led to a different type of “manufacturing good” — social development.

Paternalistic corporations appeared later, embodied by John B. Stetson, a devout Baptist who gathered his five thousand hat makers in a purpose-built auditorium for music and other performances, who financed neighboring houses, and who built a hospital. Henry Disston was similarly paternalistic, moving from the evils of alcohol and taprooms in Northern Liberties to the then-remoteness of Tacony, where the ban against serving alcohol survives today.

Heavy demands and unsafe working conditions at other manufacturers led to strikes. Cheaper labor is often cited as the reason why textile operations moved elsewhere, but Philadelphia’s manufacturers had long paid higher labor costs sustained through investments in greater productivity and by selling highly desired, higher-margin goods. The real causes of decline included inept management, family squabbles, weak reinvestment, the collapse of strategic partnerships, and cyclical downturns that pruned the weakest.

Philco started making batteries and lamps in 1892, then radios in the 1920s, televisions in the 1930s before leading the market in early transistors in the 1950s (which replaced vacuum tubes). After 60 years, Philco management fossilized, ignoring the advice of their own research & development teams, so Robert Noyce took new methods

of manufacturing to California, first to Fairchild Semiconductor and then to co-found Intel. Other Philco research staff moved locally to UNIVAC (now UNISYS with headquarters in Blue Bell). One of those Philco researchers, John Schwarz, notes “When you think you’ve got the best, you need to think again.”

Partisan politics played its role during the Presidential election of 1908, when the Neafie & Levy Shipyard — founded in 1848 and the leader of America’s switch from inefficient stern- and side-wheelers to superior propeller-powered vessels — supported the losing candidate and thereby lost all contracts, sending them into bankruptcy a year later.

The loss of each talented supplier led to an accelerated malfunction of Philadelphia’s manufacturing economy, leading to thousands of abandoned mills and houses, and the loss of half a million residents since WWII. Only one industry sector with local historic manufacturing roots thrives today. Philadelphia was known as the “Mecca of American Pharmacy,” which derived from the evolution of the apprentice system to the founding the first college of pharmacy on the American BELOW: Three centuries of printers, type founders, engravers, illustrators, publishers, writers and advertisers have promoted “Made in Philadelphia.”

continent in 1821.

Today’s GlaxoSmithKline (merged in 2000) has local roots dating back to 1830 in John Smith whose firm evolved with partnerships with Robert Shoemaker, Mahlon Kline (1865) and French, Richards & Co (1891) — making Smith, Kline & French. Noted products included poison ivy lotion, iron tablets, lozenges, the first anti-psychotic (Thorazine in 1950) and the first time-release medicine in 1952.

John and Frank Wyeth opened a drugstore with a small research lab on Walnut Street in Philadelphia in 1860. In 2009, Wyeth was acquired by Pfizer for $68 billion. In 1879, Robert McNeil bought a drugstore in Kensington, which grew to become McNeil Laboratories, famed for Tylenol. In 1959, McNeil was purchased by Johnson & Johnson.

World-class managers, employees and graduates of our local universities continue to lead a vibrant cluster of pharmaceutical and related companies including Auxilium, Centocor, Cephalon, Endo, IMS, Synthes, Teva and Wolters Kluwer. Shire moved their U.S. operations to the Philadelphia area in 2004 and now employs 1,000.

Philadelphia as “Workshop of the World” surrounds us even in Center City. Our museums, cultural and education institutions are filled and endowed with gifts from manufacturing wealth, from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and University of Pennsylvania to the Barnes Foundation (founded by patent medicine maker Albert Barnes) and Woodmere Art Museum (founded by mining magnate Charles Knox Smith), the Union League and its neighbor the Manufacturer’s Club, or Philadelphia University (founded as the Philadelphia College of Textiles & Sciences by textile titans).

For a refreshing taste of the “Workshop of the World” try the Ales of the Revolution from Yards Brewing Company (recreated from historic recipes including Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Tavern Spruce Ale), or Philadelphia Brewing Company’s whimsically-named Kenzinger, Fleur de Lehigh, and Rowhouse Red that celebrate the neighborhoods surrounding their revival of the former Weisbrod & Hess Brewery. Cheers.

Torben Jenk has researched history and restored buildings since moving to Philadelphia in 1983. He has co-authored books, written scores of articles, gives presentations and tours, and established www.workshopoftheworld.com. Donna Walker has worked with three global manufacturers with connections to Philadelphia: McNeil Consumer Products, Saint Gobain/CertainTeed, and she is now is Director, Commercial Operations Services, with Shire Pharmaceuticals in Wayne, PA. Husband & wife, Torben and Donna live just three blocks northeast of William Penn’s Governor’s Mill, in a neighborhood later known as Kensington, by hipsters as JuNoGi (Just North of Girard), and by one self-described local “fabulist” as the North American Street Design District.

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RE-USE. RE-DISCOVER.

By Thomas J. Walsh

What is a green job?

Philadelphians should know, since about one in five adults who are working have one. That’s because some 20 percent of Philadelphia’s work force is employed in the

PHOTO BY JACK E. BOUCHER, NOVEMBER 1971 FOR HABS/HAER

industrial sector.

“Blacksmith Keyser at forge, with sparks” Keyser Iron Works, 4041 Ridge Avenue.

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You might be wondering what industrial jobs have to do with green ones, but some would say they’re one and the same.

As Mark Alan Hughes, the city’s first sustainability czar, said in a 2008 speech, there is no “new” economy anymore. “This is the economy,” he exclaimed, now three years ago.

“We create problems when we create too small a boundary for ourselves,” Hughes told a crowd at the Academy of Natural Sciences back then — a few months before the bottom fell out of the national economy. “We miss the industrial economy where white-, blue-, and pink-collar workers were interdependent on each other.”

