Rebranding 30th Street Station

With University City becoming Center City's western skyline, 30th Street Station's soot stained and aging facade is finding itself a relic amongst sleek skyscrapers, enhanced pedestrianization, and a neighborhood that's finally starting to look like the city it should be. 

But it's not all bad. Philadelphia's 30th Street Station is unique. Unlike New York's Penn Station or D.C.'s Union Station, 30th Street is still exactly what it was when it was built in 1933. 

Commuters are mesmerized by 30th Street Station's historical uniqueness, whereas Manhattan and Washington greet them with sterile pragmatism that echoes an early 90s Greyhound Station. 30th Street Station is a train station first, its retail presence second. 

But that could soon change. Senator Bob Casey recognized 30th Street Station as the welcome mat it will become during the city's upcoming Papal visit and Democratic National Convention, and its need for a makeover. Unfortunately he did so with a nod to Washington's Union Station, a train station both loved and hated for the same reason. 

Union Station is by no means subtle. Its grand in the most European or Gilded Age of ways. But it's also been reinvented. It is a grand shopping mall with an incidental train station at its uninspired rear. 

There is no question that 30th Street Station could benefit from better - even more - retail. The retail experience is basic, it serves the needs of those looking for fast food and a newspaper. But it doesn't do much more than that. 

Is Union Station's mall-like experience the answer to 30th Street's necessary improvements, or is the suggestion a dated quest to fill a need that died thirty years ago? Union Station succeeds, thrives even, because commuters are stuck with an infrastructure established three decades ago. They shop at its stores because they're saddled with what's in front of them.

But people - especially savvy rail commuters - aren't looking for Express and Barnes & Noble on their layovers. They're walking outside to soak up the skyline and the local flavors. Downtown train stations like 30th Street, Penn Station, and Union Station offer that. But inside, if 30th Street wants to maximize its potential, the answer isn't a shopping mall full of predictable chains. It's a train station that happens to be full of the retail synonymous with Philadelphia. 

New York did this.

Here, that means a nostalgic shoeshine stand with an Urban Outfitters backdrop. It's a Rosa Blanca express and kiosks full of local vendors. Maybe even an Amish pretzel stand. 

Turning 30th Street Station into just another Amtrak mall is a shortsighted solution to an urgent need, and it doesn't need to be. If you want to generate revenue by enhancing the retail experience at 30th Street Station, great, it needs it. But there are enough innovative businesses and entrepreneurs in Philadelphia to offer commuters a truly unique experience. 

Let's be honest, the only reason people shop the shops at Union Station is because they're waiting for their train. If we want to do the same, why not offer them a uniquely local experience?

William H. Gray III Station

As Philadelphia inches towards regaining its reputation as a world class city, local politicians have taken the city's recently publicized success stories as an opportunity to remind us that they had nothing to do with it. 

Continuing to do what they do best, politicians have opted to couple our improving corporate environment with governmental tokenism. U.S. Rep Chaka Fattah has proposed renaming 30th Street Station after his predecessor, William H. Gray III. 

Despite the silliness of renaming a station that's been known to the Northeast Corridor by one name for eight decades, it's a costly move that will require the city, state, and Amtrak millions of dollars rebranding every sign and map in the country. Money that could otherwise be spent renovating and restoring a train station that is beginning to show its age, particularly next to the recently renovated IRS Building across the street.

An online poll showed just 10% in favor of renaming the station and a Change.org petition to keep it as is has emerged.

A few years ago an idea to rename the station, Ben Station was floated until someone pointed out that Ben Franklin had nothing to do with the invention of railroads which wouldn't appear until long after his death. 

Blind spending is an unfortunate side effect of a successful city. When Washington, D.C. was trading its reputation as Murder Capital to simply be our capital city, Virginia renamed the liberal city's closest airport, National Airport, after the conservative Ronald Reagan in a similarly shallow political gesture.

On the corporate side, Verizon has been campaigning to rename Suburban Station, Verizon Station, likely trying to air a presence within Comcast's domain. As absurd as that may seem, corporate branding brings with it maintenance and renovations. The William H. Gray III Station brings nothing to Philadelphia but more debt to the city and region.

Innovating in the Other Philadelphia

With several skyscraping proposals nearing approval along the Schuylkill Banks, University of the Sciences making itself seen along West Market Street near 36th, and CHoP reaching across the river to develop Schuylkill Avenue, the neighborhood doesn't appear to have much room to expand.

Drexel University and Brandwine Realty Trust want to tackle that by resurrecting a long proposed cap atop the tracks servicing 30th Street Station.

Capping the railroad tracks would add 7 million square feet of developable space to Drexel's existing plans to develop 6.5 million square feet at 33rd and Market.

PlanPhilly.com

At the other end of University City, Penn isn't slacking off. Penn has proposed "South Bank" just on the other side of the southern bend in Schuylkill River at DuPont's former paint factory. With what Penn calls its "Pennovation Center," the details sound like Penn is asking Comcast to bring their A-game with the Comcast Innovation and Technology Center.

It seems like city that once helped innovate America, served as the Workshop of the World for the best part of the Industrial Revolution, might be returning to the forefront of the world's most profitable industries.

Station Square

At the other end of Market Street, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (Liberty Bell Center) designed a beautiful plan for 30th Street Station. Pedestrian, transit, and cab friendly, I would love to arrive in Philadelphia to this scene rather than the mess of concrete barriers and traffic there now.