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Originally Posted by Philly Fan
Well, I--and those with the power in this city--obviously disagree. A major league ballpark--in use only a few days a week during six months of the year--would have been a major waste of that key location and space. In terms of building Philly into a true world-class city of the 21st Century, there's no comparison. Philly's future on the world stage is much more enhanced by Penn and CHOP occupying that space, than it would have been with a ballpark located there. And it definitely WOULD have had a negative impact on Penn's campus life, as well as CHOP and Penn Medicine's activities.
In fact, give me an example of another major league ballpark that's located right next to a major university and/or medical research and clinical complex. It wouldn't work.
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Fenway is located right next to Boston University.
Look, it really doesn't matter because it didn't happen. I certainly wasn't looking at it like some boy dreaming of a park with a view of downtown as someone suggested ... that's absurd. The park is great where it is ... and it is a great park.
However, for argument sake, I do not think it would cause as much disruption as you might think. I used to work at what used to be a PSFS building (Meritor) next to 30th street station. It was an underutilized location that felt miles away from Penn and even Drexel even though both schools are right around the corner. Certainly it would have been a shame to destroy the Post Office building, a building I always admired but everything from that location down to Commerce Square felt abandoned and had been for many years. Given the footprint of the current park, unless the area was plastered with surface parking lots (unnecessary), it could have been built with enough buffer to mitigate noise/traffic concerns. This isn't Veteran's stadium. We are talking about a game played in the summer that starts near the end of the school year and ends near the beginning of the school year for most students. 81 home games, maybe 25 to 30 take place when the campus is most active.
Now, given the choice between a ballpark and what is getting built now, obviously I prefer what is happening now. Even though Brandywine might have already started with a vision of what is going on, few could have anticipated the development taking place now. I am also of the opinion that Penn's expansion would have taken place whether a stadium was built there or not, simply not in the form it is now. They are not mutually exclusive.
Stadiums and ballparks have been successfully used as the centerpiece of revitalization efforts in numerous cities and towns all across the country and there are great examples of it working without many of the headaches you associate with giant stadiums. It would have been nice infill between the campus and downtown. It would have provided yet another entertainment option for residents of downtown and west philadelphia ... within walking distance for many. It very well could have attracted additional residential development and helped boost denser development west towards the Schuylkill. That is how I'm looking at it ... not as an impediment to Penn's development.
Now, all that said ... I think north of Vine and east of Broad would have been a better option.
This is how it looked in 1977. It didn't look any different in 1999 when they were talking about it.
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). Nobody with a mature and serious sense of this city and its future would make that argument.
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