Progress Plaza to offer Main Campus students fresh convenience

The North Philadelphia community is welcoming a new supermarket to the neighborhood at the corner of Broad and Oxford Streets.

Progress Plaza, owned by the Progress Investment Associates, will welcome a Fresh Grocer supermarket at the start of the Spring 2010 semester.

The investment will allow students on campus to shop at a grocery store nearby.

“The ability to purchase fresh fruits, vegetables, seafood and meats at affordable prices is an important prerequisite to a healthier neighborhood/community,” said Chairman of Progress Investment Associates, Wendell Whitlock.

Another benefit for students is the opportunities to work and make a little extra money while living on campus.

With a supermarket so close to campus, students won’t have to worry about driving to get food or carrying heavy bags long distances.

“The new supermarket would be awesome. Instead of having to walk far into the neighborhood, we can literally walk down the street,” junior risk management and actuarial science major Usamah Rashid said.

Kenny Ashe, the vice chair of PIA, has been involved with the Marketing of Progress Plaza and has worked on what this new supermarket means to North Philadelphia and the surrounding areas, including Temple.

“This neighborhood has not had a quality supermarket in over 10 years. Therefore, it could only be a positive impact on the Temple student body’s close proximity, easy access to the supermarket that sells food, household items and provides a diverse range of customer service-oriented options,” Ashe said.

With the support of President Ann Weaver Hart and a proposal made by Fresh Grocer, PIA took the project to a new level with the incorporation of green building plans.

“The Fresh Grocer is compelled to do their part and is dedicated to operating their stores with an ongoing commitment to the environment and believe incorporating green building features in their new ground-up locations,” Ashe said. “The new store features a state-of-the art refrigeration system designed to reduce energy consumption by 40 percent [versus] present-day comparable system designs.”

Along with reducing power consumption by 35 percent, Fresh Grocer has designed a “green screen” that allows native plants to grow and form living walls. The vegetated walls will purify the air and reduce heat in the city’s air.

This supermarket seems ideal for students looking to expand their diets and change their lifestyles, even if it is a bit late for some soon-to-be graduates.

“I wish the supermarket was around when I was a freshman. However, I will definitely take advantage of it during my final semester this spring,” BTMM major Danielle Sacco said. “I feel that the new supermarket on campus will encourage students to cook for themselves, as well as make healthier choices.”

The Plaza is scheduled to officially reopen Dec. 11, 2009, and the Fresh Grocer will become the anchor for Progress Plaza as efforts are made to improve the community and move forward with green initiatives in the city.

“We are looking forward to partnering with Temple University’s Office of Sustainability,” Ashe said, “and we endeavor to do our part to help fulfill Mayor Nutter’s mandate to be the greenest city in the nation by 2015.”

Monica Sellecchia can be reached at monica@temple.edu.

Campus play enacts Philly struggles

A production put together by Temple faculty and students, Shot! observes the city’s social troubles.

The riots that rambled through Philadelphia in 1964 put a bullet hole in the city’s history. With the trigger of a gun, a once prosperous integrated community was no more, ringing in hopelessness and depression.

Shot! unveils North Philadelphia, an account of the past and present reality of urban blight. Associate Theater Professor Dr. Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon and Artistic Director Doug Wager are behind the production.

“A lot of people believe that most of the problems in the urban community are the result of the lack of individual motivation,” Witherspoon said.

Through Witherspoon’s research, she found a great deal of challenges these communities face are instead tied to systemic and institutionalized racism.

“Poverty, residential segregation, limited educational and employment opportunities,” Witherspoon said. “All of these conditions work together to exacerbate a cycle of drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, underemployment and gun violence.”

Shot! illuminates reality using poetry, first-person interview and documentary footage. The play revolves around the notion that struggle is concrete, relatable and surrounds us, and it is up to the audience to reach out and pull each other from the grips of apathy.

Shot! grew out of an oral history project funded by Temple interdisciplinary seed grant.

“We hope that the work is compelling and that people will no longer just fear these neighborhoods or view them as the ‘exotic other’ but rather, that we recognize the complexity of issues at hand and that we all have to be in this together,” Witherspoon said. “Temple University is surrounded by a multi-generational, multi-ethnic community, and it is to all our advantage to bridge differences.”  

