Camden's New Waterfront?

Camden's ambitious $830M master plan for its waterfront has been revised, and recently won approval by New Jersey's Economic Development Authority. This could be a very big deal, kids. Cira East, anyone?

The complex, designed by Robert A. M. Stern, would be developed by Liberty Property Trust. This firm, behind both Comcast towers, has a knack for getting shit done, and not wasting its time. The commercial space, residences, and hotel have a chance to dust off the irrelevance of this troubled city and resurrect some of its past as a place people actually want to be...if it's done right.

But don't let Stern's Cira Centre-esque towers fool you. This is no Cira Centre and - at least for now - the only thing that makes this project urban is the fact that it happens to be in a city. Take a gander at the site map and, whoa, that is a lot of parking. 

Unfortunately, Camden has found itself in a pickle where parking is a caveat for development. So much parking, in fact, that 4000 spaces would be provided for only 211 residential units and 130 hotel rooms. The good news is, all new parking would be garaged in structures surrounded by apartment buildings, so it won't be seen. 

Wow, that is a lot of parking.

It should be safe to say that - with 4000 new spaces and the surface lots surrounding the site - downtown Camden will have enough parking to satisfy itself for the next fifty years. If this plan happens in its entirety, one would hope it would attract urban minded residents and companies looking for a little slice of Philadelphia east of the Delaware, which is essentially what Camden should be, and new businesses would drive similar growth. Think Hoboken or Arlington, VA. 

But New Jersey, oddly being imbedded in the Northeast Corridor, is a state that has yet to truly embrace urbanism, real urbanism. I say "embrace" and not "understand" because the state has made strides with transit. They get it, they just don't seem ready to commit. Traffic and parking lots abound, and in New Jersey, especially South Jersey, car is King. 

New Jersey's reluctance to ditch it's cater-to-the-car approach, especially in urban areas like Camden, is mind boggling when you consider the city's built-in urban infrastructure. Newer West Coast suburbs like Redmond have built better urban experiences from scratch while urban cores like Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver scramble to retrofit their downtowns for a life detached from the car. 

With its sidewalk-facing apartments and vertical office space, it seems that Camden is at least trying to tiptoe into the world of tomorrow, which is subsequently the world of yesterday. I hope nothing but the best for Camden. And if its residents never abandon their cars, I hope to see those two beautiful skyscrapers every time I visit Penn's Landing.

Penn's Landing 2.0

Photo: Bradley Maule

Tonight at seven the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation along with Alan Greenberger and PennDesign unveiled the next generation for Penn's Landing. Let's call it Penn's Landing 2.0. Or should we call it 40.0?

Can we really call it the "next generation" when the current planning phase has easily circled two?

Pardon me if I haven't soiled my pants in anticipation of Hargraves and Associates most recently commissioned wet dream of a re-envisioned Penn's Landing, but those in charge have been holding their annual circle jerk for the last forty years.

The renderings look great. They always do. They have for the past four decades.

But why is this any different?

It isn't.

Until the plans for Penn's Landing involve destination attractions that can offset pricy parks and interstate caps, the city and state will never approve the funds to improve its relationship with Center City.

Philadelphians and tourists willingly walk the Ben Franklin Bridge and ferry to Camden every day. The reason is exclusively in its destination attractions. Until Philadelphia can match that, Penn's Landing will remain what it is.

Greater Philadelphia World Trade Center

You know what's scary about walking across the Ben Franklin Bridge to Camden? Camden.

It's a bizarre place, to put it nicely.

What's more terrifying than the Camden your faced with when exiting the New Jersey side of the Ben Franklin bridge is the Camden just on the other side.

That could change, although I emphasize "could."

Remember Philadelphia's proposed World Trade Center on the Delaware River? It found its way into the dreams of hopeful skyscraper nerds far after its inception and lingered long after it was dead, despite the fact that it was a downright ugly complex that looked like the product of a 1995 K-hole.

Well Camden's Waterfront Renaissance Associates haven't given up on the idea.