Hughes was speaking of the city’s immense “upside opportunity,” a chance to restore, to fill in, homes and coffee shops and maybe even factories long shuttered. They are the internal organs of a body known as sustainability. And “sustainability,” when you think of infill development, has as much to do with the rusty old industrial sector as it does with any shiny new green technology or urban farming schemes.

After all, look what’s happened to the Navy Yard over the past few years. One of the few negative blips has been the failure of Tasty Baking Co., the venerable Philadelphia institution that was lured to the yard with a state-of-the-art green building. But that was an individual company faltering in a brutal economy, and the denouement was that Tastykake was simply sold to another firm.

The new plant is staying put.

RE-INVENT. Mostly, though, the Navy Yard — once the very epicenter of industrial activity in the Delaware Valley, literally and figuratively — is now the region’s brightest symbol of an emerging market in energy efficiency. The Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. oversees the immense mixed-use redevelopment of the Navy Yard for the city, an indicator of its importance — the “quasi-public” PIDC has been the low-profile driving force behind almost every significant Philly development since the 1960s.

A large British firm, the Mark Group, has made South Broad Street

gaining traction as words that describe re-discovered classics, like a 50-year-old set of heavy Lionel trains found in a corner of the attic.

By reinvigorating the local distribution of living wage employment to blue- and pink-collar earners, it is possible to create an interdependency in cities like Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and even Detroit, given half a chance. The lifeblood of sustainability is opportunity, and where there are already existing footprints — veritable templates from decades gone by — cities thought to be “not what they once were” are positioned to be the hubs of green, opportunistic industry.

“Why? Because the suburbs don’t want you anymore. They want their green space. The code enforcements out there are enough to drive you crazy. There are fees for everything. I really feel like I could do an advertisement for the city. They really go out of their way to help you stay here.” (deep South Broad, if you will) its North American beachhead. The Mark Group specializes in providing energy-saving services and products to homes, and is slowly expanding, hiring at a deliberate pace and planning a weatherization training center for later this year. Other companies have been steadily filtering into the massive former base for the better part of a decade now. A Hollywood movie was even made there, in a soundstage converted from an old concrete airplane hangar. (It’s not PIDC’s fault that M. Night Shyamalan’s fantasy flick, The Last Airbender, was a colossal flop.)

But the big one is GPIC. The Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster for Energy-Efficient Buildings, it is officially designated as an “innovation hub” by the U.S. Department of Energy, led by Penn State engineers. President Obama highlighted GPIC in early 2011 with a visit to State College, PA, touting his administration’s “Win the Future” platform. A glance around the VIP section for Obama’s speech on that frigid weekday morning made it seem like half of all Philadelphia’s civic leaders had take the day off for a road trip to Happy Valley.

The Re-discovery Channel It might help to think of sustainability, and the re-use of old factories or warehouses, as the ultimate in recycling. The word itself, “industrial,” much like “infrastructure,” is a bland, dry term that is nonetheless verging on the retro chic. Unlike the technical revolution of the past 20 years, where hip, sleek words have been invented, the green movement has reclaimed the plain language of the past. “Gray water” means “green water” if re-used or treated right. “Brownfields” inspire colorful optimism, via opportunism. On rooftops across the land, there is a creeping wonderment amid the creeping ivy. Black tar and shingles are making way for white tiles, gleaming solar panels and tomato planters. And “factory” and “manufacturing” are

Aquariums and thousands of new condos and sidewalk cafes are a great start, but they are not going to be much help up on Hunting Park Avenue in Juniata, or down on Lindbergh Boulevard in Southwest Philly.

And while Philadelphia business owners, like all Philadelphians, are not exactly known as starry-eyed optimists, it’s surprising how many believe the city has come a long way.

“I tell ya, I can’t think of a better place to be,” said Garry Fadula, vice president of operations at PTR Baler & Compactor Co., located on East Ontario Street in Kensington. “I’ve seen so many companies move out of the city and go to the suburbs, taking up green, open areas, basically abandoning the infrastructure that was already there.

And what did they get for it? Very high taxes, employees who live in $300,000 houses and need to pay that mortgage. The public transportation isn’t there — that’s another green item. About 50 percent of our shop employees take public transportation.”

Fadula, who has been with the century-old PTR firm for 36 years, was on a roll.

“What can you say? We’re three blocks from I-95,” he said, bordering on the incredulous. “This city, actually, has been really, really nice to work with, my whole career. When I call, they help us. Why? They want us to stay. We’re a great tax base.”

Fadula is under no illusions about Philadelphia’s economy. But he says he thinks the exodus of jobs witnessed in the 1970s and 80s has pretty much stopped.

“Why? Because the suburbs don’t want you anymore,” he said.

“They want their green space. The code enforcements out there are enough to drive you crazy. There are fees for everything. I really feel like I could do an advertisement for the city. They really go out of their way to help you stay here.”

Fadula was interviewed a year ago for this piece, and a few months context | SP/SU2011 | 17

later, his instincts about people leaving were proven to have merit, in one very important category: for the first time in 50 years, in 2010, the city of Philadelphia increased its population.

Which brings us back to the subject of the Navy Yard, because not only is it growing, it is doing so within this new paradigm of “industrial mixed use.” It only makes sense. The Yard is a resource so vast and rich in re-imagination, yet so overlooked, it is seemingly hiding in plain sight to your average Philadelphian. It is literally the same size as Center City, with an amazing amount of infrastructure left in place when the former Navy base and shipyard closed, more than a decade ago.

“It’s hard to import Tastykakes from China.”

That was John Grady, vice president of real estate services for PIDC, which oversees the immense redevelopment of the Navy Yard for the city. Grady can become like a kid at Christmas when driving around the old base, with the Delaware River a constant presence to the east and south. He agrees with Fadula. To him, the place has it all over the suburbs, in spades.

