Another Delco Guy In South Jersey

Friday Fantastic Four

I love massive projects.  The Big Dig?  Incredible!  I can watch shows about it all day long.  Well.  Unless the show is about this.  I also think that big public works projects, when well-planned and not subject to political whim are generally good for society.  This country has a history of doing it BIG.  But recently, many of the world's massive projects are being done overseas.  Some of that is the NIMBY nature of folks here in the US.  Some of it has to do with ill-informed media naysayers.

I think what our economic crisis needs is some massive construction projects.  Thus, this week's Fantastic Four:

What four BIG projects would you like to see completed?

1. The American Commerce Center in Center City Philadelphia.
2. A Big Dig-style project that would bury I-95 though Philadelphia and re-connect the city with its river.
3. A network of off-shore wind turbines for clean, safe power
4. The soccer stadium in Chester

How about you?  What would you build?

Karen Heller Needs A Clue

I saw this article tonight and just feel a need to respond. I have been hanging out in Chester since my mom ran day care centers there when I was a wee lad.  I went to high school there.  I made out in Chester Park.  I worked there for nine years.

If I never set foot in Chester again, I have spent more time there than Karen Heller will spend there in her life. 

My guess is that she wandered in for yesterday's press event breaking ground for the new MLS stadium in the shadow of the Commodore Barry Bridge, looked around for a Starbucks, and damn near ran screaming from the area.  My favorite quote in the story demonstrating her complete and total lack of understanding of the City of Chester is this:

Chester, the state's poorest city, is without a supermarket. There's hardly a place to get a decent cup of coffee.

Karen, sweetheart, you're clueless.  There isn't a SINGLE fucking place to get a

Good Coffee Harder to Find

Tonight, Wawa will close its Rittenhouse Square store in Center City Philadelphia.  It marks the fifth closure of a Wawa in Philly's downtown since I started working here in 2005.  There's another Wawa only a few blocks away in the Rittenhouse neighborhood, but I still mourn the loss that leaves us only 3 places that make good coffee as well as soup in the area bounded by the rivers and Market and South Streets.  And one of them is in the congested mess that tis Columbus Boulevard.

While I can still pick up a coffee and a Sizzli in South Jersey on my way in, I do like the cozy corner Wawas in Center City.  When I worked down here in the early 90s, there were 3-4 within walking distance for a coffee break or lunch run.  Now it damn near takes a taxi to get to one and back in an hour.

It's the largest of the recent stores to close at almost 3900 square feet, but you can't put highly profitable gas pumps in The Dorchester, and thus the closure.  One would assume that the rest of the mini-stores in the city are all doomed at this point.

I understand Wawa's position that the company is dynamic and has to change with market forces.  Transportation costs make it less and less cost effective to send truck to the lower-volume stores on a daily basis.  Philadelphia (and Chester and Camden) stores are also more likely to be a target of crime than the new mega Wawas going up with gas pumps in Cherry Hill, NJ and Williamsburg, VA and the rest of the suburban crossroads locations Wawa has favored in recent years. 

The company's website shows prototype designs that require a minimum of to road frontages with a square lot no smaller than 365 feet on a side.  They're also looking for traffic counts of over 25,000 cars per day.  the minimum size for the store itself is 4,800 square feet, ranging up to a mammoth 7,400 square feet.  You've got to be able to park 50-75 cars and accommodate 6-12 gas pumps.

That just won't happen in Center City.  Maybe there is room for this kind of development in Northeast Philly, but for the most part the rest of the city doesn't have the site space and/or traffic count to make it happen.  Sure there are places in West and North Philly that are available, but I don't see Wawa jumping into that market any time soon.

I'm a big fan of the company.  I simply prefer that in its growth quest, the company remembers its roots a bit better.  They grew up in the retail business competing with 7-11 and Cumberland Farms, beating them at their own game.  I know the world has changed and easily-walked-to neighborhood stores cant bring in the profits that the drive up behemoths promise, but I miss the old Wawa a bit.  And don't get me started on the "have to drive everywhere" model of suburban consumerism that drives today's retail outlets.

The signature Wawa scent of sandwich oil, coffee and newsprint.  The green and beige terrazzo, stepping around piles of Sunday Inquirers or bags of rock salt.  These are the things that addicted me to the brand as a teen and cause me to drive out of my way every day to go to the small Moorestown store.

But I know the Moorestown store is doomed like the old Brookhaven and Medford Lakes stores and that soon all the Wawas will be devoid of the reminders that they grew out of the Delaware County deli and sandwich shop tradition that I hold so dear.  So while I acknowledge the inevitability of the future, let me mourn the past just for today.

I'd like to thank Flickr member Morton Fox for today's photo.  Flickr is being Flaky so I couldn't link directly.

The Time Has Come

  Wachovia Spectrum 
  Originally uploaded by kevinmcguire

By now I am sure that you have seen the reports of the demise of Philadelphia's beloved Spectrum to make way for a mixed use commercial hotel and entertainment complex.   There's been much hand-wringing about it in the local press.  I just don't know why.

The Spectrum had its moment.  The moment is over.  It's time to bring the old brown hatbox of a building down and make way for the future of extreme South Broad Street.

I'm not going to say that it wasn't a great building in its time.  I had some great times there, whether they were shenanigans in the musty dimness of the upper level during concerts, cheering on Villanova against Big East foes, or taking my kids to the circus.  It was loud and you were close to the action and it seemed like you knew every third or fourth person there. 

But we all no no one pays to go Phantoms games - every ticket I have ever gotten was free.  And the building seems down at its heels,  smells like a urinal and suffers immensely in comparison to its younger cousin across the parking lot to the south.

