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Abandoned concrete platforms near Camden’s Waterfront are being reborn as a fishing pier

Proposed in the late 1990s to connect the Philadelphia and Camden waterfronts, the unbuilt aerial tramway did leave behind two small pieces of infrastructure — one of which will become a fishing pier.

Camden County Commissioner Jeffrey Nash (left) looks through a tower viewer while Camden Community Partnership COO Joe Myers looks on. The men were touring the new fishing pier that is nearing completion on the Camden waterfront on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025.
Camden County Commissioner Jeffrey Nash (left) looks through a tower viewer while Camden Community Partnership COO Joe Myers looks on. The men were touring the new fishing pier that is nearing completion on the Camden waterfront on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025.Read moreElizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer

All that remains of the unbuilt aerial tramway to connect Camden and Philadelphia is a cluster of concrete platforms just offshore on the Jersey side of the Delaware.

But a fishing pier built atop the platforms and connected to Camden’s waterfront parks and promenade system is expected to open soon.

“It connects folks to the waterway and provides something for the locals,” said Shellie Mason, president of the Cooper-Grant Neighborhood Association. “I know a lot folks like to go catfishing along there.”

“A fishing pier is a good reuse of something that has been sitting there not doing anything,” said Camden Mayor Victor Carstarphen. “It makes a statement that the waterfront belongs to us.”

A shift in focus

The new fishing pier connects to the adjacent RCA Pier, a landscaped park that’s south of the Triad Tower. The piers are part of a network of waterfront parks, walkways, and the promenade that stretches for more than a mile between the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion and the Ben Franklin Bridge.

And while an appetite for waterfront megaprojects still exists — as Camden’s recent attempt to woo the 76ers attests — amenities and events to encourage the community to enjoy the river have become much more common in recent decades.

The suggestion for a fishing pier came from members and the leadership of the Cooper-Grant neighborhood group.

Promoting public access to the river and connecting the waterfront to the regional trail network are a priority, said Joe Myers, COO of the Camden Community Partnership.

Myers said the construction was complex due to the location; the pier’s structure was brought to the concrete platform by barge where it was anchored and installed.

While some electrical work and other tasks remain, he expects the pier to be open for fishing soon.

Changing times

The tram was conceived in the 1990s, at a time when Philadelphia had been struggling for years to transform Penn’s Landing into something other than a difficult-to-access jumble of parking lots, ramps, and elaborate concrete infrastructure. Plans included a proposed “family entertainment center” with restaurants, retail, and other attractions.

The notion of connecting the complex on Penn’s Landing to Camden via a mile-long aerial tram 160 feet above the river seemed like a way to promote the waterfronts of both cities as a single destination.

The Delaware River Port Authority, then a player in a number of economic development projects on either side of the river, was set to fund the project.

But the price tag of $42 million in 1997 rose to $57 million and then $82 million in the years that followed; construction ceased after the Penn’s Landing arch and the Camden platforms were completed in the early 2000s.

“This happened before my [DRPA Board] tenure, but what I have been told is there were problems with the design and the construction,” said Jeff Nash, a longtime member of the Camden County Board of Commissioners as well.

“It also was a matter of economics,” said Nash. “It would have cost millions and millions to build something that, according to the models, could not sustain itself, and demolishing the platforms would have been cost-prohibitive,” he said.

The only other piece of the tram that was built — an arch-like concrete structure at Penn’s Landing — was demolished in 2020.