PHILADELPHIA With no fanfare, the long-discussed plan to
build a new, high-tech police headquarters in one of Philadelphia's stately old
buildings took a major step toward reality last week.
City Councilwoman Jannie L. Blackwell introduced two bills
Thursday that would authorize the city to borrow as much as $250 million to
convert the vacant Provident Mutual Life Insurance Co. building in her West
Philadelphia district into a modern police hub.
The 87-year-old landmark, at 46th and Market Streets, has
been empty for a half-dozen years, and the move could be transformative not
only for the Police Department but for the surrounding neighborhood.
Everett Gillison, deputy mayor for public safety and Mayor
Nutter's chief of staff, had the project near the top of his wish list as early
as 2008.
The national economic collapse that soon followed put the
move on hold, but Nutter again raised the possibility in his 2012 budget
address.
Gillison last week called the project "long
overdue."
"I think this is the biggest investment that has been
made in public safety in my years," he said. "It was one of the
things I really wanted to make sure we could accomplish."
The new headquarters would allow police to vacate the aging
and cramped administration building at Eighth and Race Streets - the legendary
"roundhouse."
Although the building is beloved in some architectural
circles for its quirky, Brutalist style, the Police Department outgrew its home
decades ago.
Pending design work, the plan to move the headquarters west
also calls for moving the city morgue - officially, the Medical Examiner's
Office - and some Health Department offices to the Provident Mutual building as
well.
Then the city would be able to close and sell three
buildings, two of them in Center City - the roundhouse, the health offices at
Broad and Lombard Streets, and the morgue's building in West Philadelphia.
It would be the latest in a succession of moves across the
city's map by major institutions: The Provident Mutual building is part of a
15-acre campus that already includes the city's juvenile detention center -
which was moved to five acres there to make room on the Benjamin Franklin
Parkway for the Barnes Foundation's arrival from suburban Lower Merion.
Bringing police headquarters and other city agencies to the
Provident Mutual building would also infuse thousands of people, working round
the clock, into a growing section of West Philadelphia.
Blackwell, who represents the area, called the project
"an exciting opportunity," but said the surrounding neighborhoods
would have to have input on the development and share in the prosperity.
"Where will they eat? Where will they park?. . . . They
may not have worked all that out," she said. "Communities want to
know all that."
One thing that's already known: the location's access to
public transportation. Police headquarters would be steps away from SEPTA's
Frankford El stop at 46th and Market.
Gillison said the plans call for taking the
limestone-and-steel building down to its columns and using 3-D imagining to
design the interior, down to the fine details, such as electrical runs.
He said he hopes the reconstruction of the building, which
dates to the 1920s, can win an emblem of 21st-century thinking: LEED
(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification from the U.S.
Green Building Council.
"Great old buildings don't have to be destroyed to have
a great adaptive reuse," Gillison said.
Assuming Council approves the two funding bills and a third
to transfer ownership of the building back to the city this spring, the project
would take an additional two to three years to complete, probably after Nutter
leaves office in early 2016.
"I likely won't be around, at least in an official
capacity, to cut the ribbon," Gillison said. "Hopefully I'll get an
invitation."
Source: Philly.com
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