Category skyline

South Philly wants to extend East Passyunk’s success

The recent success of East Passyunk Ave, in the Passyunk Square neighborhood, has really got people thinking on both sides of Broad St in South Philly.

If they can do it, why can’t we?

Andrew Pinkham, a resident of Philadelphia’s Bella Vista neighborhood, is leading the charge to get things done around West Passyunk Ave and Snyder Ave in Newbold. The extent of the project has been fully conceptualized, and now all they need is funding. “Before & After” shots have been included above so you can see what they’re looking to do.

Some of the project highlights include:

  • Cleaner streets
  • Greening public areas
  • Improved pedestrian safety and traffic circulation
  • Signal improvements
  • New parking strategies
  • Curb bump-outs/ramps
  • Commercial area banners

This is a large project to say the least, but it looks like Andrew is on the right path to seeing it through.

Urban farming … in North Philly?

Urban farming in Philadelphia seems to be a growing program for neighborhoods that are under served for food options.

What do I mean be under served? I mean that there are many neighborhoods in our big city that don’t have access to a decent supermarket. Most of the time, they have to rely on smaller corner markets to shop for their daily/weekly/monthly food and the selection is limited. Especially in the “fresh” category.

I actually wrote a post in April 2011 about an urban farm opening in Brewerytown, and this article proves that the trend is growing.

All political eyes are on Philly

 
I logged a post in May 2011 about this project, and now things are starting to come together.

All political eyes are watching over our city, more specifically in South Philly, to see if the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster (GPIC) can deliver on their promises. Those promises, are as follows:

“… to improve energy efficiency and operability and reduce carbon emissions of new and existing buildings, and to stimulate private investment and quality job creation in the Greater Philadelphia region, the larger Mid-Atlantic region, and beyond. The GPIC will focus on full spectrum retrofit of existing average size commercial and multifamily residential buildings.”

Needless to say, this group has their hands full.

Over the next 2 years, the GPIC will design and build their first project at Building 661. This project may be a make-or-break for the group and will certainly show whether or not the $129M investment was worth it.