Deeming Philadelphia's Delaware River "no longer appropriate" (for no apparent reason), the Greater Philadelphia World Trade Center established in 2002, is eyeing the former site of Camden's Riverfront State Prison.

It's not a horrible idea. Philadelphia's World Trade Center is currently on JFK Boulevard. Despite available land in the West Market vicinity, it's pricy and development costs in the city can be prohibitive, particularly for projects of this size.

What Philadelphia's northern Delaware River once offered in the early 2000s, Camden now holds: cheap land and an eager municipality.

Camden's location in its own right is iffy, but its home to Cooper Medical, Rutgers, and the NJ State Aquarium. Despite the World Trade Center's proposed height, it appears to be largely suburbanized, the only architectural model that seems to work in NJ.

It's highly speculative at this point, but given Camden's national reputation it's not likely a site to be hounded by neighborhood opposition.

Day Tripping: Camden

After a walk across the Ben Franklin Bridge I decided to explore the better parts of Philadelphia's eastern counterpart, Camden, NJ. As expected, "better" is extremely relative in this part of the Garden State. Aside from the aquarium, after a decade in Philadelphia I've never actually seen Camden but from across the river or the interstate.

It's hard to explain what's so scary about this place. It has a surprisingly walkable downtown with some interestingly rich architecture, but even with a concert, baseball game, and Cirque du Soleil, a few blocks from the waterfront the only souls that can be found are in cars...everywhere.

Perhaps that's what makes it so scary. Were it not for all the traffic, it felt like the second act of a zombie movie. With the exception of the undead factor, it's probably not far from reality. Even the worst parts of Philadelphia have active pedestrians, and even when they appear unsavory, seeing enough people on foot can make you feel safe. Lack of street life kills a city, and worse, kills safety. It's easy to drive passed a crime and not even notice, and just as easy for criminals to act when they know this.

Rutger's campus was a ghost town and that certainly didn't help. But beyond campus, City Hall, clean and iconic, was desolate on a Saturday afternoon. It's obvious that money has gone into improving the streetscape but it clearly hasn't convinced anyone Camden is a better place.
 

Those who live in the restored townhouses closer to the core and the RCA lofts near the water are fortressed in their homes, surrounded by gates with parking at their door.

What life could be found was on the river in the endless acres of tailgating, drunken teenagers, and police officers struggling to direct traffic through a city that decided to turn off it's traffic lights on the rare occasion that it would actually see traffic.

Locked down for the Thunderdome.

If you're on foot, you're left darting across traffic at your own risk, followed by a glare from an officer that says, "how dare you walk." It might be an apt accusation. The parking lots on the waterfront have a footprint the size of Society Hill.

It's unfortunate for the city, which hosts a collection of amazing architecture and an historic core with a wealth of potential.

New Jersey is an odd place, particularly it's major cities. The state shrugs a political disregard for its struggling urban spaces, taxing a dwindling working class into oblivion in lieu of its suburbs. Meanwhile most of those suburbs service major cities in other states.

That disregard is carried over in its citizens and visitors chucking beer cans into the Delaware River as police officers look on and laugh.

It's a lawless place.

 

Like Detroit and dying Rust Belt towns, Camden's fate is uncertain. It's riverfront attractions, Rutgers University, and Cooper Medical Center certainly help the city stay afloat. But as Philadelphia is learning, improving a city requires it to evolve, a feat that can't be met without new residents and a new mentality. 

 

 

If those who reside in Camden continue to work and play in other cities and states, the city is nothing more than a poor suburb that happens to look like a city.

 

Suburbs are finally learning the lessons that our major cities spent the last decade tackling. Moving forward in some respects means turning back the clock. Parking lots and drivability produced successful suburbs like Cherry Hill and King of Prussia in the mid-1900s, but it's a dying and unsustainable infrastructure, one that much of New Jersey still clings to.

 

In a state attached to its mid-century nostalgia, it's hard to say if South Jersey will ever understand the dynamic infrastructure they have in Camden laying in wait.