Pier 11 just south of the Ben Franklin Bridge will be redeveloped into a park

This vacant pier will be remade as a pedestrian friendly park under a plan announced yesterday by Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter. The improvement project is part of a larger waterfront plan for a 7 mile stretch of the Philadelphia side of the Delaware River.

Artist rendering of what Philadelphia's waterfront might look like one day

Yesterday, The William Penn Foundation has pledged $1 million dollars to help kick start the redevelopment efforts in the plan developed by Penn Praxis, an urban design team at the University of Pennsylvania.

An artist's rendering of how a pedestrian trail might look along the Delaware River

The plan called A Civic Vision for the Central Delaware proposes the following major shifts in the riverfront environment:

the extension of the Philadelphia street grid to the river’s edge to encourage public   riverfront access and connectivity to the river;

an improved, pedestrian-friendly boulevard;

a continuous recreational trail;

rights-of-way dedicated to transit and biking;

a public riverfront green space every 1/4 mile;

a 100-foot greenway to filter pollutants and create wildlife habitat; and

a mixed-use, transit-oriented and urban-scale riverfront that truly extends Philadelphia’s river-ward neighborhoods to the river’s edge.