From the INQUIRER / DAILY NEWS:
Drexel University’s pending “Campus Master Plan” is shifting the school’s expansion focus away from West Philly and toward Center City. (See also my column and reader comments here.)
“North traditionally was where Drexel expanded, up to Powelton Ave.,” through the neighborhood now crammed with student rentals, new President John Fry told me in his Chestnut St. office. Instead, “I’d like the campus core to be more developed,” and grow “to the East of us,” towards the Amtrak train yards and underused office buildings between Drexel and the Schuylkill: “If you could pick a better location that the neighborhood around 30th Street Station, I’d like to hear about it. A lot of very interesting properties are there.”
Where will Drexel get the money? “You’re going to see a lot of partnerships between ourselves and developers,” to build student housing, labs and other projects, said Fry, a former president of Lancaster’s Franklin and Marshall College who arranged private housing and retail deals in his previous career as a top Penn administrator. Already he says he’s hearing from local and national developers hungry for work…
Click here to read the full article.
EDITOR: This time, let’s hope that Fry does the best possible things in the best possible ways.