Between the ice shows, the Phantons, the Wings and third tier concerts it's used about 125 nights a year.  That's pretty darn good for a second arena in a town, but honestly it's just not enough to get in the way of a project that promises to transform the experience of every sports fan in the region when they go to a game.

The Spectrum coming down will make way for a complex that would include a hotel, bars, restaurants, amusements, more parking and perhaps shopping and a museum.  Aside from the obvious need for a good hotel down there, a multi level garage and new street designs would go a long way to helping out on game days.

Where the proposed development really shines is on off-days down at the stadium park.  Right now the area is a ghost town.  Even McFadden's struggles to draw people when there isn't an event.  If you add shopping, more bars, a Dave and Buster's type place and some shops, you have a place that is viable 365 days a year not just 125.

I'd also like to see a Philadelphia Hall of Fame go into the thinking.  We're losing a big piece of our sports history when The Spectrum comes down, so let's preserve a bit of it by enshrining a few of the banners and some of the other memorabilia of the city ion a museum honoring all of the great sports moments for The City of Brotherly Love.  Granted a few more recent championships would help, but I think that a central location that can bring together all our heroes would be a good draw and could be fun if executed properly.

This kind of project has been done before.  The area around Camden Yards is not a perfect comparison since there is a beautiful harbor and it's in the middle of town rather than being stranded in between a superhighway and a million acres of parking lots.  The project that is going up in St. Louis is more like Philly's, but also has more proximity to down town. 

As with everything in this town, the project would be unique with a lot of hurdles to overcome before it happens.  It will also take careful planning and management to prevent another debacle like New Market, Disney Quest, or Penn's Landing.

Let the wrecking ball swing!

Town At A Crossroads

I live in Moorestown in South Jersey.  It's the kind of town with flags on the utility poles, parades down Main Street and older, dignified homes with wide green lawns.  According to a marker near my house,the town is named for Thomas Moore, the town's first tavern owner, but the Lenni-Lenape Indians lived here hundreds of years before.    Like many towns with traditional downtown districts or "Main Streets," Moorestown has been facing a number of interesting planning and development issues over the last several years.

There is much controversy and many varied opinions in town about the recent proposed plan for the future of the Main Street area, Lenola and the Route 38 corridor.  Several of the council member have even come up with a separate plan.

Clearly everyone realizes Moorestown is at a crossorads and that development and big-box retailers are pressuring the kind of life that Moorestown has always embraced.  The acme moved out of downtown.  The car dealer moved to Cherry Hill.  Subway and Starbucks took over the bank and the lumber yard is struggling.  There isn't much time left for talking.

Historical Influence

Since 1700, Moorestown has has a significantnt Quaker influence.  Moorestown Friends School is a major employer and downtown landowner as well as the area's premier prep school.  The Meeting House and burial ground are still landmarks in the central business district.  The Quaker influence is also still felt in the town's "dry" status.  Several recent proposals would allow alcoholic beverage licenses for restaurants, a move that some estimate could bring in up to $10 million in needed cash.

While some see liquor licenses are a cash windfall as well as an opportunity to re-invigorate the town's portion of the Moorestown Mall area on Route 38, others see it as an abandonment of one of the values that has made Moorestown a hot residential real estate market in recent years.  Personally, I can't understand how a town named for a tavern owner ever went dry and I am not sure that the period of time from Prohibition to the present trumps the 200+ years before that.

Lenola

And then there's Lenola.  You might call it the 'affordable' section of town.  You might also call it the part of town where the 7-11 is, where Milton Street lives, where the Section Eight housing is and where Micky D's has an outpost.  In other words, it's the part of town people say "Oh You live in Lenola," like they just stepped in something when they hear you are from there.  The houses are smaller, many of them are rental units and everything looks just a bit tired.  Plus, it's where the more industrial business have traditionally been centered, leaving a  gritty, tried feeling on this side of town.

Town Hall

In a plan to help both the downtown business district and to kick start the Lenola section, Moorestown council member Seth Broder has proposed moving the town hall from its current location in the center of town to a former industrial waste dump "on the other side of the tracks" in the Lenola section of town.  I agree that the downtown area needs a shot in the arm, and a large parcel of ground downtown could be just the thing the small businesses need to add the critical mass needed to combat Best Buy, Home Depot and Barnes and Noble out at the mall.   But I think this plan is ill-conceived. 

First, the library would stay put, limiting the value and size of any mixed-use development that could inhabit the current town hall location.  Second, you're talking about moving the town hall to a toxic waste dump? 

Surely there have to be some other ways to get things moving in Lenola.  How much will the town hall actually help Lenola if you are going to also keep some services downtown?  Re-hab the old town hall and find another use for the toxic waste dump.

Conclusion

I think that all of the ideas proposed have some merit and serve as a great place for a  properly emnpowered town governing board to make some substantial long-term planning decisions.  These decisions need to take into account he history of the town while acknowledging that even the best place to live in the nation must change to continue to be attractive in the future.

It's time for Moorestown to address that the affordable sections of town look run-down and forgotten in comparison to Vernon Hill's neighborhood and that it's going to be tough to get a decent restaurant in town without a liquor license.  While I will pay for great schools and safe, clean streets, most people have a financial limit that they are willing or able to pay in taxes.  Moorestown needs to attract commercial tax eatables to  provide long-term residential tax relief.  failing to do so will only serve to price the town out of reach of the folks who have lived there for decades.

media credits: Flickr member Guy Noir's photos "Second Street Flags" and "Second Street House." Thanks!!!