Kenney proposes $225M Penn's Landing project over I-95
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- For decades, officials have been trying to figure out how to connect Center City Philadelphia to the Penn's Landing waterfront.
Mayor Jim Kenney says they found a way.
An architect's drawing shows the multi-million dollar plan to put a canopy over I-95 and build an 11-acre green park between Walnut and Chestnuts streets finally connecting Society Hill to historic Penn's Landing.
"We're putting up $90-million over six years. The rest of it is coming from the state, from PennDOT and probably from federal highway dollars," Kenney said.
In his annual budget address to City Council, the mayor will propose spending $90-million over six years to spur development towards the estimated $225-million to $300-million bill to complete the project.
"You want to open up the space, make it more publicly accessible so that families can enjoy it and that also developers will envision what it could be," Kenney said.
A prestigious architecture firm has been hired to coordinate this either by submerging and covering this section of 95 or simply moving elsewhere.
Action News spoke with those who walk these bridges almost daily.
"I don't know why we wouldn't want to do that. It seems that there may not be enough access to the waterfront area," Jerry Amari of Center City said.
"It would be something that would be pretty. I would think about the construction time and what it would take to actually get that done," Tia May of Upper Darby, Pa. said.
Mayor Kenney promises this will not be another Penn's Landing pie-in-the-sky project doomed to fail or never to materialize; in fact, he says, it's all but a done deal.
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