It’s Philadelphia and the city’s struggles that makes this play hit home. The production allows audience members to move beyond mere recognition, and it enables them to understand how concrete struggles can be.

“Although Shot! is the story of a North Philadelphia neighborhood,” Witherspoon said, “I think its message has resonance for any group of people forced to eke out their existence in an underserved community.”

Priscilla Ward can be reached at priscilla.ward@temple.edu.

Weekends not a party for everyone

Underneath a tree surrounded by empty Budweiser cans, Tamika Jacobs, LaMont Brown and George McBride sat on a bench bordering the basketball courts on 16th Street and Susquehanna Avenue, shading themselves from the Saturday morning sun.

“[Temple students] had me cracking up last night,” Brown said, grinning. “I said, ‘Where y’all going? Where’s the party at?’ and they said, ‘We’re trying to find it.’”

Weekend after weekend for 36 years, Jacobs has been observing students “trying to find the party” throughout the school year. But her scrutiny remains focused on the Temple Police.

“[Students] come down here with kegs and six packs and parties up on the roof and all that,” she said. “If we were to party up on the roof, the whole police station would be down here.”

Brown shook his head in agreement, pointing to the corner of the block where someone was arrested the day before for drinking beer in public.

“It’s a double standard,” he said.

While Jacobs said she doesn’t mind most students, the double standard is a growing problem.

“If we walked out here drinking a beer, they’re locking us up,” Jacobs added, her voice rising. “But if [students] do it, there’s nothing being done at all.”

McBride’s home neighbors seven houses rented by Temple students. Relatively quiet, McBride said they only get noisy when “they party on the weekends,” so he remains unfazed by students.

“[North Philly will be] a community within a college community,” McBride said, “most of them who go to college might end up staying here.”

Ashley Nguyen can be reached at ashley.nguyen@temple.edu.

Philly’s inferiority complex not deserved

It’s time to separate the hype and paranoia from reality at Temple.

“I would rather go halfway across the country than commute to Temple,” said 27-year-old Laura Irwin, who, in lieu of coming to Temple for her bachelor’s degree, is choosing to take a year off in Florida. “I mean, my God, in that neighborhood, people die all the time.”

A number of people fear wandering beyond Main Campus’ borders, leading the university to become a punch line rather than a symbol of progress and diversity.

“The history of crime and poverty in the North Philadelphia area is important with people’s perceptions of Temple,” said psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Lawrence D. Blum.

Today’s prospective students, in searching for their collegiate playgrounds, want educational excellence, as well as a picturesque campus – something they don’t always think they can get at Temple.

It’s these types of preconceived notions that have kept Temple’s name in the gutter in the past.
It doesn’t help that Philadelphia suffers from an inferiority complex.

Blum said the city’s inhabitants fight the “middle child” image, sandwiched between the United States’ political capital, Washington, D.C., and its economic capital, New York.

“I came from Boston, and when I came [to Philadelphia], I saw what a great city this is and how little pride was in it,” Blum said. “If someone told you how great Philadelphia was, it was almost a guarantee the person wasn’t from Philly.”

It’s not unreasonable then to believe Temple, which is intertwined in Philadelphia’s urban landscape, is a casualty of that self-disparagement.

Philadelphia residents often remark about the historically impoverished North Philadelphia area, adding to people’s misconceptions of Temple. Sometimes, the city looks down on Temple, which was once a large commuter school.

There are serious potholes in the major urban setting, but those problems could be fixed in 20 years with expansion and development.

No school should be shielded from criticism, but condemning a respectable institution because it’s so embedded with the urban setting associated with Philadelphia speaks more about the city’s inhabitants than the school itself.

Tom Rowan can be reached at thomas.rowan@temple.edu.

Stalled renewal hampers Philly transformation

In North Philadelphia, far away from the lights of Center City, there is a gloomy aura that looms over the area.

Philadelphia is plagued with abandoned structures and vacant land masses. Nearly $300 million has been poured into a transformation initiative to renovate and rebuild more than 30,000 abandoned buildings that have been vacant since 2000.

