Philly Set To Open Its “Yards”

As tourists head for Hudson Yards in New York City this summer, Philadelphia is ready to unveil the first part of what it hopes will eventually be a similar experience—the 14-acre, $3.5 billion West Philadelphia renovation dubbed Schuylkill Yards.

The first of the four projects that will make up Schuykill Yards will open in June. Drexel Square is a 1.3 acre park located across from the 30th Street Station. The space is part of approximately six acres of the project that has been reserved for public space. Drexel Square has been described as the lynchpin of the project and overall vision for the area.

“Some people think you put a big tall building here right outside the train station,” developer Brandywine Realty Trust’s chief executive Gerard H. Sweeney told the New York Times in 2018. “But you’ve got to create a platform for excellence, and the way you do that is you invest in public space. You create a place where people want to be.”

The City of Brotherly Love’s Yards won’t have the size and sparkle of Manhattan’s version, but developers hope to create its own Philadelphia-specific experience, something that doesn’t feel corporate or created but more like a neighborhood that came about organically.

The 14 acres of Schuykill Yards sit between 30th Street Station and Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania and will take 15 to 20 years to finish development of the entire area. It is all part of an attempt to pull together Philadelphia’s Center City district with University City and all of the business, research, and residential development in the area to form a singular downtown, according to the philly.com.

After Drexel Square, the next phase of the project is the renovation of a former newspaper building that borders the eastern edge of Drexel Square. Architects plan to keep the 50s industrial structure as they give it a modern makeover, according to the philly.com article.

Finally this winter, developers are scheduled to break ground on two towers—a more than 770,000-square-foot office building and a mixed use building next door that will have 344 apartments plus 200,000-squre-feet of office space.

The end result will 6.9 million square feet of office, lab, residential, and green space, a coming together of the business, retail, academic, commuter, and residential worlds. And another city Yards, just 90 miles south.

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