$27.2 million Wayne Junction reno a go?

[BarryG]

This brings up a greater problem. It's that of gateways into our city and neighborhoods. Off the top of my head, I can think of a multitude of awful gateways that really set people off on the wrong foot. Here are just a few: traveling by road from the Airport, the Northeast Corridor, Wayne Junction, Market East, entering Germantown via Wayne Ave, and entering Germantown via Belfield Ave. At least we'll be able to partially strike one of these off the list in the coming years.

Hell, Broad Street looks like **** almost its entire length, acting as the gateway to all of South and North Philly, and even Center City for some travelers.

[billy ross]

I think you are too harsh on Queen Lane and too kind of Wayne Junction. Queen Lane was your typical rundown piece of public infrastructure in Philadelphia. Wayne Junction and the two blocks immediately surrounding it have looked like Berlin circa 1945. SEPTA plays a large part in this, as does whoever let a scrap operation operate next two one of the most used Regional Rail stations in the city. I know lots of people who travel through Wayne Junction and shudder each time they look out the window.

This brings up a greater problem. It's that of gateways into our city and neighborhoods. Off the top of my head, I can think of a multitude of awful gateways that really set people off on the wrong foot. Here are just a few: traveling by road from the Airport, the Northeast Corridor, Wayne Junction, Market East, entering Germantown via Wayne Ave, and entering Germantown via Belfield Ave. At least we'll be able to partially strike one of these off the list in the coming years.

I do agree with you that the area west of Wayne Ave in Southwest Germantown is pretty nice overall.

West of Wayne Avenue (really Newhall Street to be more precise, with Newhall being nice but Tacoma not nice), but south of Queen Lane. North of Queen Lane the better area is east of Wayne Avenue, oddly enough. That is Penn Knox.

The area between the Cricket Club and the Queen Lane Station, specifically Penn Street and Morris Street, is ratty and needs investment. I am doing so and making great progress, but there is a visible drop off in Morris as you approach Penn and on Penn as you approach Morris. This falls away rapidly as you get past that intersection, and with the demolition of the tower I expect some serious healing to go on, faster than the noticeable rate of the past five years. Sadly it looks as if 220 W. Penn is going to get demolished. Blame it on the city's stupid reluctance to take properties off of people who don't pay their property taxes. The guy owes $20k in back taxes and now a very restorable building is going to become a vacant lot. In University City it would be worth $400k in good shape and probably at least $150k in its present condition.

[NickFromGtown]

Sadly it looks as if 220 W. Penn is going to get demolished. Blame it on the city's stupid reluctance to take properties off of people who don't pay their property taxes. The guy owes $20k in back taxes and now a very restorable building is going to become a vacant lot. In University City it would be worth $400k in good shape and probably at least $150k in its present condition.

Why can't the City get competent people running the Sheriff Sale process? If a property hasn't had taxes paid for a year or it is in an obvious state of neglect or both, I don't see why the rest of us should be made to suffer.

[eldondre]

this is a big boost, not just for the wayne jct area, but for the regional rail system given that this was reaching a critical point (where the failing of the substation had the potential to shut down the railroad) with the lackof any resolution in harrisburg.
Federal grants will renovate aging SEPTA power substation

now for jenkintown and paoli...

[phillyaggie]

According to this article, the federal grant is only about half of the money that's needed for the Wayne Junction substation overhaul:

Why SEPTA is Heading for a Crash | Philadelphia City Paper | 06/21/2012

[billy ross]

According to this article, the federal grant is only about half of the money that's needed for the Wayne Junction substation overhaul:

Why SEPTA is Heading for a Crash | Philadelphia City Paper | 06/21/2012

Mr. Glass Half Empty as usual. Of course the politicians are aware that this grant will only cover engineering work and bid documents, and that there will be a need for funding once the bids come in.

What the article says, if you read between the lines, is that the grant total, if 100% of it were to be applied to the WJ substation job, would only pay for half of the work that needs to be done. However, in reality, only a portion of the $12m grant will be apportioned to the WJ substation doc prep work. The remainder will go to bridge repair/renewal elsewhere.

[phillyaggie]

Mr. Glass Half Empty as usual. Of course the politicians are aware that this grant will only cover engineering work and bid documents, and that there will be a need for funding once the bids come in.