In 2007, the number of abandoned buildings had dropped to 22,000. The recent demolition of 7,000 abandoned buildings is indeed progressive, but what about the remaining boarded-up buildings?

In 2008, a study conducted by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council ranked the Philadelphia area as the second among U.S. cities with the most foreclosed properties, with 71,888 homes having foreclosed in the last year.

So what is happening to the said improvements and renovations to these properties?
They have simply become too costly.

Former Mayor John Street and Mayor Michael Nutter demolished less than 8,000 buildings totaling $181 million from 2000 to 2008. In contrast, former Mayor Ed Rendell demolished 10,813 buildings at the cost of $88 million – a cost much lower than the current demolition prices – during his terms.

The Philadelphia Inquirer pointed out the failure of the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, a program implemented by the Street administration that would fund the demolition of abandoned buildings and renew blighted communities with open spaces and new housing developments.

Since suspending NTI operations in 2008, Nutter is now faced with the pressure to revamp NTI and make steps toward cleaning up city streets.

As a first-year student at Temple, I find the city’s historic majesty to be masked by the dreariness of dilapidated housing structures and abandoned buildings.

Philadelphia has the potential to once again become a lively and prosperous city. It would be in Nutter’s best interest to implement a strong and swift revamp of NTI to improve the city.

Although Street’s five-year goal to demolish 14,000 buildings came up short, it would be best to re-activate NTI to benefit the city financially and aesthetically. It would increase city revenue, beautify the city and make it a place visitors would flock to.

Philadelphia residents would also benefit from the beautification programs that result in cleaner streets, less crime and improved neighborhoods. Such improvements have been evident in Washington, D.C., where older-model homes and buildings have been renovated to beautify the lower-income areas.

I love the Philadelphia area and take pride in it. I want people to love it as much as I do and not feel negative vibes when driving through inner-city streets oustide Center City.

Najee Clancy can be reached at najee.clancy@temple.edu.

Med school isn’t shrinking

When the sun rises over Philadelphia, a small section is blocked from its light by Temple’s new, 13-story medical school building, which faces North Broad Street near Ontario Street.

Some residents of the community, regardless of whether they live in the looming shadow of the new building, are up in arms over it.

Cynthia Fullenwellen, a member of the Zion Baptist Church on Broad Street north of the medical school, said she has friends who live near the hospital. Her organization, along with others in the community, has been in talks with Temple about the school for years.

Fullenwellen said she got involved in July 2002, but she hasn’t been impressed with how Temple handled community involvement in the project.

“Temple did not engage the community,” she said, citing that architects she knows through her involvement in the Partners for Sacred Places organization said the design of the building appeared to be deliberately closing out the surrounding community.

Assistant Vice President of University Communications Ray Betzner said Temple was in contact with the community from the project’s inception and that meetings were held regularly to keep interested citizens updated on the process.

But Fullenwellen said at one point, Temple’s meetings stopped.

Regardless of the he-said, she-said game the community and Temple are now playing, it must be difficult for a neighborhood to deal with a change as large as a 13-story building. But what’s being overlooked is that North Broad Street is already littered with university properties that look like skyscrapers compared to row homes. It’s the nature of Temple that has become the nature of North Philadelphia.

So why argue now? Why not fight down the medical school proposal back in its early stages? It isn’t like Temple is going to knock the building down, regardless of whether it darkens neighborhoods.

As community involvement and Temple lending a listening ear goes, let’s face it. More likely than not, none of us will ever know who essentially dropped the ball or where the lines of communications closed.
What we do know, however, is what some members of the community want.

“I think Temple needs to reach out more to the community,” Fullenwellen said. “[Temple should establish] a community panel and bring the community together for one meeting, but they don’t want to do that.”

An inquiry about the community involvement policy of the Department of Licenses and Inspections Zoning Board, which approves sites for new building for the city, went unanswered.

Regardless of community involvement or lack thereof involving the new medical school, one thing is clear: relations between Temple and its surrounding community aren’t going as smoothly as they could be.

If Temple intends to remain a staple in North Philadelphia and tout its culture involving urban life, as a city university, it should strive to involve the community surrounding it. Fullenwellen’s idea for a united panel among all members affected by Temple isn’t a bad one.

Morgan Zalot can be reached at morgan.zalot@temple.edu.

