September 19: Schuylkill boardwalk opening | SRC sells 11 school buildings | TIGER grant for CHOP | Splitting L&I

Last August, City Council President Darrell Clarke projected that the 29 closed school district buildings were could fetch $200 million. Last night the SRC voted to sell 11 of those buildings, for a net gain of $2 million. “”Why would you go out and borrow $50 million if you have the ability to sell a significant portion if not all of that $200 million in assets? It’s just simple math and simple real estate sense,” Clarke said at the time.

The blue ribbon panel appointed by Mayor Nutter in the aftermath of last summer’s building collapse at 21st and Market recommends splitting the Department of Licenses and Inspections into two agencies, “creating two cabinet-level agencies – one responsible for enforcing building safety and construction regulations, the other to issue licenses and deal with nonconstruction matters.”

CHOP’s new Schuylkill River facility is getting a $1 million TIGER grant for multi-modal connections, reports Geoff Kees Thompson, but it’s not yet clear what those improvements will entail. Thompson questions whether organizations as well-capitalized as CHOP should be eligible to receive public money for 

Angie Schmitt at Streetsblog pulls up a This Old City post I wrote a few months ago about traffic calming plans for the E. Passyunk “sneckdown” intersection. I got to see the plans, and they do a good job of narrowing the intersections at 10th and Reed but the crosswalks are still pretty long on the east side of Passyunk, and there’s no traffic island to slow cars down through the intersection.

Over on the Philly planners, urbanists and designers Facebook page, Leanne Sharkey, Philly bike share outreach coordinator, confirms the dimensions of the bike share stations, so keep them in mind when you recommend station locations. “Stations are 6.5 ft wide and can be between 45-75 ft long (thats about the lengh of 3-5 midsized cars, nose to tail).”

The Schuylkill Banks boardwalk ribbon-cutting is October 2, followed by a community celebration on October 5th. In case you missed it, Ashley got a sneak peek a couple weeks ago.

“The similarities between the massive, decaying Delaware Station next to Philadelphia’s Penn Treaty Park and the Franklin Institute on Logan Square may not be immediately obvious, but they are really sister buildings.“