Penn Park to rest on state-of-the-art drainage system

The plan for Penn Park — the 24-acre, $40-million project that will serve as the University’s athletic nucleus — is raising the bar for sustainability.

In addition to its array of synthetic and turf sports venues and dispersed open spaces, the park will feature a state-of-the-art water drainage system to sustainably manage all rainfall.

In order to comply with Philadelphia Water Department rules, the park must collect the first inch of every rainstorm, according to Penn Park Project Manager Marc Cooper. The plan for Penn Park, he said, will accomplish just that.

When it is completed, the renovated Penn Park will increase the facility’s “green space” by 20 percent, he said.

“In terms of the big picture,” he noted, simply “converting the land from an impervious asphalt surface to a porous green surface will be a huge environmental improvement.”

More specifically, between its two synthetic fields, Penn Park will boast an underground cistern to pump all retained rainwater back into the ground, Cooper said. Additionally, man-made swales — low, marshy tracts of land — will surround the property, under which will lie a layer of gravel.

The swales will collect and filter rainfall before pumping it back into the ground, according to Edward Sidor, director of Design and Construction for Penn Facilities and Real Estate Services.

At the same time, Sidor said, “wherever there is open space, there will either be basins or vegetated swales directing the runoff.”

Though it is difficult to predict precisely how much rainwater this drainage system will actually conserve, Sidor added that “we’ll be able to retain all rainwater on site so that none of it goes back into the city system — a huge step up.”

In addition to satisfying Penn’s mission of being environmentally-conscious, the water plan — along with many of Penn Park’s other sustainable features — will be “consistent with the city of Philadelphia’s sustainable goals,” Facilities and Real Estate Services Spokeswoman Jen Rizzi said.

“That is the trend in design right now,” Sidor said of the push for sustainability, “so much so that it’s almost becoming standard process.”

Due to the Climate Action Plan, all Penn construction and renovation discussions feature an emphasis on becoming more sustainable, he added.

Penn Environmental Group Co-Director Christiana Dietzen, a College junior, said she is thrilled with the University’s focus on the environment.

Once they are completed, she stressed, the eco-friendly features of Penn Park will display the advantages of designing “green” to the entire Penn community.

“New technologies can do a lot to minimize the environmental foot print of our campus,” she wrote in an e-mail. “Incorporating them into constructions as they are being built is the most efficient way to do it, rather than renovating after the fact.”

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