Penn unveils master plan for 23 acres along Schuylkill River

A “Pennovation Center,” a business incubator that will have lab space and serve as a hub for innovation, will anchor the University of Pennsylvania’s South Bank campus.

The university has unveiled its master plan for 23 acres along the Schuylkill River that used to be owned by DuPont and sits in the Grays Ferry neighborhood of Philadelphia.

The plan is an integral part of Penn Connects 2.0, which is the school’s long-term campus development strategy to add facilities while expanding the amount of open space it has. Penn has constructed four million square feet of new space on its West Philadelphia campus since 2006. At the same time, it has boosted the amount of open space by 25 percent.

South Bank aims to become a research park supporting entrepreneurs and advances in technology. The development would be multi-phased and will initially concentrate on adding new light industrial and flex-use buildings. At build out, up to 1.5 million square feet of new space will be constructed on South Bank.

WRT, an architectural firm based in Philadelphia, designed the master plan for South Bank.

“The South Bank of the future will be a dynamic, mixed-use incubator of ideas,” said Amy Gutmann, Penn’s president in a statement. “This forward-thinking master plan will provide cutting-edge facilities and professional services for Penn’s community of innovators, researchers, students and entrepreneurs, in order to accelerate the formation of new, university-based business ventures. It puts Penn at the forefront of new business development in the region and creates the potential for transformational change along the banks of the river just south of our campus.”

South Bank is one part of a long-term plan to develop the Lower Schuylkill River into a 500-acre innovation district. Penn bookends the northern part of the this district and the Navy Yard anchors the southern end. The Philadelphia International Airport and other transportation center are located in the middle of this district.

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal