Also this issue: Landing A Message How Philadelphia can learn from past failures to develop a brighter future for the Delaware River. -Patrick M. Starr

January 30-February 5, 2003

cityspace

Dead On The Water?

by Daniel Brook

A forum on the perennial question of what to do with Penn's Landing was held at the University of Pennsylvania on Fri., Jan. 24. Experts in urban planning, architecture and real estate development offered various scenarios. City Commerce Director James Cuorato's optimism that a viable plan for Penn's Landing was imminent was met with cheers from some and snickers from others.

Gary Hack, the dean of Penn's fine arts graduate school (which encompasses urban planning), played the optimistic realist: He conceded that the adjacent six-lane highway is a barrier to development, but insisted it's not an insurmountable one. While he said he doesn't "think there's a poorer-designed roadway in the country" than that stretch of I-95, he cited examples of successful waterfront developments from around the world, all of which, he said, overcame barriers of some sort, usually highways or rail lines.

Urbanist Witold Rybczynski sounded a more pessimistic note. He detailed the history of each failed scheme and observed that since the original 1976 Penn's Landing plan was drawn up, development in the city has shifted to West Market Street and University City, further "marginalizing" the site.

Peter Linneman, who teaches real estate, finance and public policy at Wharton, topped even Rybczynski in playing the nattering nabob of negativism. Nothing's been built, Linneman argued, because it doesn't make economic sense to build there -- a point he admitted making to the Simon family shortly before they backed out of the most recent Penn's Landing project. Even during a market bubble with massive public subsidy, Linneman said, "Simon couldn't make economic sense of this site." Unless the city starts growing, why should we think this will ever work, he wondered aloud.

Linneman, a true Whartonite, proposed a market-based solution in which the city sells off the land to a private developer. If a decent bid can't be found, the city then turns the land into a park and calls it a day.

Linneman's parting advice was this: "Stop the tram now!" The professor said he had crunched the numbers and concluded there was no way the tram between Camden and Philadelphia could support itself. If the construction of the towers continues, Linneman said, he has visions of an abandoned "Philadelphia Stonehenge" on the Delaware.