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The Philadelphia Navy Yard lies 3.5 miles south of City Hall at the foot of the historic Broad Street axis. The 1,000 acre former Navy Base, comparable in size to Center City, contains an active shipyard west of Broad Street, six miles of waterfront along the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers, and over 187 historic buildings within the Nationally Registered Philadelphia Naval Shipyard Historic District. After a six week competition, Robert A.M. Stern Architects was chosen by a public private partnership of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation and developer Liberty Property Trust/Synterra Partners to lead a multi disciplinary design team in the creation of a Master Plan to guide development of 522 acres of the 1,000 acre site. The master plan for the Navy Yard envisions an incubator for a succession of future possibilities: a vibrant mixed use community of office, residential, institutional, research and development, retail, and recreation uses. A new landscaped boulevard placed at a diagonal to the existing street grid connects the Navy Yard's historic entrance at Broad Street to a new 250 slip marina, a centrally located focal point on the Delaware River. Along the diagonal boulevard is a 1.4 million square foot corporate center development with nine buildings from three to five stories high. Two options are proposed for development surrounding the marina: an additional million square feet of office buildings or a 1,500-unit neighborhood combining four to six story apartment buildings with townhouses. North of the Marina District, an area within a state-sponsored economic development zone contains research and development and buildings for light industrial uses. The plan proposes multiple options for the far eastern end of the Navy Yard including industrial, residential, a golf course, and horse racing/casino uses. The plan establishes a clear hierarchy of streets and a variety of public spaces including 27 acres of wetlands. The plan emphasizes sustainable design, with programs for mass transit, storm water retention and filtering, and sustainable design standards for new construction. While the Plan projects a twenty to thirty year build out, new buildings are currently under construction and in design and renovation of existing buildings is ongoing.
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