“Amenities become really important,” Grady said. “People want to have that connection to the water. They want to have food and beverage, they want to have conveniences. The ability to track and generate those kinds of conveniences is really what distinguishes the suburban corporate office park experience from the opportunity you get with an urban park.”

For proof, look no further than the Navy Yard campus of Urban Outfitters at lunchtime on any given weekday. What 20-something recent college graduate with a liberal arts degree wouldn’t want to work there? It’s become one of the coolest places to work in town, despite the relatively inconvenient commute when compared to Center City.

Social Capitalism The late Willard Rouse, the legendary developer who built Liberty Place and founded Liberty Property Trust (which is now entrusted with redeveloping the Navy Yard), would likely have approved of what Fadula and Grady had to say about the surburbs. Rouse was responsible for many of those suburban office parks. But in early 1999, marking the 25th anniversary of the Great Valley Corporate Center, a pioneering office park he developed off Route 202 in Malvern, Pa., Rouse lamented the commuter experience inherent in those kinds of developments.

“People get in their cars ... and generally that’s a pretty isolated experience,” Rouse said. “You go from there to the office and see the same people, generally, everyday ... And you go home at night in your one-passenger automobile. The interaction and the stimulation of your brain is fairly limited. There is a social infrastructure that’s got to be created, that’s missing.”

(Rouse was nothing if not visionary, tossing in the phrase “social infrastructure” a decade before such an abstract concept would be practically commonplace. Social networking and crumbling infracontext | SP/SU2011 | 18

Vertical balers on the factory floor at the PTR Baler and Compactor Co. in Port Richmond.

structure are now subjects that garner millions of results on Google, a company founded the year Rouse made that speech.)

Mixed-use development, it would seem, is a social good as well as an economic incentive.

“There’s really an opportunity for mixing uses that are really compatible with one another,” said Gary Jastrzab, deputy executive director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. “You’re not going to have apartments next to a smelting foundry or a steel plant — but there are certain compatibilities where residential and commercial, and some kinds of industrial, are able to exist side by side.”

Jastrzab said the Planning Commission last year initiated a special study for the Hunting Park area, site of the former Budd Co. plant and large swaths of decaying industrial infrastructure.

“We’ve seen the market in Northern Liberties and Kensington, where those parts of neighborhoods are in transition,” Jastrzab went on. “The Crane Arts building in Kensington is a great example of a large industrial building converted to artists’ work spaces and other kinds of mixed uses. It’s making use of those spaces where you have multi-story — most industrial [companies] want one floor.”

The commission’s study was one of at least three concerning industrial re-use over the last 18 months. The biggest was PIDC’s ambitious industrial overview, looking at a 20 percent snapshot of Philly’s industrial parcels over 15 districts zoned for the sector.

The Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority also started a more general vacant land study, with the hope that it would increase property taxes and a make for a “more transparent and accessible system” to spur private investment. It was part of a plan that included a broker sales pilot program, and hundreds of properties were moved out of the RDA’s backlog.

“PIDC’s vacant land study [was] more of a physical study,” said Terry Gillen, former executive director of the RDA and now the director of federal legislation in the Mayor’s office. “Our study is a systems study—how it gets into the status of being vacant, and how we can get it out.”

That entails speaking to the city departments of Law, Revenue and Public Property, among others.

“We’re really focusing on the legal and revenue systems that lead to vacant land,” Gillen said.

Roger Nielsen, president and owner of Abbey Color Inc., a maker of dyes for the bio-chemical industry on East Tioga Street in West Kensington, will be glad to hear that.

“Right next door we have two lots,” Neilsen said in an interview at his plant. “We should reclaim them. An industrial building came down, and an industrial building should go back up. I don’t need more houses.”

Bubbling Up, Bidding Up One of the key points that came out of the PIDC land use study is that industrial land has been bid up in price over the past decade or more, while the residential real estate bubble grew and then burst.

But retail commercial property went up dramatically, too.

Neilsen said that makes sense to him.

“I’ve seen more retail up here, and a lot of money go into old industrial lots, after they tore the buildings down,” he said. “If you look just down Aramingo Avenue, you’ve had a Lowe’s come in, a Home Depot. You’ve had a plethora of the self-storage places. But not the kind of jobs that I would like, that’s for sure.

Gillen said the Vacant Property Review Committee (VPRC; within the city’s Office of Housing) is responsible for transferring the city’s vacant property to people who want to buy land from the city. The RDA had been working with the VPRC and the Office of Public Property “to go through the backlog in VPRC to try to make some decisions on how to get the properties back into use,” Gillen said. “Some of them are awaiting policy decisions, and there’s a whole range of other decisions—it’s a management challenge.”

Over the past 30 or 40 years, PIDC has acquired, improved and sold perhaps 2,500 acres of industrial land around the city, Grady said. Much of it is concentrated in Northeast and Southwest Philadelphia. “If we want to continue to encourage industrial land use—and that doesn’t mean smokestack manufacturing—part of this study is to identify what is really the industrial economy in Philadelphia.”

So, ready for something you don’t hear everyday?

“The property taxes are a steal,” said Fadula, of PTR. “They are a bargain here. [Taxes are] no reason to leave. You’ve got a million and a half people in the city, so this work force, when it snows, they come to work. You don’t have to worry about driving to work, or digging your car out of the driveway. And when you start adding it all up, there’s no service that I might need that can’t be here within five to 10 minutes.”

A welder works on a self-contained waste compactor at PTR Baler and Compactor Co.

Plumbing, electrical, hydraulics … Fadula’s got a guy for all of them, right around the corner.

“Where are you going to find that in the suburbs? That convenience?”

