The US Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Philadelphia office will move from its Center City location at 16th and Callowhill to West Philly by the end of 2012.

The new office will be located in 2.0 University Place, a new University Place Associates LLC’s five-story building at 30 N. 41st St. where it will occupy the first three floors (53,000 of the 97,000 square-foot space). The 15-year, $26 million lease was negotiated by building leasing and the US General Services Administration reps. The building is currently under construction.

University Place Associates founder Tom Leonard told The Philadelphia Inquirer, “they looked at what was available in Center City, didn’t like it, and broadened their (search) to West Philadelphia.”

“This will be a much nicer facility,” he added.

Located at the foot of the University City Science Center, the building will feature an extensive green roof with a 20,000-sf rooftop park, high-efficiency HVAC systems, open floor plans with 90 percent natural daylight, ‘gray water’ recycling systems that utilize rainwater to operate restrooms, onsite bicycle racks, changing rooms, and car sharing facilities among other things.

Market Street Promenade? Cliff Lee Commons?

We’re trying to think of a name for the new, soon-to-be opened public space outside of 30th Street Station that is the reason behind all of that construction over the last couple of months. The University City District needs your help in naming it. What’s in it for you? Bragging rights and a $500 Amtrak gift card.

The space will includes lots of seating and trees and plants, turning what has been one of the least pedestrian-friendly parts of the city into a gathering spot complete with activities like musical performances. The space should be complete by Labor Day weekend.

OK, back to the name thing. You can submit as many names as you like, but they must be submitted separately. If a name is chosen that has duplicate entries, one will be randomly selected. The entry deadline is midnight on Sept. 30 and a 10-person jury will choose the name from among the entries and announce it in mid October.

To enter, send an e-mail to newpublicspace [at] universitycity.org that includes:

• Suggested Name for Public Space
• Reasons for the suggested name (no more than 150 words)
• Your Name
• Phone Number
• Email

More information is available at the University City District Facebook page here.
 

The Walnut Hill Community Association wants to transform a  city-owned property near 49th and Chancellor Streets, a vacant lot frequented by drug dealers, into a community garden. Sounds great, right? Well, they aren’t making much progress and they need your help.

The association is asking community members to petition Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell to ask that the city sell it the property. The catch is that the sale of the property to another buyer is pending. The WHCA did not disclose the potential buyer, but its members and many nearby residents say that if the sale goes through there would be more criminal activity on the lot.

That’s where you come in. The WHCA needs help convincing Blackwell to reexamine the sale.

WHCA would purchase the property using funds from a Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia “Vital Neighborhoods” grant it received this year.

Association members are already working on transforming lots at 208 and 214 S. 50th Street into gardens and hope to do the same with this one. Several nearby residents have been complaining to police about criminal activity on the property for months.

Here’s how you can help:

• Print out the letter below, add your name and address to the header, sign it and mail to Jannie Blackwell. Her address is on the letter. 

Or

• Come to the association’s Community Day this Saturday at 50th and Locust and sign the petition there.

Walnut Hill Community Association letter template (click on the image to enlarge and print):

Drexel University has purchased a long, thin 3.6 acre lot along JFK Boulevard west of 30th Street Station that will become the “gateway” for its main campus and could include a mix of uses, including retail.

Drexel paid $21.8 million for the land, which is currently a parking lot sandwiched between JFK Blvd. and train tracks to the north (see the map below).

“The prime location of this site will significantly enhance Drexel’s capacity to be a powerful engine for regional economic growth,” said Drexel President John Fry in a written statement. “It provides various options not only for the development of the space for classrooms, research and other academic facilities, but also for sources of revenue for Drexel through potential residential and retail opportunities.”

Fry, who oversaw community development projects while a vice president at the University of Pennsylvania, has said that extending Drexel’s reach into its surrounding West Philadelphia community is a priority.

 

View Drexel land purchase in a larger map

The second in a series of forums to discuss development along 40th Street is tonight at 7 p.m. at The Rotunda (4014 Walnut St.).

Conversations at the forums will help determine development along 40th Street, particularly the character of transportation along the 40th Street corridor (from Baltimore Avenue to Lancaster Avenue and extending to 41st and 39th Streets). The planning agencies, which include the University City District, Penn’s Project for Civic Engagement, Penn Praxis and Sustainable Communities Initiative (SCI) West, say they are looking for input about what makes for a successful mixed-used, residential/commercial corridor.

The forums continue this Wednesday at 7:30 a.m. at Christ Community Church (4017 Chestnut St.) and Monday, June 27 at 6 p.m. at the Greater Faith Baptist Church (4031 Baring St.)

A prominent West Philly-based developer is in the process of buying the ominous Croydon apartment building at 49th and Locust, which has become a haven for squatters and was the site of a rooftop murder in 2007.

Orens Brothers Real Estate Inc., whose main office is on the 4400 block of Chestnut, is expected to finalize the purchase of the building soon and begin work to rehabilitate the building by early next month, Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell said by phone yesterday. The firm’s officials told community members during a meeting on Monday that it plans to keep the complex’s original eight-story center structure and four-story wings intact and renovate its 127 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartment units.

A Sheriff’s Office official confirmed that building had been sold last week for $1.75 million. The building was put up for sheriff’s sale in January because the previous owners owed more than $200,000 in back taxes.

Orens Brothers has restored and rented several buildings in Philadelphia, including the luxury apartments at 2200 Arch St. In West Philly, the firm owns the apartment building on the southside of the 4400 block of Walnut (4404-4418 Walnut St.).

A boarded up eyesore rising above the West Philadelphia High School athletic field, the Croydon is known to squatters as “Paradise City.” The building was known across the city for a few days in June 2007 when a squatter, 28-year-old Tim Bradly of Philadelphia, was found dead on the building’s roof. Another squatter confessed to beating Bradly and dropping a cinder block on his head.

The Croydon building plays a large role in the documentary Squatter Days by James C. Fattu.