I will save my other two questions for the next round.
Okay, Councilman, sure. Chair recognizes Councilman Henon.
Good evening. Thank you, Council President. I will try to spread my questions out to a few rounds. You as the Commerce Department are working with many different quasi agencies and different departments throughout the City of Philadelphia, and you know, it is kind of hard just in my short time here and experience, it is kind of hard to pinpoint who is the point of contact for somebody and obviously you would point -- you would say all right, this is the Commerce Department. Is the Commerce Department the point of contact for the City of Philadelphia when it comes to attracting businesses? I know I have seen your website, which I am gonna talk about in the second as a follow-up. You 173 know, PIDC offers many, many opportunities for emerging businesses and starting up businesses for short term capital, which is great. Is the Commerce Department the department to call for any business-related questions or support in the City of Philadelphia?
Yes, it is, and particularly on the business attraction side, we understand, because we have many partners out there; PIDC being one; Select Greater Philadelphia; the governors action team in Harrisburg, often, sometimes, those requests particularly around business attraction or developments, sometimes those requests filter through those agencies first, but we have a very strong network, working network of communications that get to us very fast. But if somebody asks you, yes, it the Department of Commerce.
To follow-up that, who is promoting the City of Philadelphia as far as the boots on the ground and making a 174 phone calls to attract businesses here to, you know, get them to come, not necessarily just to the region, because I know some of the aforementioned partners are more regionally.
Which is imperative, and I believe it is great for Philadelphia when you have a vibrant and strong economic engine, you know, for a region. So, does the Commerce Department have somebody who is actually making phone calls, who is looking at your long-term Strategic Business Plan and attracting businesses to the City of Philadelphia, especially with some of the great work this body has done in making it a little more business friendly and attractive to business start up?
The answer is, yes, we do that largely through our partnership with PIDC. People like select do figuring, but you are right they have, I guess, a mixed agenda. They are interested in City of Philadelphia, but they are also interested in 175 the region and we sometimes can't put the them in cross purposes with their own mission statement. But, every day this is what we do with PIDC. They have staff that are dedicated to business attraction and development, so do we. We work together all the time on doing this and I would say, you know, there are a number of initiatives out there. The one I would want to highlight, I apologize if I am repeating myself, is this idea that we think there are a lot of suburban firms who need to be attracting young talent who lives in the City and we have a list of who they are. We have started to methodically go out and talk to them and start to push this argument and we are starting to find it has resonance. The one we met with month-and-a-half ago is actively now looking for what I would call a sort of gateway presence in the City and we think once they do it and the talent they do find that wants to be here is secure in that we think those entities will grow in the City. 176
I have a two part question coming up here. All right, so, in collaboration with Greater Select and Chamber of Commerce and the Business Bureau, when you use our resources, you know, City of Philadelphia resources for marketing and promotion and attracting businesses and some of it, you know, transcends, you know, the region outside of Philadelphia. Do you have a breakdown on the dollars? Do you have a cost analysis on what's been done regionally as opposed to the City of Philadelphia; so you can say, hey, look, you know, regionally we attracted X amount of dollars through all our efforts and, you know, the City of Philadelphia has directed or has benefited, you know, X amount of dollars in residual spent on all our efforts collaborately put together.
Don't have them regionally because, to be honest, our focus is the City of Philadelphia.
I know. That is the answer I want to hear. I know regionally 177 does contribute as well to the City of Philadelphia in it is fine amenities. I mean, it's great amenities that we have, but I would like to see it sort of have a ratio of dollars spent, you know, back to the City of Philadelphia as opposed to regionally; if you have that provided?
I know there is nothing I can put finger on right now, but if you don't mind, maybe we can just have an off-line conversation a little bit about more specificity on what you might be looking for and maybe we can pull something together.
We can certainly talk off-line. One final question, Council President, if I can, and I will wait for the second round. We offer, as a City many, well, several, place base incentives. Do yo have -- Are many people taking advantage of that and do you have in the long-term, short-term, are they taking advantage of these place base initiatives or incentives that we have here in the City of Philadelphia as -- 178
Give me an example of a place base of what are you talking about?
We have KOZs, we have empowerment zones, we have community incentives, you know. Notwithstanding, which I will get to the second round, some of our commercial corridors is important to not just the Council President, but this body and the districts that we represent.