Note to Select Greater Philadelphia, and the folks at the Chamber of Commerce: Meet Garry Fadula, your new best friend.

Thomas J. Walsh is a local writer who has written about city planning, zoning reform, the gaming industry, real estate and economic development. Reach him at thomaswalsh1@gmail.com.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story first appeared on PlanPhilly.com in June 2010. context | SP/SU2011 | 19

The Philadelphia City Planning Commission map of projected industrial land use from the Comprehensive Plan - Philadelphia2035

IN THE YEAR 2035

By John Haak, AICP

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Philadelphia2035, the new comprehensive physical

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY MS&R ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

development plan prepared by the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, envisions a growing base of population and employment, a healthier natural and human environment, and an array of paths for upward mobility and entrepreneurship.

Philadelphia2035 recognizes industrial land is a key physical development resource for turning this vision into reality.

Part of this recognition results from an updated appreciation of the wide range of enterprises accommodated by industrial land. The Philadelphia City Planning Commission (PCPC) and the City’s Commerce Department worked with the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) on its An Industrial Land and Market Strategy for the City of Philadelphia (2010).

A major finding of the strategy is that enterprises whose operations are consistent with industrial land can be found in nearly all sectors of the economy. Another important finding is that jobs related to production, distribution, repair, and maintenance still account for nearly 20 percent of Philadelphia employment and 15 percent of city tax revenue.

The other reason to recognize industrial land as a resource is the large amount of well-located but underutilized, historically industrial acreage and infrastructure that is available for either industrial or nonindustrial reuse. Underutilization of the city’s industrial land results in part from reduced demand by industrial enterprises because of shifts in technology, in consumer concentrations and government funding, and in operations from U.S. cities to lower-cost, less-regulated regions of the globe.

Some underutilization is also attributable to constraints such as the presence of obsolete buildings and site layouts, the risk of dealing with potential contamination from prior uses, and the practice of some property owners to hold industrially zoned sites vacant in hope of realizing gains from future conversion to non-industrial activity.

A Two-Pronged Approach Industrial land figures prominently throughout the themes, goals, objectives, and strategies of Philadelphia2035. An appropriate inventory of industrial land is highlighted as necessary to maintain the city’s economic diversity, opportunity, and tax base. Certain types of industrial land are cited as essential for utilities, public services, transportation infrastructure, and industrial enterprises that support modern living and link Philadelphia to the world. Industrial land and structures are further acknowledged as challenges and opportunities to improvements in the city’s open space, environmental quality, and sense of place.

Philadelphia2035 recommends a two-pronged approach to in-

A new stairway in a former industrial building showcases the structure and original wood flooring at the Philadelphia Navy yard.

creasing the use of Philadelphia’s best industrial land for industrial activities and repurposing obsolete industrial land for other uses.

This approach is informed by PCPC forecasts that Philadelphia will grow in population and employment. PCPC also forecasts that the city has ample land resources to accommodate future industrial and non-industrial needs if the city consistently guides growth to the most suitable areas.

Ensure an adequate supply and distribution of industriallyzone land.

The first approach identifies areas that remain positioned to support industrial activity due to superior infrastructure, workforce access, and large scale that enables the grouping of industrial and compatible enterprises into efficient industrial districts. Philadelphia2035 calls for the city to maintain an industrially zoned inventory of as much as 16,000 acres by 2035 in order to meet current and evolving demand. This would constitute a managed reduction in industrially zoned land of ten percent from the 17,800 acres available in 2008.

Citywide, this future inventory may be distributed as: Large Industrial Districts/potential “Industrial Protection Areas”: 6,000 acres Small Industrial Clusters/Scattered Industrial Sites: 3,000 acres Transportation Facilities (aviation, marine, rail, highway, pipeline): 4,000 acres Utility and Waste Management Facilities: 3,000 acres Based on work in the PIDC Strategy, Philadelphia2035 envisions thirteen 100+ acre industrial districts that would be the primary candidates for management as Industrial Protection Areas, or IPAs. These areas would reinforce multi-purpose industrial reuse and reinvestment through consistent zoning, infrastructure investment, and special management programs. An IPA would help to preserve viable industrial land by reducing market pressure to convert industrial sites context | SP/SU2011 | 21

Women’s clothing prototypes are designed fabricated at Free People, a division of Urban Outfitters, in the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

to non-industrial uses. A district managed as an IPA would also ensure that industrial real estate is available in locations and sizes needed to grow industrial operations.

Industrial activity in smaller or separated clusters and sites would still remain an important part of Philadelphia’s unique urban fabric. These clusters and sites may host smaller facilities and enterprises that efficiently serve local markets, as well as long-standing operations that benefit from local networks of suppliers and labor.

Special purpose transportation facilities have traditionally been zoned as industrial activities in Philadelphia. These include Philadelphia International Airport and Northeast Philadelphia Airport, public and private marine terminals, freight and passenger rail yards, intermodal yards, truck terminals, and maintenance and dispatch yards for buses and taxis. Adequate industrial land is also needed in 2035 to ensure that Philadelphia has the flexibility to adapt efficiently and reliably to changing needs for energy, water, sewage treatment and stormwater management, communications, and solid waste.

Reposition former industrial sites for new users.

The second approach to industrial land in Philadelphia2035 is to transition scattered, obsolete industrial acres to other productive land uses. In recent decades, proposals to rezone historically industrial sites for non-industrial uses have typically been considered case by case, PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY MS&R ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

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Industrially-Zoned Land Accommodates Many Sectors • Utilities • Construction driven by the circumstances of individual property-owners and local community demands. Philadelphia2035 recommends the development of transition plans, including strategies for rezoning, site assemblage, and environmental remediation, for areas identified for transition in upcoming Philadelphia2035 district plans or other area-specific plans in which PCPC and other organizations participate.

