Designer picked to create waterfront master plan

Efforts to revitalize Philadelphia's Delaware River waterfront took another step forward yesterday with the selection of Cooper Robertson & Partners, a New York design firm, to create and implement a master plan for riverfront redevelopment.

For more than two years, city planners and design experts from the University of Pennsylvania have held public meetings to help clarify a broad vision for the central seven-mile stretch of riverfront from Allegheny to Oregon Avenues. The chief goal is to integrate the Delaware into civic life by linking the river's edge to the grid of city streets.

The challenge for Cooper Robertson in the next 12 to 18 months is to turn that vision into a working plan for phased construction expected to last decades. It is a tall order. More than 95 percent of the waterfront land is privately owned; the present economy is not conducive to investment; the roaring traffic on I-95 poses a huge barrier.

Marilyn Jordan Taylor, dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, headed the Delaware River Waterfront Corp. committee that whittled the field of 23 bidders to five finalists before announcing the winner yesterday at a special meeting of the corporation's board.

"We certainly covered the waterfront, so to speak," in reviewing diverse candidates, she said. The board authorized negotiations for an anticipated $1 million contract with Cooper Robertson. If the contract is approved next month, master planning would begin next year.

At a recent public meeting, Alexander Cooper, partner-in-charge of the company that bears his name, addressed residents of some of the neighborhoods that abut the river. He said the earliest projects in the master plan should be based on what Philadelphians say they want most. "Finding out what people want to do," he said, "is the way to get the public to the waterfront."

In an interview after the board meeting, Taylor said it was important to offer the public "something inspiring in the front end" of the process. But it also is important to "have a commitment to the long haul," she said, which is why her committee chose Cooper Robertson, a very experienced company.

"If you are a designer who likes to be like a chef and have something instantly," said Taylor, "this isn't the project for you."

Cooper Robertson is best known for riverfront remakes in Memphis, Miami, Detroit, and New York City. Its team for the Delaware River project will include two Philadelphia-area firms, KieranTimberlake Associates L.L.P., for architectural consulting, and Olin, for landscape architecture.

Taylor said the master plan would bring increasing specificity to the broad vision for the waterfront. She said it would address such issues as "how to balance zoning, private development, public investment . . . and how to make it happen in the market."

Likely to be among the first projects for development, she said, are the areas where the city and the river already are closest together, including improvements to Penn Treaty Park and a new vision for the old Festival Pier at the foot of Spring Garden Street.

The biggest challenge for the planning, she said, would be to update the riverfront while preserving its historic character, "to appreciate the rugged, industrial qualities" of the river itself while "transforming it to be more welcoming to people."