Guest Opinion | Craig Carnaroli

During a recent excursion to Chestnut Hill, my wife and I came across vintage maps of West Philadelphia at the turn of the last century. These illustrated images depicted land-use patterns of a heavily industrialized area, while a few tiny adjacent parcels defined the new campus of the recently transplanted University of Pennsylvania.

Thumbing through the maps, my wife and I recalled how as undergraduates at Penn in the 1980s (dating, not yet married) we walked from campus to Center City along the Walnut and Chestnut Street corridors. As far as scenic views in those days, well, there was little to write home about. As we would walk eastward from campus we would encounter an unattractive landscape, the physical remnants and reminders of the prior industrial age.

Yet here we are, 20 years later, at the dawn of a new century and West Philadelphia is shaking loose its post-industrial trappings and emerging as the region's knowledge-industry hub, while the University has embarked on Penn Connects, a historic campus development plan that will change the image of the city over time.

This reclamation of industrial land by a research university is not a fluke, nor a coincidence. Philadelphia was once called the "workshop of the world" because of our production of a range of products from canned soup to locomotives to fedoras. Since the middle of the 20th century industrial decline has yielded job loss, physical vacancy, blight and eventually neighborhood decline.

Simultaneously Penn emerged as a world leader in teaching and research with award-winning, cutting-edge scholarship of every discipline, and has grown to 270-plus acres since the first brick was laid in College Hall in 1872. Our annual operating budget tops the city's itself; we are the largest private employer in the city, and second largest in the commonwealth. And, we still have room to grow.

So when the postal lands came up for sale, we purchased it and commissioned a plan to integrate it in context of the whole campus. Our aspiration is to harness all our resources - financial, intellectual, creative and economic - and redevelop it into a beautiful, functional and symbolic section of our campus and our city.

This marks a milestone for Penn. We have 14 acres of contiguous land and a plan to add critical functions and amenities that further Penn's mission of teaching, research and generator of economic development. This provides time to develop thoughtfully, space for high-quality design and location to improve the physical gateway to campus. As important, we keep a promise made to our neighbors that our growth not be a burden to them. As we continue our investments west of campus, we begin applying energy to the east.

What does this mean for Philadelphia? Penn Connects is a vision of the future that stitches two powerhouse communities together, Center City and University City, stimulating economic development, creating a vital Central Philadelphia as a place to live, work and play.

And why is this relevant? As Philadelphia's renaissance continues, the reclaiming of industrial land is critical for the overall repositioning of our downtown. Everyday our city competes globally to attract attention, investments, visitors and talent. A strong knowledge-based economy, powered by research universities and medical centers, helps Philadelphia define its place in the world. Penn Connects can be the underpinning of such an image.

Center City is now home to more than 80,000 residents, ranking it as the third-most populous downtown in America, after New York City and Chicago. Our neighborhood has seen an increase of almost 10 percent in the last 10 years. This means Front Street to 40th Street, Girard Avenue to Washington Avenue is home to more than 120,000 residents, almost 10 percent of the entire population of Philadelphia, as well as the majority of our jobs, cultural, commercial and health-care amenities. Philadelphia is thriving in exciting ways.

As I walk over those same Walnut Street and Chestnut Street bridges today, I see the seeds of redevelopment. The Left Bank and World Cafe Live are reminders of our progress, and the postal lands of our potential.

Not taking any of this for granted, I am confident that as an institution with a track record of bold moves, we are writing a new chapter in the history of the University and Philadelphia. The city's fortunes have ebbed and flowed since 1740 when Benjamin Franklin founded our university, but along the way, Penn has always been there producing results.

In other words, the sport may change, and even the rules along with it, but Penn's "got game," and we know how to bring it.

Craig Carnaroli is the Executive Vice President of the University. He graduated from Wharton in 1985.

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