From today's Inquirer:

Posted on Wed, Oct. 20, 2004

Barnes looking at ball fields

By Patricia Horn

Inquirer Staff Writer

If it wins court permission to move its multibillion-dollar gallery to Center City, the Barnes Foundation is considering building its new building on the Van Colln ball fields across from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, two city agencies have confirmed.

The site is one of two that the Barnes asked engineering consultant Perks Reutter Associates to investigate before last month's court hearing regarding the move. The other potential site, also along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, is the Youth Study Center, a juvenile detention facility.

Neither site was revealed during the court hearing, in which the Barnes - saying it would go broke in its suburban location - pressed its case to move the art collection downtown.

But while the foundation's interest in the Youth Study Center has been discussed before, officials in Philadelphia's Water Department and Planning Commission said during the last few days that the Barnes consultants also inquired about the ball fields.

The ball fields - two baseball diamonds and a small children's playground along the northern part of the Parkway - are home to countless children's baseball games, and any change to that site is strongly opposed in the Fairmount neighborhood.

Larry Reynolds, the president of the Fairmount Civic Association, said if the Barnes tried to build there, he would expect the same reaction that came several years ago when the ball fields were suggested for development. "That met with a crescendo of noise over 'you can't take our ball fields,' " he said. "They are the only recreation field in the western part of Center City, and residents from all over those neighborhoods, those children, use the fields."

Kimberly Camp, executive director of the Barnes, said yesterday that it was "absolutely premature" to discuss specific sites. She said she was still "looking at a number of sites."

For last month's hearing, Perks Reutter - commissioned by the Barnes to determine whether it could build a Parkway gallery for $100 million - prepared a report that said "two sites are being considered." It did not name them, although its cost analysis was based on two sites whose specifications match the ball fields and Study Center.

Camp, however, said the report only "gave scenarios for two types of sites which potentially could be used as a way to answer the question of whether we could build a new facility for $100 million."

While the Youth Study Center would be the more popular choice in the neighborhood, the juvenile detention center on the site would have to be relocated before the Barnes could build.

"If you are only looking at the issue of square footage, then a new Barnes would fit on either site. That is what we determined," said Warren Huff, director of urban design for the City Planning Commission. "I am not saying we would recommend the Van Colln fields for anything other than the use they have now."

Whether the Barnes can move its world-renowned art collection to a new site is up to the courts. Montgomery County Orphans' Court Judge Stanley Ott is deliberating on the Barnes' petition to break its founder's written instructions and move the art downtown. His ruling is expected by the end of the year.

Maxine Griffith, executive director of the planning commission, said her agency had suggested a number of sites throughout the city for the Barnes, but Mayor Street is committed to the Parkway. The mayor "hasn't said what site," Griffith said. "This can't be unilateral. This is a situation where we want to accommodate the Barnes."

The city owns the ball fields and the Youth Study Center. Fairmount Park manages the sites.

Robert Nix III, chairman of the Fairmount Park Commission, said his agency, along with the city, would have to give approval for the Barnes to use either site. He said that neither the Barnes nor its representatives have contacted the commission about either site, but that he has heard of their interest in the ball fields and the study center.

The city is close to finishing a deal for a new location for the Youth Study Center in West Philadelphia, but the new center is unlikely to open until 2007.

"Undoubtedly the motivation for [considering] other sites is the concern about delays," said Paul Levy, president of the Center City District, whose organization has just completed a plan for redeveloping the Parkway.

Aside from the neighborhood protests, the physical obstacles to building a museum on the ball fields would be minor. For instance, two major water transmission lines run about four feet below their surface, but they could be moved.

Perks Reutter, the engineering firm, asked the Water Department for details on the ball fields and the Youth Study Center, said Michael Lavery, assistant chief of the water and sewer section of the Water Department.

"Certainly we believe that technical issues can be resolved" at either potential site, Lavery said.

Putting the Barnes on the ball fields would place it in closer walking distance to the Art Museum, and would allow the two institutions to share a parking facility.

Separately, the Center City District is circulating a proposal to build two ball fields and a skateboard park southeast of the Art Museum on land between Eakins Oval and the Schuylkill. The new fields and park would require major changes to River Drive and Eakins Oval.

As the Parkway is configured, the Van Colln ball fields and the Youth Study Center are the only sites suited for the Barnes, Levy and others said.

"There are only two really available sites," Nix, the Fairmount Park Commission chairman, said. "If the judge were to say the Barnes is coming to the Parkway, and we are told that they have to use Van Colln fields or not get it... we would ask the city for an ironclad guarantee that, when the Youth Study Center is moved, we would replace the ball fields right there. That is the only way we would even consider it."

