PPA spending $28M to revamp highly visible Center City parking garage

A Rendering of how a new facade at 8th and Filbert streets. Note the lighting and renovated storefronts.

The Philadelphia Parking Authority has initiated a $28 million project at its garage at 8th and Filbert streets that not only seeks to repair the 1960s vintage structure but also create a more prominent gateway in Center City.

It can only be an improvement from what is there now. Covered by the garage, 8th Street is dark and dank. The 27,000 square feet of retail space that flanks both sides of the street is pocked by vacancies and uninviting storefronts. The 1,222-space garage, which got back into PPA's full ownership four years ago, was in need of some long-overdue maintenance.

"The condition of the stores were absolutely horrific," said Nacima Boukenna, a senior director at PPA. "As a gateway to Center City, it's absolutely horrific. Once you get off of the highway, you go through this terrible street."

The task at hand was figuring out what could be done in a comprehensive manner to improve this area and design something that would be transformative, Boukenna said. PPA enlisted WRT Architects to help come up with a plan.

"First and foremost we had to get rid of the blight and we can do that by restoring the stores and making them rentable again," Boukenna said.

Attention was then put on what is essentially a tunnel, which is uninviting to pedestrians who may want to shop at the stores or make their way between Market Street and Arch Street. New sidewalks and lighting will be installed along with other streetscaping including benches. An outdoor exhibit space will be created to offer visitors another stop between the parkway and historic areas.

One of the biggest challenges was improving the way it looked. It's one of the first structures viewed when exiting off of the highway, and while it's not architecturally complicated, its presence is big and visible. It looks, well, like a big concrete garage at one of the main entry points into the city.

"We thought we should make it what it truly is and make it a gateway," she said. "For that we devised a facade that is striking in both day and night."

Since the garage can't be enclosed, a clear facade was designed for Arch Street and a metallic wavy type of cladding was designed for the other side of the structure at 8th and Filbert streets. The materials of the new facades will reflect light at different times throughout the day and allow air to circulate through the structure.

While PPA had many ambitions for the project, one of its goals is to show other parking garage owners how to transform their structures to become part of the urban fabric and add to the pedestrian experience. Boukenna believes the design, once fully implemented, will achieve that.

The project is scheduled to be completed by July. It will actually have fewer spaces than it started out with. Instead of 1,222, it will have 1,100 spaces.

The garage was constructed in the 1960s to provide more parking beyond what was available along Market Street and to eventually serve what ended up becoming The Gallery. PPA was a silent partner in the original deal to build the structure though Macy's controlled it until four years ago when PPA gained full ownership.

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal