Isle be Damned

A local architect wants to put land masses in the middle of the Delaware River.

by Andrew Thompson

Andrew Thompson IS THIS MAN NUTS? Cadwalader with his maps. He's thought through all objections to his plan.

CRAZY IDEAS

Gardner Cadwalader has a dream for the Delaware River. Spread out over the dining room table in his spacious Chestnut Hill home are snippets of 20 years' worth of research about this dream: a broad map of eastern Philadelphia, pictures of grand landscape architecture, an article about the SS United States. And on top of the map is his dream visualized: a watercolor rendering of four islands in the Delaware topped with condos, hotels, a tram from Philadelphia to Camden and a Ferris wheel.

Yes, Cadwalader, an architect and board member of the Fairmount Park Commission, wants to put islands in the Delaware River. And he wants them to be the crown gems of the city. In Cadwalader's dream, when people think of Philadelphia, they'll think of the islands.

He isn't too concerned about what goes on the islands, which he calls Windmill Keys. What concerns him is that the land masses be constructed with dredgings from the river, should the dredging project — which has been in the works for many years, and is intended to improve a shipping channel just south of the Ben Franklin Bridge — ever go forward.

To Cadwalader, the project is a no-brainer.

"Quite frankly, I'm surprised everyone in the city hasn't come to this conclusion," says Cadwalader, who worked at the architectural firm Francis, Cauffman, Wilkinson & Pepper (now Francis Cauffman), mostly during what he calls the "first generation" of giving old buildings new uses, like turning former factories into lofts and apartments.

The whole thing might seem more harebrained if Cadwalader came off as such himself. Instead, he exudes a cool pragmatism when he points to the map and explains where exactly Windmill Keys would go, and how he conceived all the plan's details. His decades of experience in architecture and urban development are always on full display, and one doesn't get the sense that he hatched his idea during some manic pondering of wild possibilities.

Cadwalader believes what's missing in the development of Philadelphia's often-maligned waterfront is something to fill in the empty expanse people see when they look toward Camden. He attributes the success of Baltimore's Inner Harbor to the fact that the vista from across the water doesn't include more water or a blighted city, but the city's own attractions. Cadwalader says the cul-de-sac of the Inner Harbor gives the area a "sense of scale," and that adding the same feature to the Delaware River would spur development on land.

Combine that with the fact that the dredging of the Delaware represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take thousands of tons of material slated for waste and turn it into prime real estate. For what Cadwalader estimates at $1 million an acre, the project, he says, could slash a significant amount of the cost off of the $200 million-plus price tag planners estimate for moving the 16 million cubic yards of dredging spoils to their dump sites (though that wouldn't include the cost of developing the islands).

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

Oh, and that whole fight over where to put the casinos? "There's no reason why one of these islands couldn't be one," Cadwalader says.

The idea of having islands in the Delaware River isn't new — in fact, there used to be some. The name Windmill Keys is homage to Windmill Island, which sat in the river until 1838, when it was split into Windmill and Smith islands to make way for the Camden ferry. As the size of shipping barges increased, so, too, did the necessary passageway for them to travel. The islands, along with the beer garden and amusement park they housed, were destroyed in the 1890s, and their remains were used to fill in the area between League Island, now the home of the Naval Yard, and the mainland.

Cadwalader shows a drawing of Windmill and Smith islands from 1861 and speaks wistfully of the beer garden and inn and marina that used to sit there, musing on how great it must have been.

"You could just take a little rowboat, row out there, go to the beer garden and then row home if you could," he says with a laugh.

Unfortunately for Cadwalader, the battle he faces is uphill, and it's steep. Volumes of environmental and planning regulations make his plan for Windmill Keys all but unattainable for now. The plan to dredge the Delaware, for instance, is required to include a federally approved site to dump the dredge spoils and dry them before they can be sold for other uses. Environmental codes prevent putting the material right back into the water for fear of disrupting wildlife.

Also standing in the way is the nearly $1.8 billion cost of developing the islands after they've been built, and the $347 million involved in maintaining those on-island developments, according to a study by Studley Real Estate of a slightly grander version of the project than Cadwalader today envisions. Cadwalader sees the money coming mainly from investors, rather than the government — but it's a huge amount of cash to raise.

Finally, there's the question of the effect the islands would have on the shipping channel. Donald Brennan, director of special projects for the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, met with Cadwalader in 2006 to look over Cadwalader's sketches and plans for Windmill Keys.

"I thought he was a very interesting man. I found his idea to be illuminating, and he had a great grasp of these things," says Brennan. But "once we determined these would be impediments to the shipping channel, it sort of became, 'end of conversation.'"

Cadwalader isn't oblivious to these obstacles. He just thinks they're surmountable. The environmental regulations could be changed to make way for the islands, for instance. In fact, Lisa Magee, special projects engineer for the Port Authority, says one key impediment to Windmill Keys may disappear — the prohibition of moving dredge spoils from one area of the river to the next.

"That's where you got it from in the first place. I think that may change because it doesn't make a lot of sense," says Magee.

As for the shipping channel, Cadwalader doesn't buy that the islands would obstruct it. He says they would be just east of the dredging area, out of range.

Brennan says that wasn't the message he got during his meeting with Cadwalader.

"If he changed that, it would seem to be a step in the right direction," he says.

Cadwalader says he hasn't moved the islands, and that he never would have put them in the shipping channel in the first place.

If the islands are east of the shipping channel, they could be partly in New Jersey's territory — making the project a potential nightmare of bureaucratic logistics.

A sketch of Windmill Keys. The islands would be constructed out of materials from dredging. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

It would take only one powerful voice to make it happen, Cadwalader says. A mayor, a councilperson, a state senator — anyone with a bully pulpit who likes Windmill Keys as much as Cadwalader does could help circumvent the existing barriers.

In a meeting with Gov. Ed Rendell in 2007 about rebuilding the South Street Bridge, Cadwalader brought up the Windmill Keys project.

"He was very interested in the idea, but he's an extremely practical governor and could see all the obstacles right in front of it," he says. "But he's also a visionary man, and I think a little more discussion with him could help a lot."

He notes the obstacles that past "practical" people saw in creating the Ben Franklin Parkway, or putting City Hall on Philadelphia's center square. "Can you imagine if someone proposed to put City Hall in Rittenhouse [today]?" he asks.

Even if the technical obstacles are overcome, though, the slightest fear that Windmill Keys could jeopardize the shipping opportunities opened up by the hard-won dredging project could be enough to turn people off from the idea.

Cadwalader thinks that's unfortunate. Because to him, not building the islands would be more Philly's loss than it would be his.

"For all the reasons people say no, there are equal and more compelling reasons to say yes," he says.

(andrew.thompson@citypaper.net)