May 28, 2012:

Phila­del­phians are fa­mil­iar with the pic­tur­esque Schuylkill River Trail, and, farther south, the grit­ty stor­age tanks at Su­no­co’s Phila­del­phia re­fin­ery. But there’s a vast stretch of the Schuylkill that many peo­ple drive past, but few ac­tu­al­ly see. The city says that six miles along the riv­er’s banks, from University City to Phila­del­phia International Airport, is prime for com­mer­cial de­vel­op­ment and accounts for 68 per­cent of Phila­del­phia’s un­der­u­til­ized and va­cant in­dus­tri­al land.

It’s home to refineries, utilities, freight rail, scrap yards, and remnants of industries that grew up on rail lines that passed through the area. This "Low­er Schuylkill" is the last un­planned tract in the city, said Alan Green­berg­er, dep­u­ty mayor for eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment. "In a city that’s out of land, but for this, we should be thinking long and hard about what we see happening there."  The City Planning Commission, Commerce Department, and Phila­del­phia Industrial Development Corp. are fi­nal­iz­ing a Low­er Schuylkill mas­ter plan to trans­form the 4,100 acres into an­oth­er Route 202 cor­ri­dor — a hub for businesses, tech­nol­o­gy start-ups, in­dus­try, and re­search spun out of near­by universities and med­i­cal schools.

The goal is to cre­ate jobs that were lost when companies including U.S. Gyp­sum, National Heat & Power, M.A. Brud­er & Sons (MAB paints), DuPont Co. Mar­shall Lab­o­ra­to­ry, and Brey­ers Ice Cream Co. downsized, relocated, or closed. They left be­hind emp­ty buildings and large parcels from the 34th Street Bridge and Grays Ferry Avenue to the air­port and the Navy Yard. The mas­ter plan for the Low­er Schuylkill, which will be re­leased this fall, envisions new city streets, an ex­ten­sion of the Schuylkill River Trail to the west bank, and con­struc­tion of a pe­des­tri­an walk­way across an old Conrail bridge.

One goal will be to link the campuses of the University of Penn­syl­van­ia, Drex­el University, Children’s Hospital, and the University of the Sciences south to Bar­tram’s Garden, part of the Fairmount Park sys­tem, and be­yond.

By Philly.com