UCD looks for funding alternatives

A proposal to assess local businesses was rejected due to the district's makeup. With half of its first five-year term completed, the University City District has begun looking toward the future -- and how it will secure further funding once the term ends. The 2 1/2-year-old special services district has brought street cleaners, safety ambassadors and the LUCY shuttle bus service to University City in its effort to improve the quality of life in the area while promoting it to other city and suburban residents. The UCD is primarily supported by funding from local institutions and corporations. The remaining part of its funding comes from commercial properties and private homeowners. Because the UCD relies so heavily on private sources for funding, the long term viability of the organization rests on continued institutional support. Of the district's annual $3.8 million budget, the combination of the University, the University of Pennsylvania Health System and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia provided a total of $2.3 million. Penn's Executive Vice President John Fry is the district's chairperson. The UCD Board of Directors met last week to discuss the possibility of following in the footsteps of the Center City District, which provided the model for UCD's founding 2 1/2 years ago. The CCD collects its funds through a policy of mandatory assessment whereby the commercial properties served by the district are assessed and taxed. However, a UCD exploratory committee found that the heavy concentration of educational and medical facilities -- which are not taxable -- and the relative paucity of commercial properties in the area would not make such an alternative source of stable funding beneficial in the case of the UCD. "In the long term, we can only hope that the commercial base of University City expands so that a mandatory assessment might be feasible, but at present it is not," Steinke said. Penn's top community relations official, Carol Scheman, said that although the UCD provides many municipal services, the city of Philadelphia is not a good source of a more permanent funding base. She said the purpose of the special services district was to augment and provide services that the city could not afford. "This is a city that is struggling with maintaining its tax base," Scheman said, adding that the tax-exempt nature of the city's many educational and medical institutions means that the institutions are responsible for helping themselves and the city wherever possible. "I think that the most important thing we can do is continue to make it very clear to all of the organizations, institutions and entities that [UCD] is really worth it," Scheman said. Executive Director Paul Levy of the CCD said that University City provides a unique set-up for the UCD. "If you look at almost any other city, I don't think there's anything equivalent to the type of leadership that the institutions have been willing to play in [University City]," Levy said. Despite the somewhat precarious nature of the UCD's funding, Steinke said he is confident that his organization provides an essential service. He explained that he is hardly worried about the organization's future. "Having a private funding base affords us a measure of independence," Steinke said. "It allows us to run ourselves more as a business.

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