Candidates for transition to non-industrial uses such as commercial, civic/institution, culture/recreation, park/open space, or residential may be identified using a number of criteria, including the extent to which: conversion to non-industrial use poses risk to the viability of neighboring industrial activities, candidate site or area remains well-suited for continued industrial use, proposed non-industrial use offers the city and community a new and valued service that cannot be reasonably accommodated in a different location.

Two new “industrial mixed-use” zoning districts, proposed by the Zoning Code Commission, are intended for sites and corridors appropriate to reposition from exclusive industrial use to combinations of activity compatible with industrial use. IRMX – Industrial Residential Mixed Use – is intended for a mix of residences, neighborhood-oriented commercial, and low-intensity industrial activity including artists and artisan manufacturing. ICMX – Industrial Commercial Mixed Use – would support a mix of service, commercial, and industrial activities.

• Manufacturing • Wholesale Trade • Retail Trade (e.g. vending, heating oil) • Transportation and Warehousing • Information (e.g. publishing, film, broadcasting, telecommunications) • Real Estate, Rental, Leasing (e.g. self-storage, trucks, equipment) • Professional, Scientific & Technical (e.g. laboratories, veterinary services, display advertising) • Administrative, Support, and Waste Management (e.g. security, janitorial, waste disposal) • Health Care and Social Assistance (e.g. ambulance services, food banks) •Accommodation and Food Services (e.g. commercial caterers, mobile food services) • Other Services (e.g. auto body, equipment repair, industrial laundry)

Industrial Legacy Areas – Places of Opportunity Philadelphia2035 further highlights the scale of the opportunity presented by underutilized industrial land in the city by identifying a number of “Industrial Legacy Areas.” These are areas with histories of significant industrial use that hold regionally significant potential for future revitalization due to their size, accessibility, infrastructure and facilities, and available land.

Not all Industrial Legacy Areas are alike. Included among the identified Industrial Legacy Areas are places such as Philadelphia International Airport, the Navy Yard, Hunting Park West, and the Central Delaware that need focused refinement and implementation of existing or soon to be completed master plans.

Also identified as Industrial Legacy Areas are parts of Philadelphia that call for updated long-range planning and public investment to unlock and capture new private investment. These areas include the Lower Schuylkill, North Broad, the AMTRAK corridor through North Philadelphia, the North Delaware Waterfront, and the Far Northeast Regional Center.

What all Industrial Legacy Areas share, however, is the potential for a thoughtful succession of land use and infrastructure management to replace underutilized land with new activities that enhance Philadelphia’s competitiveness within the globally important Northeast Megaregion. New activities, determined by the specific challenges and opportunities of each area, could include non-industrial

uses in certain sub-areas. In other sub-areas, the reinvigoration of industrial and industrial-compatible uses could be emphasized, with larger sub-areas considered as candidates for designation as Industrial Protection Areas.

What’s Next?

The Citywide Vision component of Philadelphia2035 articulates overall goals, objectives and strategies to accommodate population and job growth over 25 years. PCPC will then work closely with community stakeholders on a series of eighteen District Plans, with each district plan to provide more detailed recommendations for future land use, public and private investment, and zoning map revisions.

Philadelphia2035 is closely integrated with the work of the Zoning Code Commission to update the city’s zoning ordinance, the work of the new Citizen’s Planning Institute to educate current and emerging community leaders about planning principles and processes, and other significant policy and planning initiatives spearheaded by partnering organizations and agencies.

John A. Haak, AICP, is a senior planner for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.

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Chester Waterside Station Photographs and text by Jeffrey Totaro

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The Chester Waterside Station is a monument to the production and marketing of electricity in early twentieth century America. Wartime demand for light and power led Philadelphia Electric Company to commission the plant for the company’s Chester, Pennsylvania subsidiary in 1916. Conceived by architect John T. Windrim and engineer William C.L. Eglin, the design featured recent advances in electricity generation and industrial construction. A work of City Beautiful classicism, it also reflected the sponsor’s desire to express stability, permanence and civic responsibility at a time when electric utilities faced considerable public scrutiny.

expression

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Photographing places like this old power plant give me a great perspective on the history of this country and of technology as well.

There is something very peaceful about the process too. Spending time in this great old building, I can’t help but think of the people that worked in this plant, and how excited they must have been, on their first day, to be working in such a monument to technical achievement. It lived its first life and now has sat idle since about 1980. All of the equipment seen in these photos has since been removed and the building has found new life at the center of an office park (see Design Profiles, page 34).

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EX

expression

What struck me initially about this building was the amazing quality of light inside. It’s a huge building divided into three sections; the five-story boiler house, the turbine hall where the generation takes place, and finally the switch house where the power leaves the building. Throughout the building all of the large windows and skylights are a photographer’s dream, frosted and corrugated glass. What this meant was that even on bright sunny days, beautiful diffused light made its way through the glass, and the coal dust, to illuminate the relics of this power plant. Mostly I just let the light dictate what to shoot since it would have been too difficult to bring in strobes. Luck always plays a part in photography. Just as I was setting up the transverse view across turbine hall, smoke from a cutting torch began to billow out of the control room high above the floor and was caught by the sunlight coming through the skylight. I scrambled up a ladder and took some shots before it dissipated.

I would like to thank Carl Mason of Central Salvage for making these photographs possible.

Jeffrey Totaro is a freelance architectural photographer based in Gladwyne, PA. He is currently the co-chair of the Architectural Specialty Group of the American Society of Media Photographers. For more information: jeffreytotaro.com.