I would say that there is not a single answer to that question, unfortunately. I think some of the place based incentives work extremely well and when you do look at the ones that do work very well, they are inevitably tied to a strong market base that says, I want to be in that place anyway and now looking for additional incentives is going to make this more competitive with, you know, some other place. Particularly some other place out of town. I think honestly there are, for instance, I think there is some KOZs that are under performers. I think that there is both 179 good stories and, but not as fast as anybody would want, related to some of the empowerment zones. It's a mixed picture. It always ties back to, is there a real market in the first place. The incentive itself generally doesn't create the market. So it has got to be in combination.
Are your market studies up-to-date and current with some of your long-term business planning, strategic planning?
Probably not as up-to-date as the question that you are asking, I suspect.
Thank you, Councilman. Chair recognizes Councilwoman Sanchez.
Thank you, Mr. President. I want to -- First I want to thank you for the work, particularly around our commercial corridors and our immigrant 180 business work. I think you will agree it's been very fruitful, both the pilot in the Northeast with the Russian speaking community, and now the work being done with the work being done with the Portuguese, Brazilian community and the lower part of the Northeast. I think this is demonstrating that there is a lot of people that are going to the spirit of the conversation around, how do you promote entrepreneurship in the City? These communities have proven to be key in helping us revitalize those small kind of neighborhood corridors. I want to thank you for your indulgence, as you know, some of us have advocated for those, and the work that you have done with us as it relates to them. For me it is important, you know, the money is going to be tight. We are gonna have to, you know, when the Comp plan comes in, we are gonna see many of the cuts and I will ask a little bit about how those Comp plan cuts are gonna impact the work the Commerce Department does. 181 But, can you provide for us an update, I have not seen one recently, of where we are with our cultural fund bond money?
What projects were completed? Which ones were not? Have we begun to reallocate that money? I haven't been consulted, I know I have some projects that haven't moved. So, I think we now have to become very strategic about what we do and as we finalize this budget, what we have. So, I think particularly for my newer colleagues, having that update of what's the money that was out there, what was pending is important. So, I am going to ask that you submit that to the Chair and I am particularly interested around American Street corridor. Unfortunately or fortunately, we still have money going back to Bill Clinton's Empowerment Zone. I am particularly interested, I know you put out an RFP for a consultant. Can you explain that? Does anybody have an update about how 182 much money is there? These are monies that don't go through our general fund. Sometimes we forget they are there, except me.
Well, except us too. (Laughter.) The Empowerment Zone funding has been there for well over, at this point, ten years. It is distributed through three geographic areas; American Street zone, the North Philadelphia zone and the West Philadelphia zone. All three are managed by community trust boards, which the Commerce Department is intimately involved in and it's managed by Ayesha Heran Miller, and our department. So, each individual, and I know I have it right here off the top of my head, but each individual zone has its own allocation of funding and resources. Some have done very very well with that. What I mean in terms of spending it their accounts down to very little resources left over. Some have a little bit more. Again, we look at the American Street 183 zone as one of our better performing ones. They have done a very good job in getting their grants dollars out the door. They have done a very good job with their Financial Services Department, which is now called Finata, and so we can get you information about the individual organizations and where they are spending wise and so forth. Each has a community board, trust board --
RFP? Somebody stopped me. There was a RFP put out for American Street corridor for some sort of facilitator?
That was an RFP specifically for American Street. So, they themselves put out an RFP for a consultant to help them develop a plan at this point in time. The idea is that those funds were used to be there in perpetuity. So, you have the first ten years, that is beyond us now. You've got to look now to perpetuity. How do you balance the financial side with the grant making side? What types of loans -- excuse me, what types of grants 184 do you make. We are intimately involved in trying to drive that from a philosophical perspective. So, we all met and complement what the City of Philadelphia is doing through the Commerce Department and our grant making activities and our commercial corridors activities. So they are looking to get some help in that and that is the RFP they put out.
For me, it becomes very important again. You haven't yet touched around our cultural corridor money. I think it is important that when we are doing and engaging in these planning process, I got a call that the RFP was out. I didn't know they needed planning. I would have gladly offered my skills to go in and plan, but it is important that what they are looking to do or what they are envisioning alines with some of the projects I am working on in the area and the other departments. This is one of those times where we've got to make sure, sometimes we go back and connect the dots and make sure that, 185 for instance, you know, I have been very deliberate in taking care of 5th Street and Front Street and American Street. How do we tie it altogether. With the decrease of funding, I want to be able to pull that all together and I think there should be a high level discussion of where we really are, where we want to go so that I have an opportunity to weigh in and leverage the resources.
