A new public safety hub brings police forces together on Market Street
The hub at 1011 Market St. will let officers coordinate, for the World Cup, July 4th, and beyond.
As Philadelphia prepares for a summer of pageantry with the World Cup and celebrations to mark the country’s 250th anniversary, a public safety hub is opening on Market Street to coordinate police responses in the area.
The center at 1011 Market St. will be a place for three police forces — Thomas Jefferson University police, Philadelphia police, and SEPTA police — to coordinate.
Officials expect that the hub will enable police to respond faster to incidents in the area both ahead of the World Cup and as part of a long-term effort to revitalize Market Street. Without an established place for collaboration, officers’ ability to work with different departments was hampered by the lack of physical infrastructure to coordinate.
“We’ve never had anything like this before,” said Kevin Seta, the director for public safety for Jefferson. Before this hub, he explained, “everyone’s kind of working in silos. We do work very well together with these partner agencies, and we share as much as we can. But in this case, this will allow us to be all in the same room at the same time.”
With the new center, police presence will increase on Market, Filbert, 11th, and 12th Streets. The hub will become the main headquarters for the Jefferson police force, which was previously on the other side of the Jefferson campus. Twelve officers from the Philadelphia Police Department have been assigned to East Market Street and will use the hub as needed, along with SEPTA officers who patrol the area. Jefferson CEO Joseph G. Cacchione said that with the new officers, he has already noticed a difference in vagrancy and panhandling.
The city has allocated $1 million for the hub. Jefferson, which has a large presence in the area with its university and health system, will provide additional funds for the project.
East Market has been getting a sprucing up ahead of this summer’s festivities, with pop-up businesses, tree plantings, lighting, and other transformations. Also on Tuesday, officials unveiled an 18-month overhaul of Market Street in Old City that includes a new plaza.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker emphasized that the public safety hub was part of a larger project to make Market Street “safer, cleaner, and greener.”
“We are strengthening our work here in Center City, creating a vibrant and thriving corridor where we have more than 60 partners from across the business, civic, and community sectors,” Parker said. As an expected tens of thousands of visitors begin to arrive, “this coordination right now is more important than ever.”