"Germantown's obvious, yet elusive, potential" (Philadelphia, Oakland: 2015, apartment)

[pman]

Originally Posted by FamousBlueRaincoat

It would be great if Maplewood Mall could turn into something better. I think it especially lends itself to low-key niche retail and cafes and dining options with outdoor seating (because even if Chelten Avenue was nicer, it's still high traffic and noisy) - and I read Wired Beans was interested in opening up again around here, so I guess I'm not alone.

But the keys are Germantown and Chelten Avenue and the ability of Germantown to define itself as a TOD city within the city, and it would be best not to forget that in an attempt to revamp a failed artifact of modernist planning. It's already got transit, commercial, retail, residential, light-industrial, and a lot of day-time foot and vehicle traffic. A one block long pedestrian mall can be a nice touch, but is hardly its greatest asset, and I don't see it being a game changer long-term.

indeed, vernon park is a huge asset though. a bit rundown but the basic design is right, the trees are enormous, and the location is right. better offpeak service on the chestnut hill west would also help.

[DarkWolf]

Originally Posted by 2e1m5a

Good post. These are small stepping stones but agree not a huge game changer. It will be interesting to see what will develop from the massive vacancies left behind with Germantown High School, The Women's Y and the Town Hall. I'd like to see some TOD built around the Germantown R7 station to have it better incorporated and more cohesive with the rest of Chelten Ave.

You have to make ADA compliant to get TOD....

[maf763]

Originally Posted by Jarrito's Lime

Sometimes in order to "save" something, you have to destroy it first. The only way to turn Germantown around would be to get the majority of it's current inhabitants out and level their homes. I remember when people were talking about turning Frankford around ... my first thought was "it'll never get better as long as what lives there is still there." What lives there is still there and it indeed never got better.

I'm guessing you don't know many people from Germantown, nor spend any time there. You might be better off sticking to talking about sandwiches.

[maf763]

Oh, well then you are definitely an expert. I stand corrected. Level the place, by all means.

[2e1m5a]

Originally Posted by Nexis4Jersey

You have to make ADA compliant to get TOD....

Compliant for Americans with disabilities...not American dentists, right? I'm no Anti-Dentite haha.

I know Septa is building high platforms on some stations, hopefully they will get around to the Germantown Stations. Or maybe build some TOD at the Chelten or Queen Lane R8 station as I believe they are already ADA compliant.

[rotodome]

Chelten Ave already has high platforms, but I don't think there's a handicapped accessible route from the sidewalk down to the platforms.

[rotodome]

Originally Posted by Jarrito's Lime

Don't get huffy, only some of it should be leveled. You need to learn - Everybody here opines on areas where they don't live, it doesn't mean they don't know. And, yes, I understand, living there gives someone the best insight.

Well, I disagree with you. And I think that leveling "the majority" of the neighborhood and peoples homes is a completely ridiculous approach to take in one of the single most historically significant neighborhoods in one of the nation's most historic cities.

The process by which a neighborhood's residents are actively displaced and replaced by other people, as it happens most times, is generally referred to as gentrification. And while that certainly can have its own set of problems, and may not happen quickly enough for some, it also generally does not involve leveling most of a neighborhood in order for it to occur.

[pman]

Originally Posted by rotodome

Chelten Ave already has high platforms, but I don't think there's a handicapped accessible route from the sidewalk down to the platforms.

it's a perfect location for TOD, most of the buildings on that end of chelten are already large. queen lane was recently redone at great expense with mini-highs for some reason. chelten ave station needs some tlc but is pretty functional.

[Kukla65th]

I have often pondered what it will take to substantively inject momentum into a revitalization of the Chelten/Germantown area and I have no real idea what it would take. But among some of the ideas that have crossed my mind were...
1. Renovating the regional rail stations (done or on the way in most cases, now)
2. Finding a major employer willing to build some kind of green-friendly, innovative headquarters in downtown Germantown (no small feat with the challenge we have even getting major employers to stay in CC or come there in the first place)
3. Creating a Main Street program on Germantown Avenue that would also include Chelten from Wissahickon to Musgrave.
4. Finding a few private investors with a proven redevelopment track record and directing them to properties they could largely buy and hold/renovate and seek better tenants or retain currently constructive tenants offering useful services
5. Redevelop the Germantown Town Hall as an incubator for community organizations and non-profits, and using the ground floor as a famers' market of some kind (replacing the sadly defunct market that was once next door, pre-scary Sesame Street character mural)
6. Redevelop the Germantown High School building into a satellite location for colleges to offer classes, as well as perhaps some kind of innovative/magnet/charter high school to use part of the property.
7. Do something to make Vernon Park finally feel secure; it has a friends group and Center in the Square but the place still looks down and out lots of the time. For starters, why is the mansion itself so closed off to people? Hell, let someone live in it and take care of it if you have to.
8. Rebuild all streetscape on Chelten from Wissahickon to Musgrave, including identity signage, better light fixtures, etc. (seems to be planned or on the way, right?) Germantown streetscape vastly improved thanks to Fed. money of late.
9. Restore the trolley from Broad/Erie to Bethlehem Pike (I don't care what anyone says, no normal city on Earth would late entirely new infrastructure along parts of Gtn. Avenue sit there like that - and yes, we're not normal - ever)
10. Get people to stop putting security bars on redeveloped properties (just a swipe at spending all that money on restoring the Morris apartments at Chelten and Morris and then having the entire lower floor look like a prison - thus reinforcing anxiety the residents have about the area in the first place - they couldn't get security screens like dorms at Temple often use if they were that worried?)
11. Land a few anchor retail tenants that are value-priced but seen as "not crap" by lots of people. In the past Old Navy considered Chelten Avenue but security costs were the killer, or so I was told. Let's try it again in 2013 and see what happens.
12. I'm sorry, but encourage landlords not to lease street-level space to worship sites or charter schools - it's just not what's it's for. Definitely a subjective feeling, but I don't think I'm alone on that one. The Allen's building is wasted, for example, if future redevelopment comes along, unless the school moves out.
13. Ensure that zoning code (I believe it would now but am not sure) forces any redevelopment of Chelten/Wayne to be built at sidewalk lines. That corner is a disgrace - and the new Wendy's makes me wonder what the new zoning code actually allows or not.
14. Start holding events/markets at Market Square. I think this is already happening, but just saying.
15. Anything that helps people think "Maybe this neighborhood isn't as bad as I thought it was...", or, at least makes the people we're often talking about on here think that (yuppies, hipsters, high educational attainment, have a choice of where they choose to live/shop, former suburbanites that think they'll live in the city until they have a kid and suddently act all "conservative" about schools, saying "I'm not a racist, but I don't want my kids to be the only white ones in the school" etc. Come on we all do that, or know people that do.)
I imagine #15 will torpedo my post for some; that's okay.

Just a bunch of ideas, probably many here have had the same ideas at times.

Germantown is amazing - few other cities, maybe no other major US cities, have such an ecclectic, historic and potential-rich section. Lots of cities have "cities within the city" but Germantown is really different.

Now to find a thread about Frankford: the other Germantown-esque quandary.

[stuckinsj]

There are plenty of stations in NJ that are not ADA and get lot of TOD Nexis, you know that. Like Rutherford and South Orange (not fully ADA). You need a strong housing market where mass transit is a better bet for traveling due to traffic and or tolls.