A decade later, how did plans for Philadelphia’s Delaware waterfront pan out?

Ten years ago today then Philadelphia Mayor John Street tasked developers, city and state officials, civic leaders, and citizens with coming up with a plan to transform the Delaware River Waterfront.

Today, the Waterfront does look different but not necessarily transformed. Harris Steinberg, Executive Director at Drexel University’s Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation joins Dave Heller to look back and then look ahead.

According to Steinberg, the initial plans was overly ambitious, “not many of them really had any chance of seeing the light of day they were so outrageous in terms of scale of projects, one of them would be as tall as tall as the Comcast Tower.”

Going forward the biggest hindrance in developing according to Steinberg is dealing with I-95. “I’ve been a major proponent for a couple decades now of either decking over it, sinking it, or bringing it to grade, we have to face that elephant in the room.”