One Step Closer to a Glitzy Market East

While the Planning Commission voted against a bill allowing digital and animated signage on Market East, Alan Greenberger, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Development, supports the idea, but just doesn't like the vagueness of the bill.

Market East today, a suffering retail corridor consisting mostly of poor mid-century suburban design and windowless facades. An animated street scape could excite consumers. Historically, Market Street has been shrouded in illuminated consumerism, throughout its Victorian prime and well into the neon-clad 50s and 60s.

Councilmen DiCiccio and Kenny introduced the bill late last year, seeking to illuminate the deteriorating stretch of Market Street and generate revenue through advertising that could be used to improve its infrastructure.

The idea received mixed reviews, mostly positive under the assumption that the few remaining historic facades between 7th and 13th not be touched.

While the Rules Committee is moving forward with the discussion, the existing bill is either expected to be amended or rewritten.

While Market East's potential is only a microcosm of Manhattan's Time Square, New York's illuminated corridor of capitalism once suffered from similar civic neglect. One could even argue that Market East has been allowed to decline even further than Times Square ever did in its seedy past. Even the porn palaces left Market East.

Whatever the outcome with this specific bill, it is exciting to see the Planning Commission eagerly engaged in conversations about a revitalized and illuminated Market East, perhaps Center City's least tapped resource.

Market East Renaissance?

Girard Block 11th and Market

I love talking about Market East. I'm not a masochist, I just like seeing potential and imagining how it may evolve. I think that's what attracted me to Philadelphia in the first place. And there is no untapped potential in Philadelphia like Market East. The Philadelphia Planning Commission has commissioned an ambitious redevelopment plan by Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects that reinvents Market Street as Philadelphia's Main Street. Centering around Market East Station and a new Inter-modal Transportation facility on Filbert, the plan expands towards a reinvented and enlarged Chinatown including Franklin Square, a new "Loft District" immediately behind the expanded Convention Center, and an emphasis on improvements to the Jefferson Hospital area and renewing Chestnut Street as a shopping district.

New Chinatown and Market East Gateway 10th and Market

The concept is an ambitious one, but within the overall design, the focus is so compartmentalized it is one of the most doable Market East plans I've ever seen. Rather than reinventing the wheel, the plan - elaborate as the images may seem - focuses mainly on improving existing structures and developing surface parking lots. It proposes expanding the successful elements of the Market East district, such as an expanded Reading Terminal Market utilizing the head house. While the most dramatic changes include a redeveloped Girard Block and high rises added to the Gallery, equally influential changes to the district include rerouting commuter buses to Arch or Filbert at a new transportation center that combines Market East Station with Greyhound and NJT.

Intermodal Transportation Center and Gallery 10th and Filbert

The plan has generated a lot of excitement, although one can easily understand a reluctance on the part of neighboring businesses given the past 30 years, but with a strong plan focusing on the smaller elements of an overall project, one catalyst may be all that is needed to set this concept in motion.

New "Loft District" behind Convention Center

Re-imagined Frankin Square