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design profile

DP

Globe Dye Works: DIGSAU

By Amanda Gibney Weko

Between 1865 and 2005, the Greenwood Family’s Globe Dye Works textile factory was an economic catalyst in its Fishtown neighborhood.

The 17-building complex was deteriorated and in disrepair when Globe Development Group acquired the property in late 2007.

With visions of dramatic adaptive re-use and creation of an industrial-arts community, the group hired DIGSAU to prepare a master plan that could guide redevelopment.

From March until June 2008, design firm DIGSAU toured, researched, and conceptualized a master plan for revitalizing the former Globe Dye Works. The final report emphasizes interrelationships between social, environmental, and architectural aspects of the buildings to create a sense of community between tenants and with the adjacent neighborhood.

The master plan outlines restoration and adaptation of the factory into code-compliant, work-life loft spaces for artists, crafters, and industrial businesses. The complex of buildings was divided into five zones to organize and centralize circulation and service spaces. This internal zoning establishes a hierarchy for construction phasing and lifesafety upgrades. The plan recommends both large spaces that capture the industrial scale and aesthetic and smaller spaces conducive to single artist studios or workshops. It also outlines methods to subdivide and group tenant spaces for maximum benefit.

As DIGSAU understood the organization of structures in the Globe Dye Works, sustainable strategies also took shape. Water was an integral part of the factory’s operations, and systems existed for channeling rainwater across roofs, underground, and through buildings. Recommendations for sustainable gray-water movement became a natural component of the master plan’s detailed sustainability analysis.

“The members of Globe Development Group are very skilled in design and construction,” explained DIGSAU Principal, Jeff context | SP/SU2011 | 29

“The members of Globe Development Group are very skilled in design and construction. They wanted a big-picture guide to help them, but wanted to handle the nittygritty details themselves.�

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Goldstein. “They wanted a big-picture guide to help them, but wanted to handle the nittygritty details themselves.” DIGSAU’s process was much less specific than usual because of the client’s skills. Goldstein added that his team was comfortable relinquishing design control because they knew the clients would execute details in interesting and thoughtful ways.

The master plan strategy was about making the buildings coherent and understandable for visitors and tenants. DIGSAU recommended public, shared green spaces to encourage community and circulation.

Three areas were detailed. A central courtyard framed by the masonry shell and remaining roof trusses of a collapsed building would become the new main entry portal. A rooftop garden with panoramic views of the complex and the Philadelphia skyline was

conceived for the tallest building, whose cast-in-place concrete structure could support the additional loads.

An industrial winter garden would be created in the original boiler plant. Clerestory and roof monitor windows flood the room with natural light. Existing industrial equipment would remain, dissected and transformed into giant planters, establishing a dramatic backdrop for public and tenant special events.

Phased development of the Globe Dye Works is under way. The strategy conceived

by DIGSAU and Globe Development Group recognizes an industrial past and acknowledges a vital creative community that will contribute to its future. The tenant group continues to grow, and hosting an inaugural art exhibition in May 2010 with future events planned.

LOCATION: 4500 Worth Street, Philadelphia CLIENT: Globe Development Group ARCHITECTURE: DIGSAU; Jamie Unkefer, AIA, LEED AP, Principal in Charge; Jules Dingle, AIA, LEED AP, Principal; Jeff Goldstein, AIA, LEED AP, Principal; Mark Sanderson, AIA, LEED AP, Principal; Aaron Jetzzi , Architect Intern; Nick Musser, Architect Intern RENDERINGS: DIGSAU PHOTOGRAPHY: Dominic Mercier context | SP/SU2011 | 31

profile DP design

Lofts LS: Populace Office

By Rosemarie Fabien

The lush wood floors are bare in the home that Tse-Chiang Leng and Alice Sun designed in Callowhill, but it was Calvino’s carpet that provided the inspiration.

“Invisible Cities has floated around my consciousness since architecture school,” said Leng. “When I first saw this industrial space and the historical fabric of the city through its windows, I was reminded of the novel and the sense of the imagined past that it evokes. We were looking for a space that connects to urban life, both visually and historically, and we felt that this loft reflected that space / time continuum.”

Located in a former shoe factory from the turn of the century, the 1,400-square-foot condominium unit was a barren shell with eight-foot-tall windows when the two architects began work. An exposed ceiling 11 feet, six inches high and a 45-foot by 30-foot floor plate was divided into an open living / dining / kitchen / library area and a second area with two bedrooms and two baths. The original maple flooring, damaged beyond repair, was substituted with cherry wood, providing a warm contrast to the custom designed light wood furniture, storage and shelving. Furniture was selected in stretched, compressed or monolithic forms to carefully balance the square living space. Bare plywood shelving units were installed either on tracks or wheels; they roll and swing like the machinery in industrial plants.

A conically capped concrete column two feet in diameter became the dividing line between the public and private spaces, as well as an element from the past that exists companionably with the modern interior. Sunlight from north and east facing windows fills the space all day; simple, elegant track lighting takes over in the evening.

“We focused on the mobility of various elements, including walls, so as to compress the maximum program into a limited floor area,” Leng said. “The overall arrangement of the apartment was driven by the continucontext | SP/SU2011 | 32

“To me it is an interesting image to see both the interior rail in the foreground and the old viaduct in the background outside the windows. Working within a limited budget, we were drawn to industrial spaces.” ous north and east exposure and the seminal concrete column.”

The Shoe Factory condominium sits at the northern edge of Center City in Callowhill, a neighborhood of industrial buildings that was once considered a possible location for the Phillies baseball stadium.

With that dream deferred, the vacated buildings sat idle and deteriorating. Recently, however, the affordable real estate close to downtown has captured the imagination of small developers and not a few visionary architects who have made the most of the concrete tabula rasa.

