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It all began when PECO Energy closed its inefficient Delaware County Power Plant along the banks of the Delaware River in Chester. The 400,000 square foot structure and the surrounding site needed some serious clean up. After all, for most of the last century the 100 acre site was home to a huge coal to steam to electric power plant! PECO sold 63 acres to Preferred Real Estate Investments (PREI). They gave the City of Chester seven acres and PECO operates some small peak generating units and a substation on 20 acres.
PECO and PREI spent 1½ years and $10 million dollars on environmental clean up and demolition so that this structure could be turned into a mixed-use Class A office and retail space. The Wharf at Rivertown is also located in a Keystone Opportunity Zone (KOZ) which gives amazing tax incentives to companies who open a business within its borders. (Pottstown has a KOZ off College Drive). This project is an example of adaptive reuse. From 10,000 tons of scrap metal to 20,000 tons of bricks (and everything in between) were recycled in this project.
This $60 million dollar project has 1.4 million square feet of space, two marinas, restaurants and a river walk. Tenants include Wells Fargo, Synergy, AdminServer, Achristavest and the Power Home Remodeling Group
Also included within the larger Rivertown complex is the $120 million dollar, 18,500-seat, PPL Park. PPL Park is the home of the Philadelphia Union, a Major League Soccer team, and was financed in part by a $25 million dollar economic revitalization package given by the state of Pennsylvania. Chester also received another $7 million dollars from the state to be used towards a two-phase project in the Rivertown complex which includes 186 townhouses, 25 apartments, 335,000 square feet of office space, a 200,000 square-foot convention center, 20,000 square feet of retail space and a parking structure for 1,350 cars. The second half of the project will include 200 apartments, 100,000 square feet of office space and 22,000 square feet of retail space.
The Pennsylvania State Corrections Institution Chester and the 100,000 square-foot Harrah’s Casino and Racetrack are also located within Rivertown. Originally, this land was part of the Sun Shipbuilding Complex that at one time employed 40,000 people!
The Wharf at Rivertown has added 1,200 jobs to Chester. It is expected to eventually add 2,500 jobs. Other projects such as PPL Park, the prison and Harrah’s significantly add to that total. PPL Park, which opened June 27, 2010, is seen as “the spark” that will ignite a full-scale renaissance of Pennsylvania’s first city, Chester.
Another benefit of this project is that a half mile of riverfront was opened back up to the community after nearly 100 years.
Sounds better than senior rental apartments, now doesn’t it!
Hat tip to Jeff Leflar for suggesting I write about this.
