Actually, I was down by Penn's Landing just the other day, and I realized what one of the problems with its location was.
There's a ton of surface parking lots! Even on the Landing itself, which is supposed to be a park!
I realized that these surface parking lots--the ones between Del Ave and I-95 make the psychological barrier between the waterfront and Society Hill all the more formidable, and of course, surface parking lots are the poorest waste of commercial land possible.
Solution? Parking garages. That's unbelievable! you may shout. Parking garages are just as bad as parking lots!
Ah, but here's the rub: a parking garage, unlike a parking lot, can have ground-floor retail, to accentuate the dining options available on the Landing. Not only that, but the layers on layers a garage has offers x amount of available parking spaces more than a lot. Not only that, but a parking garage can be built with a green roof. A lot can't. And, to put icing on the cake, parking garages lining the space between Del Ave and I-95 will, aesthetically at least, minimize the expressway's impact and thus further a connection between the waterfront and Society Hill / Old City.
They could also offset the horrendous surface lots on Penn's Landing itself, and make the parts further from the river seem more like parkland than they do now...
And the only thing the city need do would be to institute that land use tax that would replace the income lost by a lower wage tax and / or a lower business privilege tax.
Bingo.
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