Point Breeze Neighborhood Plan and Implementation Strategy
Philadelphia, PA
Funded by The Reinvestment Fund (TRF) through a William Penn Foundation grant, Interface Studio and TRF collaboratively developed a comprehensive strategy for the Point Breeze Community Development Coalition to guide the community’s future over the next decade. Located at the doorstep of Center City, the community has long suffered from deterioration, a lack of private investment and poor connections to downtown and other amenities. The 2005 Neighborhood Plan focused on identifying opportunities for new mixed-income housing, improving local organizing and advocacy efforts, enhancing public space and, developing new programs to enhance local education and workforce development through information technology. The plan targeted new investment along Point Breeze Avenue and included over 300 new units of housing, 50,000 SF of new retail, a new performing arts center, charter school and two new plazas. Phasing scenarios were developed that tied each component of the development to City and State funding cycles.
As an effort to utilize a low-cost solution to improve the character of the street while promoting the planning process, Interface Studio worked with the Klip Collective to design and implement a video installation within a vacant storefront. The installation began running in July, 2006 and continued through the fall.
In 2009, the Redevelopment Authority of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia City Planning Commission hired Interface Studio and an interdisciplinary team including Real Estate Strategies, inHabit, JzTI, and Athenian Properties to build upon the 2005 Point Breeze Neighborhood Plan with an Implementation Strategy designed to guide public resource expenditure, specifically Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP2) dollars allocated by the U.S. Office of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the Obama Administration’s Recovery Act.
Client: Point Breeze Community Development Coalition & South Philadelphia HOMES, Inc.
Project Team: Klip Collective