You know, American Street is a good example of a corridor that at one end I think has been pretty successful in attracting some small industrial businesses. Another end is under lots of other kinds of development pressure. We need to -- I have to talk to you more about it. We need to reconcile those things because the pressure is for real. It might even be good, but we have to be careful.
You know, my time is up, but I do want get back to, as we move forward around job creation, and you know, I took notes around your envisioning. 186 While I agree with Council President, we want the hospitals, the biotechs. All of those require high level educational attainment and are geared to people coming in. I want to continue to go back to the conversation that you mentioned, Alan, around manufacturing and the story that was out. Well, I hear that story from the manufacturers every single day. We need folks to act, and so in my next round, I want to talk a little bit about this, because we talk about work force development and obviously the initiative the President has on this job piece, we have left out of this conversation Philadelphia Youth Network. When I was in this business, I am going to age myself now, years ago, all of that 18 money was together; career training and 19 education, what Philadelphia Youth Network 20 has, what PWDC has, and what WIB has and there was so much money during the Clinton administration that we created all these entities and now we need to go back because you have four different entities impacting 187 work force development in the City and I am not sure we are connecting those dots, and manufacturing is one of those low hanging fruits. At any given time there is 500 to 700 jobs available in the manufacturing sector that they can't find people for.
Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman. Chair recognizes Council Member Greene.
Thank you, Mr. President. A quick question about a specific line item in your budget or a couple issues and then I have broader questions about economic development. The proposed budget includes a new half million grant for the Delaware River Waterfront. A fairly big increase in this budget climate. What will this $500,000 fund?
This is funding DRWC general operations. It existed under another budget prior and we moved it to Commerce 188 because I think there was a sense that it probably more appropriately belonged here and was just more visible.
I am pretty sure it came from Public Property. You want to talk to that?
Yes. Good afternoon, Councilman. Rebecca Reinhardt, Budget Director. The $500,000 for the DRWC had been given as a contribution of the City. So, it hadn't been budgeted separately. So, we wanted to budget it. We needed to budget it. It was something that increases transparency. So, it had been paid before, but it wasn't in a specific budget.
There are certain contributions that are sometimes made out -- that are made as one-time payments out of the budget and, you know, that is the historical practice of it. They are smaller contributions. But, again, this is something that when I looked at it and said this is something that we want to pay every year, it needs to go into the budget line item. So, it is something that we wanted to change.
So, that's the broader question for Mr. Greenberger. Why do we want to pay this every year? What services -- What is the City getting for $500,000 to the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation and why are the dollars better spent there than anywhere else that we might want to spend it, like business attraction or something else?
I think going back several years now, we and the community as a whole have invested a lot of time and attention in creating a plan for the redevelopment of the Waterfront and one of 190 the things that has to happen, particularly in this environment, is that there need to be entities or individuals who are actively organizing development possibilities. We do it in Commerce related to certain specific areas like Market East and North Broad the Waterfront Corporation is the entity that can do it specifically related to the Waterfront, sites like Spring Garden, the Festival Pier site, Penns Landing site. They are in a position to be promoting, organizing development, organizing investments that have to be made and properties to make them ready for development. That is part of what our money is paying for.
I'm sorry. It seems to me that $500,000 wouldn't nearly cover investments in properties that need to be made.
So, the question is, what is $500,000 that we are giving to them going to be used specifically for?
It is to cover to 191 staff time necessary to create development possibilities.
Well, for example, we have a very strong interest in seeing the Festival Pier site redeveloped, but that requires -- that is not something you can put out as an RFP. That site requires some further enhancement because half of it is a pier structure, half of it is on fast land. There is management time, study time, organization time that has to be done by somebody.
How much of the $500,000 will be spent on that project?
I don't know. It's not apportioned that way. I don't know.
Okay. I'd like to know how that $500,000 is gonna be spent as compared to their entire budget and where their budget comes from. I guess we will deal with that on a call back if you don't have the answers today. 192
The PIDC loan program. I guess this would be on Greenberger testimony , OHCD Year 28 consolidated plan presentation to City Council. On . Your testimony indicates that PIDC administer several business loan programs on behalf of the City. My understanding is that the upcoming OHCD consolidated plan includes a 6.7 million reduction in prior resources/program income due to various issues with PIDC loan programs, including tracking of outstanding balances and available resources. Can you walk us through how Commerce exercises oversight over the PIDC loan programs, PIDC administers for the City? How did this issue with PIDC, which I understand to be a situation of PIDC loaning out more than it was taking in arise, and what measures is Commerce put in place to make sure that this wouldn't happen again?