“To me it is an interesting image to see both the interior rail in the foreground and the old viaduct in the background outside the windows,” said Leng. “Working within a limited budget, we were drawn to industrial spaces. It happened to be at a corner of an abandoned factory building, its plain, large and textured canvas easily attracted us. What sealed the deal is the view of the old viaduct from the Reading Railroad that you can see from the windows. Figuratively speaking, we feel that our train has come in.”

LOCATION: Callowhill, Philadelphia ARCHITECTURE: Populace Office, TseChiang Leng, AIA, LEED AP; Alice Sun, RA, LEED AP MILLWORK DESIGN: Populace Office, TseChiang Leng, AIA, LEED AP MEP ENGINEERING: Barbara Montalbano, PE, LEED AP PHOTOGRAPHY: Todd Mason, Halkin Photography, LLC

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profile DP design

The Wharf at Rivertown:

Blackney Hayes Architects

By Amanda Gibney Weko

In 1916, when electricity was new and intimidating, the Philadelphia Electric Company Delaware County powergenerating plant’s comforting classical edifice calmed fears and ushered in an age of industrial achievement.

Today, following extensive adaptive reuse, the plant’s Class A offices attract tenants with 21st Century aspirations.

Recipient of a 2006 Preservation Achievement Grand Jury Award, the Wharf at Rivertown is the cornerstone of the 90-acre site’s Keystone Opportunity Zone redevelopment.

Designed by architect John Windrim and Philadelphia Electric Company chief engineer William C. L. Eglin, Chester Waterside Station was built in 1916. It sits along the Delaware River where I-95 and the Commodore Barry Bridge to New Jersey converge.

The plant’s three parts include the Boiler House, closest to the river and where coal was used to heat river water into steam; Turbine Hall, the central core where steam turbines were used to generate electricity; and the Switch House, where five levels of copper switchgear distributed power to the region.

By 2000, the power plant was offline.

Developer/general contractor Preferred Unlimited, Inc. began an adaptive reuse that would retain significant historic elements while converting the plant into a modern office park. Blackney Hayes Architects were responsible for the comprehensive interior renovation, including layout of tenant office spaces. CVM Structural Engineers worked in tandem with the architects.

Historic American Buildings Survey and Historic American Engineering Record documentation provided insights into the plant’s original design. Preliminary site surveys took an ironic twist – the plant lacked power – and the design teams were required to survey by flashlight and with limited natural light.

The massive scale and industrial nature of the building made the redesign complex.

“Interior restructuring was really important to revitalization,” explained Blackney Hayes Project Manager, Kathy Dowdell, AIA. She recalled the importance of not only the structural engineers but also preservacontext | SP/SU2011 | 34

“In the original structure, they just held on to the building. In the redesign, the crane towers became elevator cores and stiffeners to support the structure.”

tion consultant Suzanna Barucco to ensure character-defining elements of the National Register-listed property were retained and stabilized while creating economically-viable, rentable office space.

Stabilization of the historic exterior, insertion of new interior structure, and reuse of existing foundations were primary components of the adaptive reuse. In much of the building, the industrial interior was completely removed, necessitating extensive bracing of the exterior shell. Windows were removed (and later restored or replaced with historically-accurate replicas) so that strong lateral wind forces along the river would not collapse the shell during demolition and construction.

In the Boiler House, five stories of industrial insides were removed and a new, seven-story steel-frame structure incorporated within the shell. CVM Principal Jon Morrison, PE, described the process as a “surgical insertion” that cleverly reused existing structure as temporary bracing during construction. The two coal-crane towers that flank the river-end of the Boiler House underwent a structural reversal. Morrison explained, “In

the original structure, they just held on to the building. In the redesign, the crane towers became elevator cores and stiffeners to support the structure.”

The grand, central Turbine Hall was preserved as a single-tenant unit, with original concrete and brick details restored and an additional floor constructed where the turbines once stood. Switchgear was removed and the Switch House upgraded with a new front entry. Throughout the building new mechanical, electrical, HVAC, fire protection, and life-safety systems were incorporated along with new elevator/service cores. The building’s brick exterior was repointed and concrete cleaned and repaired. A protective coating was applied to the concrete columns to preserve both the aesthetic appearance and structural stability.

A portion of the first floor was enclosed and a lobby space recaptured. In keeping with Preferred’s desire to retain vestiges of the past, a large switchgear monitoring station was repurposed as the lobby’s reception desk, and other industrial remnants serve as reminders of the building’s history.

LOCATION: Chester, Pennsylvania CLIENT, DEVELOPER, AND GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Michael G. O’Neill, Prefered Unlimited, Inc. ARCHITECTURE: Blackney Hayes Architects: Kevin Blackney, AIA, Principal in Charge; Kathy Dowdell, AIA, Project Manager; Dan Welborn, AIA, Project Architect; Sara Sweeney, RA, LEED AP, Staff Architect STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: Jon E. Morrison, PE, CVM Structural Engineers PRESERVATION CONSULTANT: Suzanna Barucco ELECTRICAL ENGINEER: Robert Ford Electric MECHANICAL ENGINEER: Phoenix Mechanical, Inc. CONSTRUCTION MANAGER: Barclay White PHOTOGRAPHY: Jeffrey Totaro Photographer

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NB

note book

calendar PARK(ING) DAY

Sept. 16

DESIGN AWARDS CEREMONY

Oct. 6

DESIGN AWARDS EXHIBITION

Oct. 10-24

DESIGN ON THE DELAWARE

Nov. 7-9

MEMBER NEWS Shawn Evans, AIA, of Atkin Olshin Schade Architects received a Fitch Mid-Career Grant to study the range of preservation philosophies of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. In recognition of receiving the award and his other contributions to the firm, Evans was named Director of Preservation and Cultural Projects.

