New Schuylkill Yards renderings revealed

It’s been a few months since we last heard anything about Schuylkill Yards, the ambitious $3.5 billion project to reimagine the area around Drexel University as a internationally-renowned innovation hub. But a recently updated website with new renderings and a video provide a clearer picture of what to expect.

There’s a new rendering of one of the towers that will be developed by Brandywine Realty Trust, for example, that reveals a glassy, 7-story facade. It’s not clear what tower this will be—there are a total of 6.9 million square feet planned—but last year, the developer said at an Urban Land Institute panel that the Schuylkill Yards’ first built tower would be a 700,000-square-foot property that will serve as a lab and office space.

On the website, an interactive map reveals a 627,000-square-foot office tower called 3101 Market East, with an additional 247,000-square-foot space for a hotel.

Here are more stats about the project, broken down:

• 987,000 square feet of innovation space
• 2.8 million square feet of office space
• 1 million square feet of lab space
• 1.6 million square feet of residential
• A 247,000-square-foot hotel within 3101 Market
• 132,000 square feet of retail, scattered throughout every building

Plans for Schuylkill Yards were first revealed with much fanfare in March 2016. The project proposes to build transform West Philadelphia into a leading innovation hub of the region on 14 acres of land. Most recently, in January 2017 the Philadelphia City Planning Commission approved a measure to change the zoning in the Schuylkill Yards area from industrial use to high-density, commercial mixed-use.

City Council still has yet to approve this, but if all goes to plan the project could break ground this year. The first goal is to begin work on Drexel Square, an elliptical-shaped public green space in front of the Bulletin Building.

• Schuylkill Yards [Official]