Why don't we start by asking John Grady to come up here and talk 193 about what is happening, if I might.
Actually, I'd like to know how Commerce -- The first question, was how does Commerce exercise oversight of PIDC loan programs PIDC administers for the City? So I think that is a question Mr. Grady can't answer.
Okay, I'll start with that. There are two ways. One is that the Board, Executive Board of PIDC, which consists of people; seven appointed by the 12 Mayor, eight by the Chamber of Commerce. I 13 serve on that Board as well as several 14 others, people in leadership in the City, 15 that is the body that is reviewing and approving every loan that PIDC makes. It first goes through a loan committee, then it comes to the executive committee for approval. In fact, one of the those meetings is today. So, every loan comes before that group, half of which is nominated half of which is appointed by the Mayor. The other way to do it --
That is not 194 Commerce Department oversight, that is your vote on a seven member board. What is happening at the Commerce Department to review this as compared to the loan funds available, et cetera, before your taking a vote up on down or a particular loan? The question isn't about how individual loans are issued. The question is about overall supervisory role the Commerce Department is playing and what you described was how loans are actually approved or not approved, which is a different question than the question asked. So, what is Commerce doing to supervise and make sure the loan program is complying with having the money necessary and available complying with the rules, et cetera?
I think the most critical thing we do is we monitor, obviously with PIDC's support and assistance, the loan program as a whole, particularly the small business loan program and I can share with you spreadsheets on those loan programs. But we are monitoring and looking for, are we 195 making enough small business loans? Is it geographically --
Sir, that is not the question how in terms of how the program is operating and who it loans money to. The question is, what is the oversight to make sure that, for example, they are not lending more money out than they are actually taking in, which was the case? So, who in the Commerce Department is responsible for this oversight; what person?
I would say that that is largely the oversight of our -- a combination -- it is mostly the oversight of our of development side, Dwayne Bum.
I wouldn't want to tag him with that exclusively. It resides with me as well.
But, in your answer to the question, you, basically, said you relied on the resources of PIDC to tell you what is happening in the program. 196
Doesn't that really mean that PIDC is monitoring itself?
That's why I would like to have John talk about this before I assume that what you are saying is in fact the situation that you are asking me to respond to.
Well, I just want to get on the record that there is no 14 oversight in the Commerce Department, that PIDC was monitoring itself and that's how this problem was created. I think we have established that. The next question that I asked was -- it is not the next question but I will ask it now. What measures are you putting into place at the Commerce Department to ensure this won't happen again, that does not rely on the entity that is responsible for loaning these funds to the City? 197
The reason I am hesitating is I am not sure if I agree with th premise that there is a problem. That is why I would like to have Mr. Grady speak to what you say is the essential problem here. Can I do that?
Certainly. Mr. Grady, how did the issue with PIDC, which I understand to be a situation of the PIDC loaning out more than it was taking in, arise?
I am not sure about the specifics of the situation you are referencing. I would be happy to find out more. Sounds like maybe you are referring to our revolving loan program, which is funded with CDBG dollars.
Yes. It's is OHCD's Year 28 Consolidated Plan Presentation to City Council, that describes this situation.
I apologize. I don't have that in front of me. I think what you are referring to is our kind of normal routine 198 revolving loan program where we are receive OHCD, CDBG grant dollars, lend those out to businesses, receive repayments and those repayments continue to revolve to fund the new loans. I don't think there's ever been a situation that I am aware of where we have lent more money than we have. We are always managing our cash flow in terms of repayments and what commitments are made and we fund those commitments as they become due. I think particularly as it relates to oversight, PIDC does an audit every year. Those audits are submitted to the City. We provide regular reporting to the City on the status of the CDBG program. We make budget requests on an annual basis, as all the other organizations who use CDBG funds. So, I think there is a significant amount of oversight, but if there is some specific problem that I am not aware of.
So, we have had money available sort of on a regular basis every year to make available for this 199 revolving a program, which is taking a big hit this year because repayments are less than anticipated because either the loans were poorly -- the recipients were poorly chosen, which is either the responsibility of PIDC or Commerce, or some other thing. But we have 6.7 million dollars less available because we have a repayment problem and it is my understanding that someone in the Commerce Department actually did discover this problem or we wouldn't have been in this situation today.