Bernardon Haber Holloway Architects PC announced that Traci Luckenbill has passed the Architectural Registration Exam and has become a Registered Architect.

BLT Architects announced that it has been selected by and is currently working with The Kimmel Center, Inc. to redesign its Dorrance H. Hamilton Garden at The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. The Garden, which was intended as a special events and public space when The Kimmel Center first opened in 2001, has faced temperature and acoustic challenges.

Environetics announced the addition of Fletcher H. MacNeill, AIA, LEED AP to the team as Principal, Healthcare Practice Leader. Fletcher offers over 27 years of experience in planning and designing hospitals and specialty healthcare facilities.

EwingCole has designed a new $45,000,000 research laboratory for the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. EwingCole’s renderings of the new facility were revealed at a groundbreaking ceremony in Edgewater, MD. It is expected context | SP/SU2011 | 36

PHOTOGRAPH: DOMINIC MERCIER

to be completed in late 2013.

renovations at the Belmont Stable and City Hall.

Francis Cauffman announced Michael Bonomo has been appointed Director of Corporate Interior Design for the firm’s New York office. For the last 13 years, Bonomo has designed corporate spaces for large prominent clients. His award-winning work includes retail, commercial, and institutional projects with a strong focus in New York.

Schradergroup Architecture is participating in a Building Information Modeling (BIM) Studio developed at the Pennsylvania State University as a joint program that includes the Schools of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Architectural Engineering.

The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey celebrated the opening of its new campus center designed by KSS Architects with a ribbon-cutting ceremony May 7. The $65 million, 153,000-square-foot campus center will become a welcoming living room as well as a one-stop shop for the entire campus and student community.

George C. Skarmeas, PhD, AIA, Planning and Design Director at Preservation Design Partnership, LLC, has been appointed to the U.S. National Commission for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization (UNESCO), representing the National Committee of US/ICOMOS as Chair.

Schade and Bolender Architects LLP is renovating a Frank Furness house in Center City and designing a new house in Bryn Mawr for a mid-century modern enthusiast.

The firm was asked to research interaction between medical personnel and patients at two City Health Centers, which will lead to innovative upgrades to public areas at both buildings. Other ongoing projects include

SMP Architects received two recent design awards for The Sustainable Urban Science Center at Germantown Friends School. AIA Pennsylvania recognized the project with a Citation of Merit Award for Architectural Excellence during a ceremony held at the State Capitol Building in Harrisburg on April 12, 2011. The National AIA Committee on Architecture for Education has also selected the project for an Award of Excellence in the 2011 AIA/CAE Educational Facility Design Awards Program.

Studio Agoos Lovera is working on a Long Term Capital Improvements assessment and facilities database with Howard University in Washington, DC. The project consists of a complete facilities assessment of all buildings on Howard’s Main, Law School and Divinity School campuses.

The renovation of 3020 Market Street in Philadelphia by UCI Architects, Inc. has received LEED Silver certification established the U.S. Green Building Council and verified by the Green Building Certification Institute.

The Darby Free Library received a Preservation Award from the Heritage Commission of Delaware County. The awards recognize outstanding contributions to the preservation of the County’s heritage. UJMN Architects + Designers designed interior and exterior improvements to the historic library, including new offices, a computer center, brick restorations, exterior painting, window repairs, and electrical service upgrades.

The American Planning Association recognized WRT with the organization’s first ever National Planning Excellence Award for a Planning Firm. The prestigious citation was bestowed in Boston at the APA’s annual national conference, citing WRT as “at the top of its game.”

AFFILIATE NEWS

C. Raymond Davis has recently completed a project at Allegheny East Conference Center in Pine Forge, PA. This new building is a two-story steel framed Administration building of approximately 43,000 square feet.

Doug Janiec, a senior natural resource scientist with Duffield Associates, wrote an article Modifying Traditional Stream Stabilization Techniques Based on Project Needs: Tweaking the traditional design tool

box that was published in March/April 2011 issue of Land and Water Magazine. His article provides a stream restoration design approach that defines the problem and identifies the path towards a solution.

Gary Berman, principal and chairman of the board of GREYHAWK, recently announced two changes to the company’s leadership team. Chuck Romanoli, one of the firm’s principals, has been promoted to president and chief executive officer. Ron Kerins LEED A.P., regional manager, has been named a principal, bringing the total number of principals to five.

The Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia presented its annual Preservation Achievement Awards at a luncheon Tuesday, May 17, 2011. Among the award recipients were Keast & Hood Co. retired principal Nicholas L. Gianopulos, PE, who received the James Biddle Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Metropolitan Acoustics served as the sound system designer for Styling a Second Empire: A Light and Sound Experience for PIFA. Metropolitan Acoustics was responsible for designing the sound system as well as the coordination, programming and installation of the sound and control system equipment at City Hall.

P. Agnes, Inc. has been awarded a project at Jeanes Hospital. The project consists of a renovation to approximately 11,900 square feet of the existing Patient Care Center building located at 7600 Central Avenue Philadelphia.

Urban Engineers, Inc. announced the expansion of its Traffic Engineering and ITS Practice, naming Orla H. Pease, PE, PTOE, Deputy Practice Leader-Pennsylvania. She brings nearly 15 years of diverse traffic operations and final design experience to this position.

Presser Senior Apartments was Recipient for the 2011 Preservation Achievement Grand Jury Award from the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia. Wick Fisher White provided MEP design and construction administration services for the fit-out of the Presser Building, located in the Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia.

Derek Herr, of Wohlsen Construction Company, won the Gold Medal at the National Associated Builders and Contractors Craft Championship held in San Antonio, Texas. Herr took the top honor in the Carpentry division. In order to qualify for the National competition Herr had to place first at the local level through the Keystone Chapter of ABC.

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