Checking in with Cherry Street Pier

Just last year, the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation (DRWC) announced that a long-abandoned Philly pier would get a whole new image—food vendors, a market, artists, and an open air garden.

Now, that new art-focused public space is very nearly here.

The $4 million project, dubbed Cherry Street Pier, will open in late September or early October in the former Pier 9 off of Christopher Columbus Boulevard, near Race Street, Emma Fried-Cassorla, of the DRWC said Wednesday. With the newly renovated pier, expect to find shipping containers, which have been repurposed into creative office spaces, a market, a performance area, and a garden.

Matt Stanley, DRWC

Renderings by Groundswell

The project has been underway for a year, and in that time has not deviated much from the original renderings, Fried-Cassorla said. So far, they have completed the demolition and stabilization portions of the project, and they’ve installed about half of the studio, or office, spaces. The remaining spaces are being completed off site before they’ll be installed in the pier.

Workers have also stripped the roof and the sides of the pier, in the portion that will later become the open-air garden, and they plan to install glass walls so anyone walking around inside the pier can still see and enjoy the greenery.

Finally, the garage doors that are currently in the space still have to be taken out and replaced with glass roll-up doors, Fried-Cassorla said.

“It’s a large construction project, and we’re happy with where we are in the process,” she added.

Over the next few months, the DRWC plans to keep releasing updates on the project, including the names of the food vendors they’ve signed to be in the space—they think there will be around three vendors total. When it does finish this fall, the space will be open seven days a week.

Matt Stanley, DRWC

• Pier 9 to reopen as creative public space in 2018 [Curbed Philly]