Locals in arms over hospital buildings

Sheila Johnson has one wish: for Temple’s new medical school building to be located elsewhere, other than in front of her porch.

Contrary to the school’s Web site, which considers the 480,000 square-foot structure to be “a source of pride for the university community and for Philadelphia,” residents living near the $160 million building project have branded it a “monster” in the community.

“I just wish they could’ve put it someplace else,” said Johnson, who lives directly behind the 13-story edifice. “We’re happy there’s a new structure of progress in our community, but at that magnitude, I don’t think it should have been that high.”

The all-glass front tower is located along the west side of North Broad Street between Venango and Tioga streets. The height of the building has drawn the ire of area residents and members of the Zion Baptist Church, as it casts a shadow over houses located directly behind the new facility.

Zion Baptist, once led by renowned social activist Rev. Leon Sullivan, is located at 3600 N. Broad St.

“With the height of the building, the shade will cause everybody’s utilities to be much higher,” Zion Baptist member Cynthia Fullenwellen said. “It’s a humongous building. I’ve sat with people at that construction site, [and] they even talk about the monster of the building. Why would you put such a monster in a community?”

With the completion date set for this May, Johnson said many questions, such as Fullenwellen’s, have gone unanswered from Temple officials.

“There was an extensive process with the community and also with the city of Philadelphia,” said Kenneth Lawrence Jr., senior vice president of government, community and public affairs, about the zoning procedures that took place before the school’s groundbreaking. “The university went above and beyond to meet with different community groups. We feel there was a very active dialogue with the community during the whole planning process before construction even started.”

Still, Fullenwellen said “there’s no need for that building to be that high.”

Prior to the construction of the building, members in the Tioga Zion Community Advocates organization met with the school’s architect planners and Temple representatives to discuss a community-benefit agreement.

Johnson, who is the block captain for the 3500 block of Carlisle Street, said the earlier stages of construction were problematic.

Soon after the medical school groundbreaking ceremony, Johnson, and members of the Tioga Zion group, began to notice violations by construction site workers.

“They were starting work at 6:30 in the morning, pounding because they were putting sticks in the ground,” said Rev. Jesse Brown, pastor of a church in Southwest Philadelphia and member of the Tioga Zion group. “Some of the heavy earth-moving equipment was starting at six in the morning.”

Noise ordinance violations led the group to research the city’s construction restrictions.

According to the city’s noise regulations, building construction is prohibited between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m.
Fullenwellen said even after site workers were warned about their violations, they continued to violate the ordinance.

“They were working well past 11 o’clock at night,” she said. “There was noise coming from the site even beyond 11 when everyone was supposed to be off.”

Lawrence, who has been in his current position for six months, said he was unaware of any violations that took place.

Brown said the number of unsolved issues caused by the development of the school caused some residents to flee the Nicetown-Tioga area.

“The stresses of the building and the construction have already reduced the number of residents in the 3500 block [of Carlisle Street] significantly,” he said. “We started out with 13. There’s probably only six or seven at the current moment.

“People who are already on the margin are really pushed off, and they end up having to move for various reasons. Temple is systematically moving neighborhoods out, so they can end up taking over.”
Lawrence said Temple is a part of the community.

“This is a building that’s going to provide jobs for residents of that community,” he said. “We have an active outreach program through our human resources department to employ our neighbors.

“Temple is the provider choice of health care in North Philadelphia, and this building is going to help us continue with that.”

Fullenwellen said with the university facing cutbacks, the possibility of Temple hiring area residents is unlikely.

“Folks in the neighborhood that thought there was a possibility of getting a job, [the idea has] gone out the window,” Fullenwellen said. “They said they were supposed to be having a job fair. The building opens in May. Where’s the job fair to incorporate the community?”

Lawrence said the job fair is an ongoing process.

“Within our human resources, there’s a person specifically who works on community outreach in the neighborhoods around Temple’s campus to let [residents] know about jobs that are occurring at Temple,” he said.

Fullenwellen said she believes the excavation for the school’s foundation damaged the church’s oil tank, which costs thousands to repair.

