State of University City Report Highlights Neighborhood Initiatives

University City is growing fast. Commercial activity is spreading up Baltimore Avenue. High-rises and mixed-use developments are emerging from their foundations all over the campuses of Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania, and parklets are bringing new life to parking spaces and traffic triangles.

In fact, the 2013 State of University City report conducted by the University City District (UCD) confirms that commercial activity, real estate development and population are increasing across the board.

One telling statistic is that residents aged 20-34 have increased by 21 percent, perhaps adding to the increased pedestrian counts that are bringing some University City streets up to Center City levels.

On the real estate side, there has been nearly $3.5 billion in new or recently completed projects. These include the just finished Krishna P. Singh Nanotechnology Center and the mixed-use Chestnut Square development.

But University City’s growth is not just concentrated in the supercharged campus-areas and commercial corridors. The report also takes care to highlight some of UCD’s most successful  neighborhood-scale initiatives.

Project Rehab, for example, done in partnership with the city of Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses and Inspection, has taken houses from near-collapse and refurbished them to become neighborhood assets.

As for employment, UCD’s West Philadelphia Skills Initiative connects residents with job opportunities at nearby anchor institutions such as the Drexel School of Medicine and Penn Medicine by helping them learn the skills they need to advance. This program has made a direct effort to bring the benefits of University City’s growth out into the larger West Philadelphia community.

There is also the aptly named Dirt Factory, an open compost facility where residents and businesses alike can dispose of their organic waste. The composted material is then redistributed to residents for backyard and community gardens.

To read more about the state of University City and UCD’s programs, check out the full report here.

Photo via the State of University Report