I'm sorry, I think you are referring to over the course of this program, which has been in existence for 30 some years at this point, certain loans go bad. Certain projects are unable to meet their debt service and we are required to try and make up that bad loan. Typically, we are able to do that through the revolve dollars and not through new allocation that comes into the program. So, is there less to lend out? Absolutely there is less because we have to 200 make up for that bad loan and there is million dollars, sounds like, in a portfolio that is 30 some years old, a number that is probably fair for bad loans. I think part of --
-- or did we just catch up with the fact that they were never going to be repaid in one year because we haven't been monitoring and accounting it properly?
No, we monitor the information on a regular basis. It is regularly reported to the City.
So we got 6.7 million dollars less in loan repayments last year than we anticipated? Because otherwise what we did was recognize bad repayments over 201 a period of years in one year. That is really the question.
I don't know if that is the case. I'd be happy to sit down with the and review it.
That is our understand of the case and so we can deal with it on call backs after you had a chance to take a look at it. Thank you. I have some more questions, but I will come back.
Thank you, Councilman. Chair recognizes Council Member Goode.
Thank you, Mr. President. Believe it or not, I am not as concerned with the City wide participation goals as you might think. For the reason that City wide participation goals are made up of departments reaching those goals and if you don't reach a City wide goal, sometimes because certain departments are not practicing diversity they should. Sometimes departments don't reach those goals particularly because covered projects and 202 contracts don't reach those goals. So the approach we take now actually is initiated by Council President, is utilization of economic opportunity plans. So, for the record, can you state what contracts and projects require economic opportunity plans?
I believe the answer, I can give, through the Chair, give you a spreadsheet on this that we have available to you. The answer is everything that requires a Council action requires an economic opportunity plan.
Grants and financial assistance non-committed bid contracts City funded development project contracts. Everything in between $250,000. That is what the code says.
So, you will never reach a departmental goal or contract area goal or City wide goal unless the goal setting is correct within those covered projects and contracts. So, I am more concerned about the goal setting at the most basic level in terms of contract and project. That is really where I am going with this. For the overall goals, you see availability. It does not match utilization. Then the threat is that the goal setting, the basic level in terms of contracts and projects may not be as aggressive either. For example, let me bring up the Temple project. As we were considering legislation on Economic Opportunity Review Committee, we had a number of witnesses bring up what was not happening to the Temple project and Economic Opportunity Plan for that project.
Ms. Dowd-Burton is very familiar with it. After the hearing, I actually went to a luncheon where I ran into Ken Lawrence from Temple and I sat next to Ms. Dowd-Burton for lunch, and we discussed the Temple project and what might be done to intervene. So, before you get to what is going to be accomplished in terms of departments or City wide, what is being done to intervene on that specific project?
Thank you for your question, Councilman. We have had a conversation with the leadership at Temple University and we will be launching the Oversight Committee within the next few weeks. We have received their Economic Opportunity Plan Goals and the status of the project up to this date. We have, I can report for you their --
So, the project was 205 started without the Economic Opportunity Plan being implemented?
No, the plan had been implemented. It was being tracked. They had not activated the Oversight Committee. So I can review with you the results that we currently have, if you are interested.
Is the answer to your question that you are activating the Oversight Committee?
I asked what is being done to intervene. Is the answer to that question you're activating the Oversight Committee?
It is not good enough for me. When will the Economic Opportunity Review Committee be convened, because I don't believe Oversight Committees work as well you do. So, my question now is, a separate question. 206 When will you convene Economic Opportunity Review Committee?
When we have a chance to finalize the individual calenders that have been invited to attend. We have --
That's correct. So we are waiting for Mr. Pete Matthews to get back to us. He has a formal invitation through e-mail. I have talked to his staff. We're also waiting for Cathy Scott to get back to us. She has a formal invitation as well. Varsidia, (ph) who is head of --
-- Hispanic chamber was traveling last week. So we are waiting for her to get back to us.
I am trying to give them enough time to build on their calendar. So, it is just pay matter of coordination. That is all. And then Steve Bradley who is head of or Chair of African-American Chamber has agreed to personally serve.
I would shoot for mid-May, at the latest, which is a month from now. I am not sure how many people schedule much more than a month from now.
Today's date is April 10th. There is no reason why it can't be convened within a month. There is no 23 reason why it would take 50 days.
Okay. We will be 208 happy to schedule it for that time frame.
The last quick question is before the Review Committee is convened, how should inquiries and grievances be handled?
Until the -- they can certainly -- My door is always open. I host meetings with the contracting community on the third Wednesday of every month from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. and I also have been doing business with the City of Philadelphia on the fourth Wednesday of every month from 2:30 to 4:00. Not to mention that I am in my office and returning my calls when I get them.
