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In recent months, the Philadelphia Naval Business Center, commonly referred to as the Navy Yard, has lost two tenants, but gained one.
A pair of bald eagles nesting in trees has flown and the Food Distribution Center isn’t taking root there after all, but the Tasty Baking Co. has decided to move in instead.
A Feb. 12 multiple murder/suicide involving an investment group cast a brief pall over the more than 1,000-acre 250-year-old site, but it was quickly back to the day-to-day in the intervening months.
"In terms of our business activity, we haven’t seen any impact at all," John Grady, senior vice president of Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. (PIDC), a nonprofit economic-development company chartered by the city, said of the crime that captured national news. "I think everybody understands that those things happen in our society and this just happened at the Navy Yard, but it certainly hasn’t had any impact on the current pace of development or the attractiveness of the location."
There was life after death, however, because later that month a birdwatcher discovered a pair of bald eagles nesting in trees south of the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal near the east end of the Yard. Their residency was to be short lived though, as the feathered beings haven’t been seen since early April. "They have abandoned the nest and moved on. We don’t know at this point why," Pennsylvania Gaming Commission spokesman Jerry Feaser told the Review.
A host of reasons — some man-made, others natural — could explain the departure of the first eagles in more than 200 years to nest in the city. Predators, such as crows or raccoons, could have driven the birds off. Since some media outlets revealed the nest location, it is possible humans might be to blame, despite "nothing at this point to point to any man-made interference," Feaser said.
Whatever happened, it’s not unusual for birds to abandon nests, sometimes returning to the same location or nearby at a later date, the spokesman said, adding, "20 to 30 percent of bald eagles’ nests fail," meaning they are abandoned or destroyed.
Weeks after the endangered species flew the coop, the purveyors of Philadelphia’s famous Tastykakes announced it would relocate to the Navy Yard under a lease with Liberty Property Trust of Malvern.
Wanting to remain in Philadelphia to take advantage of tax breaks, Tasty Baking Co. will leave its Hunting Park Avenue digs in the Nicetown section for two new facilities — a 350,000-square-foot bakery/distribution center on the west side of the Navy Yard along 26th Street, and a 30,000-square-foot office complex in the 90,000-square-foot Navy Yard Corporate Center, being developed by Liberty Property Trust near the main entrance, Grady said.
Mary Borneman, Tasty Baking Co.’s manager of investor and public relations, did not return a call by press time.
According to Grady, groundbreaking for Tasty Baking’s two buildings, totalling roughly 25 acres, will begin in July with the office space complete in fall 2008 and the bakery later that year or early ’09.
"[Tasty Baking] certainly validates to a certain extent that this is a great location for all kinds of business. Because of the size, scale and infrastructure, we have the ability to accommodate a variety of different types of development," the PIDC official said.
May 17, Gov. Ed Rendell announced the Food Distribution Center would not be moving to the Navy Yard because it was cost prohibitive. Rendell’s press office did not return several calls by press time.
It’s a decision that has Food Distribution Center officials shaking their heads and opponents of the move, like state Rep. Bill Keller and longshoremen, rejoicing.
A unified coalition of Keller, the International Longshoremen’s Association and the Philadelphia Marine Trade Association rejected Rendell’s ’05 announcement to move the center to the Navy Yard, claiming it would cripple the city’s maritime business and, over time, erode 45,000 port jobs. Things came to a head at a March 2 meeting at Philadelphia Regional Port Authority headquarters when the coalition presented the state-run organization with alternate site plans, including the Pier 98 annex at Oregon Avenue and Columbus Boulevard.
Earlier this week, Keller applauded Rendell’s decision to find another home for the distribution center and called it a victory for all citizens.
"That was very important for the future of South Philly and the whole region. Even [food center] engineers knew that was jamming a square peg in a round hole to put them there — very expensive and they did not need access to the water," Keller told the Review.
But James P. Storey Jr., president of the Philadelphia Regional Produce Market and owner of Quaker City Produce Co., doesn’t agree.
"I’m very upset. I do feel that we had the rug pulled out from under us by the port and governor. I felt they used the eagles to drive us out. We could have built a buffer around the eagles’ nest," he said, regarding the discovery of the endangered species having temporarily halted construction at the Yard.
Keller thinks the governor’s announcement to move ahead with dredging the Delaware River impacted his decision about the food center. By deepening the river bed, larger container ships could dock at the waterfront, thereby increasing Philly’s maritime trade and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, Keller said.
But since officials said dredging could take at least five or six years, Storey feels the Food Distribution Center should have been granted the Navy Yard space because it’s ready to go. "We’re here now. This port thing could be eight, 10 years down the road. The expenses are high, yes, we could have whittled them down, but we’re ready to build now," he said.
As the search continues for a new home, the produce terminal president would like the facility to remain in South Philly, where it’s always been.
Meanwhile, it’s business full-steam ahead at the Navy Yard, where in keeping with PIDC’s mixed-use vision for the waterfront, future plans could include extension of the Broad Street subway line, Grady said. PIDC recently received a grant from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission to study engineering, transportation and financial feasibility of such a plan. "There’s a tremendous amount of positive activity. We have about 75 businesses there now and over 7,000 people work at the Navy Yard. It’s really starting to build momentum," the PIDC official said.
