President Hart is in this month’s Philadelphia magazine as one of the city’s most influential citizens. The editors wrote that President Hart’s profile was raised by the announcement of Temple 20/20, an ambitious new vision for Temple’s Main Campus that will “renew and reinvent” North Broad Street. (read a previous post with media coverage of the 20/20 plan)
Philadelphians have been seeing Temple’s name in the news a lot lately! On Sept. 8, the Daily News published “North to the future” about the “explosion of building activity that is changing the face of a section of the city once considered blighted and unsafe” — including The Edge on Main Campus and the new School of Medicine building at the Health Sciences Center. The reporter, Valerie Russ, says Temple’s place as an “anchor institution” has “driven much of the development — but not all of it.”
It’s true that the area has changed a lot over the past decade; today, more than 12,000 students live on or around Main Campus, and there’s activity day and night. The Pearl movie theater opened beside Main Campus a couple of years ago, and a Fresh Grocer is being built in the Progress Plaza across the street from it. Restaurants have been opening, two 7-11 stores are open 24 hours… Alumni who haven’t been back for a while should come just look around — it’s incredible.
The next day, The Philadelphia Inquirer ran “Temple president’s plan for the decade,” about President Ann Weaver Hart’s plan to make Broad Street the focal point of Main Campus by 2020. The plan is ambitious: Build a new library on Broad Street and create a large green space in the center of campus. A follow-up editorial and commentary each heralded the plan as great for Philadelphia.
A little-known fact about all this growth: Most of Temple’s building projects — the Tyler School of Art, Alter Hall, the Student Center — have been within its existing campus footprint. Most of the surrounding change — Avenue North, University Village, Progress Plaza — is private investment.
Temple University Alumni News 