Adjacent to the nation’s third busiest train station, the site is at the heart of the University City’s eastern end, an area only growing in vitality with the addition of more than 4,000 federal employees across the street, the prospect of future Cira buildings, the creation of Penn Park, and Drexel University’s growth-oriented master plan. 

To create The Porch, University City District was able to piggyback on a larger PennDOT project to rehabilitate six bridges adjacent to 30th Street Station. UCD’s vision for the site is the creation of an inviting, animated public place, with amenities such as abundant and comfortable seating, sun and shade, trees and plantings; ultimately, The Porch at 30th Street Station will become a vibrant magnet and a source of civic pride. However, in the interest of quickly and economically building upon the work of the PennDOT project, UCD looked to examples of new public spaces in other cities that have been developed by taking small, iterative, and experimental steps – Lighter Quicker Cheaper (LQC), as coined by the Project for Public Spaces – in order to determine what works best, rather than starting with large capital expenses.

UCD’s interpretation of LQC is that one leads with people, rather than with large capital investments. This approach resonates with UCD – not just because of its speed and efficacy – but because it plays to UCD’s organization strengths: cleaning and stewarding the public realm, and activating public spaces with destination events such as the Night Market and the Baltimore Avenue Stroll. 

UCD envisions a capital intensive future phase of improvement – with elements such as food kiosks, denser plantings, functional art, and a permanent landscaped buffer from Market Street – that will be informed by a thoughtful observation of usage patterns for the first phase of improvements.