But aside from that, they can just show up at some point in May and bring their grievances?
Thank you, Councilman. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.
Thank you very much. I want to say thank you to those departments that provided a demographic breakdown of their departments. What percentage of Department of Commerce is grant funded and what percentage is civil service?
Well, I know I am general fund, but let me get to the page. Let me get my notes straight here. I'm sorry. Bear with me. I should have anticipated.
While you do that, for those people who are here for the later hearing, such as Community College, we will be taking a break after this panel and we 210 will reconvene after the break. So, we know pretty much we won't be getting to them until about 3:00 so, you are safe if you would like to go and come back or you are more than welcome to stay.
Just sort of checking off boxes here. There are Deputy Mayor, Senior Commerce Director, Chief Operating Officer, Head of OEO, Head of our Development Division, John Monlack, (ph). Sorry I am just scanning names here. Head of our office of Business Services all funded on the general fund.
It says here on of your testimony, Department of Commerce Senior Leadership at the Deputy Mayor and Deputy level is 100 percent male.
That's correct. That is three of us. Kevin Dow, myself, and Dwayne Bum.
So, my follow-up question would be, women's history month is over but I live it every day, is how does that happen in the City that's majority women?
I can't tell you that it is by design. These are the people that have been selected. I was selected by the Mayor. Kevin was here, Dwayne was here when I assume the Directorship of Commerce.
Moving now to the discussion of bids with the Procurement Department. On the City's website where current bids are listed, is there a listing of advertisements referring to the closing of pre-qualification time periods? You should know that this issue or concern has been raised by a couple of constituents who have come to my office confused about the whole bid qualification, pre-qualification bid meeting process.
Councilwoman, the Community Commissioner is approaching.
For the record, my name is 212 Hugh Ortman, Procurement Commissioner. I am going to have to ask the Councilwoman to just repeat her question please to make sure I heard it correctly.
Surely. I am going to try to relay it as accurately as it was given to make because it's filtered, when, you know, convey issues raised by others. The broader issue is the manners in which our City conducts prebid meetings, pre-qualification meetings and the manner in which we share that information on the website. Talk about what exists. What is.
Well, the date on the website is the date for the pre-qualification questionnaires to be submitted.
So, do you circle back to alert both reviewing the website that a particular bid is no longer going to apply or exist? When you make a decision that you are no longer going to follow through or execute that particular bid notice, do you circle back on the website to alert those reviewing it of that new reality; that there's been a change? And here is why I ask. There have been a couple of instances where those who were interested applied, do the homework, do the du diligence, only to discover that you are no longer considering it again. So, I guess the challenge is accurate timely current information on the website.
If you are talking about a particular contract, I would have to look in to that. But, yes, the website is as up-to-date as we can make it. Although it's relatively old and we are working on 214 replacing it. We do have as much information as possible.
I'm so sorry. I heard two different answers in that one answer. It's "up-to-date", but it's "relatively old."
The information is up-to-date, the system itself is relatively old.
Okay. Then what I am going to do is refer this constituent directly to you so that the connect can happen and they don't have to get jumped around different departments. 15
If you would guide them and show them how they can honor whatever is on the website and do it in a way where they don't the end up wasting their time. Small business don't have a lot of time when they are trying to get new opportunities.
I will circle back 215 in the next round. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Councilwoman. I'm not gonna do that to her. We had a plot to call on Councilman Greene right now then pass him by so we can all go to lunch. But, I can't do that to him. It was conspired upon by freshman and veterans alike.
I would like to ask a couple questions very quickly. In light of the fact that the oil refinery in South Philadelphia is about to close it hearkens the issues of reuse of industrial parcels in Philadelphia and I wanted to get a game plan for, a, that particular parcel, if there is one, but other parcels such as the American Street and other parcels around the City. In light of the fact that I am hearing the manufacturers say that manufacturing is back. I am hearing the President say manufacturing, we are gonna compete head up with India and China and other places. 216 What is our strategy as Philadelphia in that kind of complex manufacturing post Rusbel (ph) phase?
I am gonna ask John to come back up here as well because I want him to comment, but there are a number of questions imbedded in there. Let me see if I can take a few of them on. First of all, about the Sunoco Refinery, you have probably read this in the paper. There are several people who have expressed interest in acquiring the refinery to continue to run it as a refinery. Whether it is exactly running it as a refinery with the same -- and this is where I am little out of my league on this one because it is related to oil technology. Whether it is with the same type of oil, I think it's what different types of oil that potentially could be made available to this refinery. That interest is there. Sunoco is working very closely with the State. John has been part of meetings to monitor that and our hope is that this is not a closure. That this is in 217 fact a sale.