“We’ve had a couple sinkholes, and currently, we’re [relocated] because we had a crack in our oil tank,” she said. “We had to convert from oil to natural gas because of the crack in the tank. With all the shifting, more than likely, [building constructors] have created a damage for us.”

Lawrence said planners will revitalize the streetscape along Carlisle Street with new sidewalks, lighting and other enhancements to refurbish homes near the school.

Brown said President Ann Weaver Hart has yet to accept an invitation from Tioga Zion Community Advocates despite “being asked on a number of occasions in non-threatening ways.”

“She just doesn’t seem to think the neighborhood is worth it in any way to her,” Brown said.

“I would say that I need to go up and meet with some of the groups up there as well,” Lawrence said, “but we’re a large organization, and there’s a process to get there.”

“We keep an open invitation to the president,” Brown said. “We would like to host her in a community forum that we will set up, and work with her staff and office to make sure it happens well.”

Fullenwellen said community members’ input should have been considered for the building’s design.

“They think all they have to do is push some crumbs off the table to the neighborhood to make them complacent,” Fullenwellen said. “Unfortunately, it seems like wherever Temple is, they’re always trying to take over that community, and we’re all fighting the same struggle.”

Coupled with uncertainty and disappointment, Johnson does not foresee a partnership between Zion Baptist and Temple.

Instead, she said she believes the university will host “a smiling ribbon-cutting session like everything’s wonderful.”

Brittany Diggs can be reached at bdiggs@temple.edu.

Skeptical Shopper

Progress on Progress Plaza’s development has been halted and delayed so often, the jokes playing on the center’s name stopped being funny a while ago.

Despite several middle-class enclaves in the surrounding area, not to mention the purchasing power of Temple’s thousands of Main Campus students, construction continues to be delayed. The projected finish date of spring 2009 has been pushed back. Before that, another completion date was missed. Plans to bring the Fresh Grocer to fill the supermarket centerpiece space are in the works but have not come to fruition yet.

Major construction projects take time and, without incredibly efficient management, often face hiccups and delays. The new Tyler School of Art building is evidence of that. Though it was supposed to be completed in time for students to take classes this semester, missing equipment and unfinished projects meant Tyler had a rough start.

Even still, it doesn’t make sense that a grocery store hasn’t been built yet. If developers think Temple students will be patient forever, they are mistaken. As The Temple News has reported, grocery-delivering services are growing in popularity, especially grocers that provide free delivery.

If students continue to learn about delivery services, eventually they will come to depend on them and won’t feel like making the trek to Progress Plaza, especially if they live on the north side of campus. On the north side, Pathmark is about as close as Progress Plaza.

There is a huge potential pool of customers for a quality grocery store near Temple and the surrounding neighborhoods. Doubts about the viability of a supermarket in North Philadelphia could turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy if the project is allowed to languish for long periods of time.

Progress Plaza is an example of progress merely by its existence. It is the first African-American owned plaza of its kind. The current state of it, then, does not speak well for the viability of a supermarket in an inner-city area.

We hope the planners of Progress Plaza’s overhaul will bear this in mind as they struggle to complete the project. North Philadelphia can, and probably will, reward the planners’ efforts with steady profits. First, Progress Plaza needs its managers to maintain persistence and push for completion.

A supermarket is sorely needed in North Philadelphia, and we will be excited to see it, whenever it gets here. We just hope we won’t have to wait too long.

Where’s the Progress?

Victoria Hamilton can eat 10 times a week with her meal plan, but she said it isn’t as good as it sounds.

The freshman fine arts major is upset she can’t shop for food around Temple like she could at home. Without the convenience of grocery stores near Main Campus, she has to rely on her meal plan to eat during the week.

Temple students who want to purchase groceries don’t have it any easier than anyone else from the neighborhood. Longtime North Philadelphia residents are left with bodegas or McDonald’s.

The construction of the Fresh Grocer at Progress Plaza, located at 1501 N. Broad St., has been plagued by multiple delays.

“I was going to [Johnson and Hardwick cafeteria] all the time for waffles,” Hamilton said. “I loved those things, and now they just make me sick.

“I’m usually at my boyfriend’s on the weekends. I was able to cook shrimp scampi there. How could I get what I needed for that back at Temple?”