What the article says, if you read between the lines, is that the grant total, if 100% of it were to be applied to the WJ substation job, would only pay for half of the work that needs to be done. However, in reality, only a portion of the $12m grant will be apportioned to the WJ substation doc prep work. The remainder will go to bridge repair/renewal elsewhere.

you might have read a bit too much into what i posted; i simply posted the article and the gist of what it says, at least about the topic at hand.

[thoth]

Unsexy, but critically needed, replacement coming for Wayne Junction Substation

Article today is about a separate rebuild of SEPTA's electrical generator for RR lines, near Wayne Junction. However, it mentions that they're also underway at the station itself and have been pouring concrete.

[NickFromGtown]

The renovation looks fantastic so far. They are doing a great job with the old buildings. I can't wait until they are done with all phases of the project.

[billy ross]

Town By Town: Wayne Junction area is right on track

"Though Walsh can't classify today's buyers as "urban pioneers," many are in their late 20s and 30s with small families and are attracted to a variety of housing stock.

Southwest Germantown resident Emaleigh Doley, a blogger and neighborhood advocate, says the Wayne Junction project is raising the interest of the private market in older buildings for office space, and she anticipates that will benefit the residential market in the long run.

Doley says she would like to see efforts by the Nicetown CDC carried over to her neighborhood, "but there is no leadership in Southwest Germantown looking to create that kind of economic bubble here"

...

"So far, there are many positive signs in Wayne Junction, but, as Wysong notes, "private investment is lagging behind the public."

"We need risk-takers to come in," he adds"

Pretty perceptive all around. I've been saying for awhile that Wayne Junction is ready to pop, and this article is a clear-eyed assessment of what is happening and what is not happening there now. We used it a week ago to get to the airport - it is a strangely little known fact that every half hour there are trains from Wayne Junction to the airport, and that the duration of the ride is about 39 minutes. We needed to get to the airport during rush hour, and it was a no brainer. If only it were less desolate there. I fully expect it to become less desolate there as time goes on - in fact, every six months or so the area is around Wayne Junction is a little less desolate than it used to be. Wayne Junction is about a 30-35 minute walk from my home, and about 20 minutes from Germantown Cricket Club. I'd love it if it became a place that non-hard-core public transit people felt comfortable using. It's six minutes from Market East.

One final point. I own quite a few places in SW Germantown near Wayne Junction. I've notice two trends over the past year. One is that the places get snapped up quickly, with fairly dramatic increases in the rents (from crazy low bases - a 3BR house just went from $900 to $1,000 per month). Two is that I'm getting a much less marginal tenant base in that area than I used to get. Generally the new people have at least undergraduate degrees if not graduate degrees, but I'll admit that I need to upgrade the units because the new cohort has different expectations. It's early going yet, but it seems to be coming together on the residential side, but not (yet) on the commercial side. At some point Wayne Avenue will need to evolve in the direction of offering options to people who have options. Wayne Avenue is still a dump at this point, and things change fairly dramatically from one side of Wayne Avenue to the other, as you go up the hill. Even then, though, I've notice that the 100 block of W. Apsley (on the 'wrong side' of Wayne Avenue) has really seemed to have firmed up. Germantown is still such a crazy quilt of good and crappy that to try to make sense of it is to invite accusations of insanity.

[NickFromGtown]

A good article.

It's certainly disconcerting that Nicetown is making more progress than Southwest Germantown. And that's not a knock on Nicetown at all. I say that from the perspective that Nicetown has far more headwinds than Southwest Germantown does. Most significantly, it has a massive elevated highway that runs right through the middle of the neighborhood.

Southwest Germantown, on the other hand, is a mess. We finally got rid of a junk yard that was there, but now that's turned into a tire dump. Is that even legal? It's hard to imagine that that situation was made worse. At least the Geppert Recycling operation is no longer in its ridiculously visible former location in Wayne Junction. The stretch of Stenton Ave from Berkley St to Logan St is hidden, but I think it's a key component to the overall area that needs to be cleaned up. The most important part is the stretch of Wayne Ave that extends up to Wyneva St. As billy ross points out, Wayne Ave is a disaster. It's probably easier to just demolish most of what's there and start over. Conversion of unused industrial buildings should prove to be the key, however.

I am amazed at how great the design of Nicetown Court I is. Nicetown Court II looks to be good as well, however that really just replaces what was once there. We can't get ahead of ourselves, but it would be nice if Wayne Junction became very built up and dense due to how convenient it is to Regional Rail.