I guess a friendly amendment would be Camden Salvage Yard, for lack of better representative.
Yeah. That is leaving and relocating 200 jobs back to Camden. What is the reuse for those types of parcels? Is it a Brownsfield site now?
Oh, yeah. They're all Brownsfield site. I think the important thing to know here is in the lower Schuylkill, which does in fact go all the way to where the Camden Metal and Iron was at the foot of the Penn Rose Bridge there is several thousand acres of either empty, under-utilized, and in some cases like the refinery, active industrial land. An awful lot of it is way under-utilized. These are industries that are no longer there. PIDC Planning and Commerce have partnered up through a Grant to do a new plan for the lower Schuylkill that we are kind of 218 at the third to halfway point done and it's specifically to figure out what types of infrastructural investments need to be made over the next generation that is gonna unlock the potential of that land with a particular eye towards its industrial capacity. One of the problems, and John can speak to this a bit, is that, you know, we think of Philadelphia as having all this land available, but in fact, the kind of landholdings we need where we need them to meet the needs of some modern industrial purposes, like distribution, there are pretty serious acreages. You know, industry in the past tended to be vertical. Modern industry isn't. It needs more land, and those land parcels that are under public control are not as extensive as we would like, which creates an availability problem for businesses that might think that being here is a great idea, particularly for distribution businesses, because we are well-located.
I am sure Councilman 219 Johnson is gonna want to end the issue on that, but whatever your preliminary findings are now to give us an eye towards that kind of thing because many of us, including the newly minted Committee on International Relations Chaired by Councilman Oh, are gonna want to know the availability of land like that is so that we can market Philadelphia as on budsman on your behalf.
Are you also familiar with the Industrial Land Study that was probably published in its final form a year ago maybe?
Yes, but I would like other members, there are six more of us --
We will make sure that new copies are available and we will brief you. We'll be happy to do a briefing on the progress of the lower Schuylkill plan.
John Grady, President of Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation. The only comment I would add, is I think when we are talking about the redevelopment of older industrial sites, particularly vertical industrial sites, so, there's been discussion about American Street, we see this in Hunting Park, we see this in North Philadelphia, we see it in Kensington. There is a serious economic imbalance in the costs to either rehabilitate, remediate, renovate those structures for other uses or the costs to remove those structures and allow new uses to come in behind them. I think where PIDC and the Commerce Department focus a lot of attention and resources is where can we allocate particularly financing resources and Grant resources from other levels of Government to help undo that economic disincentive. So, we are seeing a lot of retail development on former industrial complexes. Baker Center 221 Project in Hunting Park is a good example, Allegheny West. I have a board meeting this afternoon where we are gonna approve three transactions where existing manufacturers are acquiring existing older industrial complexes and expanding their production and distribution operations into those complexes. I think we are always trying to maximize, particularly those lending resources to make that transition either from one industrial use to another or to an entirely different use, more friendly to the market and to encourage more demand.
So, having said that, in that particular area, what do you envision? I know Pittsburgh had a similar circumstance where they went from an iron steel industrial center of the world and then had to remediate Brownfield. Do we still have the same resources available to us as Pittsburgh had to kind of reclaim that land, and if so, who are we targeting for that land? Is there a 222 marketing game plan. If indeed we are one day's truck drive from the rest of -- one third of the nation's population are we strategically going after distributors? It's my understanding in my other life as an economic development practitioner, that we have under-utilized things like hardwoods, that we have -- Pennsylvania has a surplus of over 80 species of hardwood, which China has a need for, and that a distribution system could be developed, or if we are talking about the unfortunate development of the gas reserves, are we building pipelines? Are we thinking about those kind of things that can be shipped out of our shipyard, and because of the proximity to that site, that is a strategically perfect site. I would love to get the cocoa beans out of the old ACME warehouse, move them down to a place like that so they would be closer to the shipping. Who is running this kind of vision? In the study that you are halfway completed, are we seeing anything that suggests things that 223 we could start to do now?
Yeah, and the instances, unfortunately, Council, the instances that are coming to mind are not really ones that I can really talk about because I don't want to sort of mess up anything --
Okay, if you are telling me we are getting to get rid of the old ACME site and cocoa beans, I won't say anything. I won't tell anyone.