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Von Colln Field is the major recreation area and playground for Fairmount, Spring Garden, and Logan Circle. As Larry mentioned in the article, there would be considerable opposition to moving the field/playground. It's already a bit of walk from Fairmount; placing the recreation area even farther away would make it essentially useless for our neighborhood, and I suspect most Fairmounters would abandon it for other parks, reachable by car. What a pity to destroy a true neighborhood park in the name of Parkway development, if that happens.

Save the ballfields. Write Maxine Griffith, Warren Huff, Mayor Street. We need more folks, not less - and more uses, not less, on the Parkway.

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“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” - Jane Jacobs

Yeah its kind of suspicous that they kept the ballfield option under wraps till right before they finished getting approval for the move. I only hope they are only hedging their bets if the city can't find funding to move the Youth Guidance Center.

The Barnes is being driven out of its current home because its neighbors make it impossible for it to thrive there.

So what will it do? Move to Center City and destroy one of the last pieces of greenspace left in that area.

I see some sort of irony here, though I'm not sure that irony is the right word. :what:

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Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian. - Robert Orben

As a Barnes neighbor (even if I am on the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak), I see placards all over Lower Merion calling for the Barnes to stay.

I know there are problems with the neighbors - some of which have been caused by the attitude of the former chairman, Richard Glanton.

Glanton and his team antagonized most of the neigborhood, declaring them to be "racists" when they opposed unlimited attendance (with buses) at the Barnes. As many of you know, all traffic to the Barnes has to come in a narrow, residential street.

And, Glanton's team ran the Barnes into the ground, financially.

There are solutions that would keep the Barnes in Lower Merion. Episcopal Academy is moving and it would be reasonable to purchase a right of way from City Avenue to the Barnes (with some space for parking). This would take the pressure off the neighborhood. I have no idea what would happen to the rest of the EA land - I really hope that Saint Joseph's doesn't take it over.

I think it would be more accurate to say that the move is being forced by the new funders on the block - lead by Pew.

I think that the Barnes would be great for the city . . . but it would also be great to keep it where it is.

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“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” - Jane Jacobs

Yeah, now the residents of Lower Merion after doing everything they could do to run it into the ground are suddenly realizing "Wait, we are dufuses for driving away one of the world's best colledtions of post-impressionist paintings". How about a zoning variance for a remote parking lot and a shuttle bus? I have a trolley line and 2 SEPTA bus lines in front of my house so cry me a river about "shocking" tour busses of art fans. You know for 4 1/2 years I have been wanting to go the Barnes but with a 3 1/2 month waiting list for a weekend ticket thanks to its snooty neighbors - guess what - I haven't been.
Museums need people going to them in order to survive. People pay admissions fees, buy calendars and Cezanne mousepads, become members and fill endowments. Moving the Barnes to the city is the best deal ultimately for the instituion (it guarantees survival), for art fans (they can actually see the collection), and ultimately for students of its educational division (moving means there can be more than 20).
The idea of keeping it in Lower Merion is kind of non-starter if you think peopleshould be able to see great works of art in person, period. The issue is whether it should displace one of the most used athletic fields in the city or whether having kids jail on what is supposed be Philly's grand boulevard is the best example of city planning.

I think it would be great to have the barnes on the parkway but I understand the argument against it and it's valid. the best idea I've heard was from a Republican..gasp!...and that was building an access road from city line I believe. that area could use another road and coming in from the backside, so to speak, might allevaiate a lot of their concerns with traffic through their neighborhood. at any rate, I think it is a bad idea to put it on the ballfields. even if it's three years with no ball field until they demolish the juvie ctr that is an eternity to a kid. The CCD's proposal isnt too bad. REconfiguring Eakin's Oval to be more like it was originally conceived which allows the Barnes to betw/ the ballfield and the museum. At any rate, chris is right baout glanton.

As I mentioned, moving it to the present site of the Youth Study Center, or across to the far side of Eakins Oval, the other site proposed at one point, would effectively kill its usefulness as a recreational facility, at least for Fairmounters. Parents are not going to truck their little ones that far for a playground - we'll just build something closer. And the little leaguers, if they have to drive anyway, will just drive up to a more spacious facility elsewhere in the park.

Plus I've heard that the Youth Study Center is a cancer hot spot, so you can bet once that piece of news gets out you won't be seeing many parents let their kids go to a playground at that location.

Please tell me more.

Well, I'll admit it's basically hearsay. Something about an abnormally large number of employees who've worked there over the years developing cancer. I don't have much more than that.