Philadelphia unveils Navy Yard plan

The City of Philadelphia unveiled a master plan for the redevelopment of the Philadelphia Navy Yard on the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers — one of the largest such projects in the US. The plan, by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, includes a 200-acre mixed-use marina neighborhood, an office district centered on a boulevard, and the reuse of existing facilities. For more than a century the 1,200-acre site was a naval base and shipbuilding center. It was mostly closed in 1996, but under city management it quickly began to attract new tenants, including a Norwegian shipbuilder and other industrial and office uses. Currently 6,000 people work at the Navy Yard. The plan calls for the development of as many as 30,000 jobs at the site and it includes: more than 1.4 million square feet of office space, 110,000 square feet of retail space, up to 1,400 residential units, the reuse of 2.4 million square feet of existing buildings, and a 750,000 sq. ft. suburban-style research campus. The initial phase focuses on the 167-acre historic core and the office district. The historic core is built on a century-old grid and includes a million square feet of existing buildings, some of which are still used by the Navy. The plan calls for up to two million square feet of infill development. Liberty Property Trust and Synterra Partners are developing the office district, centered on the boulevard and connected to the historic core. The boulevard will serve as the gateway to the future marina neighborhood. u