I think your point about distribution in particular is important. This is a good place from which to distribute, there is a lot of logistics involved and there is a lot of land development. There are both storm water management issues, hazardous material issues, that have to be reckoned with in any older industrial environment, which is what we 224 have. These present problems. You know, we have had inquiries about some distribution facilities, for instance, in the lower Schuylkill. They are significant. I can't say for sure that they're gonna happen or not happen. These deals take an amazingly long time to gel. I mean, of course once they do gel, everybody has to get it done tomorrow.
I don't want to speak out of school, but I am sure Councilman Johnson is gonna be looking to hear about these, and I am sure that he will be joined by Councilwoman Sanchez and myself and others who have industrial reuse issues, to look at how we are planning to take advantage of land. God is not making any more land, at least not to my knowledge. We want to see the best and highest use for the land that Philadelphia has available.
Thank you. We want to take advantage of that. I just would add from our side, before we even bring some of 225 these particular opportunities forward, let's say to Council, we need to make sure that they are for real because, needless to say, we get a lot of things put in front of us that turn out to be not for real.
We here don't want to spook them with our involvement, but we are anxiously anticipating putting more businesses, more land on the tax rolls.
That is our focus here, to put more people back to work. Chair now recognizes Councilman Oh.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to now just return to our conversation and to say that I do think that this issue of a big vision, big leadership, and at least the bold effort to try to put something very significant in our City for its future is important. I looked at the 2035 plan as a capital plan and see missing from it the physical structures that would indicate a City has planned its growth around the new economies 226 and about its future, and I believe that is because the 2035 plan is, basically, based on a limited amount of money to somewhat upkeep the City as opposed to a bold vision of creating new sections, upgrading, modernizing, putting high tech in to make our City competitive within our region and globally. In terms of a big picture team, do you need more money? Do you need more staff? What do you need?
If somebody is offering more money or staff, I am taking it, but I would not actually start with that as -- I would not start with that as the ask, I guess. I think what I would say is that, you know, this is a hard thing. We all sort of live in the weeds, as it were, trying to get things done, but I think the -- The answer to your question, for instance, about a big vision, and maybe we gave it short notice here. This lower Schuylkill business is a very, very, big deal. John and I have been talking about this for probably a 227 year-and-a-half before we got the grant money to execute it. It's not simply looking for places to have, you know, the next distribution place for company X. This is about trying to find a big environment that we can make available for the commercialization of research that we are very, very strong in in this City and that stuff is not getting commercialized here. Not sure if it's exclusively a problem of land, it's also a problem of venture capital, entrepreneurial cultures. A whole bunch of things that come in to play, but we think there are potential partners out there from the research side that have a very deep interest in helping us figure out how to commercialize. So, when we started talking about the lower Schuylkill, the vision wasn't just, little more industrial stuff here and there. It was really about creating a four mile stretch between the airport, which is a powerful economic engine, the Universities, the Center City, and the Navy Yard and 228 creating a continuous strip where if you were to drive from the airport up to the center, you would see research being done. You would see commercialization. You would see miscellaneous industry. It's a very powerful idea that is going to take push from a lot of different directions and probably, by the way, because I know this is of interest to you, I think it is also going to take partnerships with international companies, because these things ideally, yes, would happen through an all-American system, but in this world, we will probably engage others also well. So, this is also about putting Philadelphia more on this international map and making this an attractive place for technology investment in particular.
In terms of the things that we can do today, obviously issues about tax reform, deregulation and regulation and also the issues of using, for example, empty school buildings to put those incubators and other things. 229 Is there a current strategy or plan to deal with the fact that in between this creative entity, the lack of funding before they get to success or to invest in Philadelphia's new, state-of-the-art technology with our university and whatnot that we are gonna build? What do we have for them in the immediate future?
I think the most immediate thing that I mentioned before is the potential of putting together a fund that doesn't appear to exist in the City to help these start-up operations get from step one, which is their own money, to step three, which is true venture capital and, you know, what is often referred to as angel investing. I think there is a real opportunity here. There are some models out there that have been done at State levels in Ohio and Michigan that we have been paying attention to. We are talking to foundations about being able to participate in this and I think, it may not be tomorrow's answer, but I 230 do think that this is within reach.
I think Councilman Greene is gonna talk about that a little further.
We're gonna talk about that after our break because you guys have worn our stenographer out and she has to take a break. So, we are gonna take a break until 3:00. We are going to start promptly. It does not mean 3:10, it does mean 3:05. At 3:00 we will start. So, we will reconvene at that time. Thank you. (Whereupon, a break was taken.)