Without special attention from the community, City, and school district, Vaux and Reynolds might receive little interest from the traditional real estate market and sit vacant for years, compounding problems in an area already struggling with low incomes and high vacancy. However, if their reuse is given high priority and a plan, the schools can instead serve as assets, helping to spur further reinvestment that advances goals for multiple stakeholders, including the community, City, and school district. The redevelopment proposal presented here follows the tenets of the Choice Neighborhoods philosophy – siting affordable housing within a mixed-use, mixed-income development that also incorporates educational and social services. By demonstrating capacity within Philadelphia for the type of partnerships, vision,
and creative financing necessary to undertake such a redevelopment process, the City and PHA could make a compelling case for Choice Neighborhoods funding. The map below shows a vision for a proposed future redevelopment of Sharswood that would occur with a Choice Neighborhoods implementation grant. The connections created by the path in the two phases of the Vaux and Reynolds redevelopment would continue north into a redeveloped Blumberg site and south into Girard College, as well as east and west into additionally developed previously vacant land. Done right, such a redevelopment plan could dramatically yet sensitively reshape this section of North Philadelphia. None of this is possible, however, if Vaux and Reynolds are not sold and redeveloped in a timely and thoughtful manner. This stylized site plan shows a vision of the proposed Vaux and Reynolds redevelopments connected to a larger Sharswood redevelopment facilitated in part by a Choice Neighborhoods implementation grant.
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1
Infill development in the currently largely vacant blocks west of the Blumberg Apartments would allow demolition and redevelopment at the Blumberg site without mass displacement or loss in total number of units.
2
Redevelopment at the Blumberg site would allow the introduction of a grocery store to serve the increased population in Sharswood that continued redevelopment would bring. A model similar to the Aldi chain of grocery stores coud work in this location.
3
North 23rd Street and Bolton Street, which both currently stop at the existing Blumberg Apartments, would be continued through the redeveloped Blumberg site to break up the super block and improve pedestrian flow and connectivity.
2
4 New sidewalks with improved landscaping would signify the
continuation of the path’s connectivity to Girard College, where a new gate in the wall would provide controlled pedestrian access from the north to facilities on the campus.
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CHOICE NEIGHBORHOODS VISION
5 Girard College would be incentivized to open its walls by
participation in the LISC/NFL Grassroots Program, in which LISC and local NFL teams partner with communities to refurbish grass fields as easier to maintain but expensive to install turf fields.
SITE REUSE
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SITE REUSE
CONCLUSION