For nearly a year, a poster with computer-graphic renderings of a redeveloped Progress Plaza has been on display, promoting the arrival of the Fresh Grocer, a 24-hour supermarket.

Construction of the supermarket is part of a $16 million project for the historic plaza, the nation’s first African-American owned shopping center.

“Construction should begin within the next 30 to 60 days,” said Benjamin Gilbert, supervisor of Plaza Management Office.

Two of the plaza’s three wings were completed by October 2008, but the supermarket centerpiece projected to be completed by early 2009 suffered minor setbacks.

Gilbert said normal construction delays, necessary city zoning approvals and the weather delayed work on the other wing, pushing the completion date of the supermarket back.

Once construction begins on the unfinished wing, the development of the Fresh Grocer is expected to take an additional six months for it to be built.

The Fresh Grocer will be built on the lot along Oxford Street, where there is currently one business still open.

The revitalization of Progress Plaza is sponsored by a three-way partnership that puts urban concerns first.

The Fresh Food Financing Initiative, which helps fund the development of grocery stores in deprived urban areas, will commit resources to the development of the Fresh Grocer in North Philadelphia. The supermarket has six locations in the surrounding areas.

The Fresh Grocer chain is not foreign to Philadelphia but will be new to this part of the city. The closest location at 40th and Walnut streets is accessible by subway routes.

After joining with the Food Trust, a private group working to reform eating habits in urban areas, and the Reinvestment Fund, plans were made to restructure the plaza.

There are also other businesses new to the plaza that may eventually move in but are still negotiating contracts with the shopping center’s management.

Delay in construction at Progress Plaza is noticeable. Rooms in the unfinished wing have piles of Sheetrock stacked and ready to be installed.

Nelson’s Auto Tags is the only business left in the soon-to-be-demolished building.

Fred Brown, an employee at Nelson’s Auto Tags, said the store will move into a newly renovated building as soon as possible. Due to renovations happening inside the building, the business has been forced to wait.

Brown said he expects to reopen by May.

The store has been a part of Progress Plaza since 2004 but had moved to its current location more than a year ago. Though he was forced to close until renovations are completed, Brown doesn’t seem to mind.

He said: “It’s definitely going to be good for business.”

Greg Adomaitis can be reached at greg.adomaitis@temple.edu.

Area struggles, starving for a supermarket

Bringing home a handful of bagged groceries on the Broad Street Line is a tough but necessary reality for Temple students.

The selection of fresh food for North Philadelphia residents north of Girard Avenue is limited, but they have found ways around it.

“There is nowhere else to go around here. I keep wondering when a store is going to come,” said Mildred, who preferred to be identified by first name only, as she stood outside of Progress Plaza.

Mildred, a resident of Yorktown, only has to walk a block from her home at 13th and Oxford streets to purchase produce from Mike Hunter, the vendor who sells fresh fruits and vegetables from his truck along Jefferson Street.

Mildred was once able to go to the Superfresh at Progress Plaza and purchase anything she needed for cooking. The lot where Superfresh once stood is now littered with uprooted tree stumps.

“It was convenient,” she said. “I’m still doing some cooking.”

Mildred said doing any kind of substantial shopping is impossible without a car of her own. She rolled her eyes at the thought of a 24-hour supermarket opening in the plaza.

“We have been hearing that for years,” she said.

Kim, a North Philadelphia resident, lives at Ninth and Brown streets and splits her grocery shopping between the goods Hunter provides and the Reading Terminal Market, located at 12th and Arch streets.
“I got no problem walking when it’s nice out,” Kim said.

The temperature almost reached 40 degrees by the afternoon that day, which must have been good enough for Kim to forego her top three spots, Save-A-Lot, Cousins and ShopRite.

“Those places are convenient if there’s a sale, but the prices have been going up. It’s outrageous,” Kim said.

She used to frequent the Superfresh at Progress Plaza faithfully until it closed. Since then, she has been forced to search for new and farther locations to do her shopping.

“If they got sales, I’ll be coming [to the Fresh Grocer], too,” she said about the new supermarket slated to open at Progress Plaza this year. “I just don’t want to use up too many of my food stamps.”

Greg Adomaitis can be reached at greg.adomaitis@temple.edu.

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