Vending plazas will make Penn greener

The five vending plazas will provide the campus with park-like spaces. By spring, campus should get a little greener. The five proposed fresh air food plazas, which will consolidate 45 campus food vendors into "tasteful" outdoor malls, will add park space to campus when vendors vacate the areas at night and on weekends, officials said. "In all of these sites, the idea is when there isn't vending, there's a park," Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs Carol Scheman said. The plazas will be built in five areas across campus: behind the Van Pelt Library, between Gimbel Gymnasium and the adjacent Mod Six Garage, along the eastern side of 40th Street between Walnut and Locust streets, on the corner of 34th and Spruce streets and next to Bennett Hall on 34th and Walnut streets. Construction on the five plazas will begin in December, and they are scheduled to open by the spring. Officials do not yet have estimates of the construction costs. The malls will serve as public sitting areas featuring outdoor tables, chairs and lighting for customers at late-night hours. The plazas may also have illuminated posters advertising performances by campus arts groups. The idea of the plazas -- which originated in 1995, when they were termed "vending malls" -- emerged after University officials rejected a request from vendors to put tables and chairs in front of Irvine Auditorium. "It was then when we thought of building a sidewalk cafe-like area -- a nicer place for vendors that would also clear the streets," Scheman said, adding that creating vibrant street life is one of the most important components of improving campus safety. As Penn officials began to formulate a city ordinance designed to regulate area vending, they developed a more detailed idea of the plazas as a way to redistribute the same number of vendors into specific campus spaces. Additionally, the plazas provided a solution to the problem of "thoroughly congested" campus street corners, which officials said posed safety risks to passers-by. "It was clear there were places where street or sidewalk vending could not be reasonably accommodated," Scheman explained. And over the summer, complaints about the back of the Van Pelt Library intensified, with many members of the University community arguing that both sides of Walnut Street should look equally appealing. "Putting a plaza there might make that wall [behind the library] look nice 24 hours a day," Scheman said. "The idea is to extend campus out so campus doesn't turn its back to Walnut Street," she added. After deciding to put a plaza behind the library, University officials began to examine the area near 40th Street for similar construction. Consolidating vendors in that area would limit the detrimental effect vending has on the street's permanent retail space, Scheman said. "Since [40th Street] is a spot where vending serves both students and the community, we thought we could create a vending square there," she said. The University finalized plans for all five plazas last month, when officials met with representatives from the Synterra Ltd. building firm, the University City Vendors Alliance and the Penn Consumers Alliance. Besides the aesthetic benefits provided by the plazas, officials stressed that the areas will provide vendors with regular sites, helping to alleviate the current problem of vendors arriving on campus as early as 3 a.m. to secure their spots. Administrators added that they have pushed for the plazas in an attempt to quell the safety risk vending trucks pose to students. Because lined-up trucks "form an alleyway," students are at risk for being mugged behind them, Scheman said. And University officials contend that the plazas will prevent trucks from blocking the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania's Spruce Street emergency exit, violating area parking regulations and blocking retail storefronts. Scheman also emphasized that because the plazas will be built on University property and will be University-funded, they are "completely separate" from the proposed University City vending ordinance, which aims to regulate and reorganize area vendors, capping the number of sidewalk vendors at 100. "The goals are to continue to provide convenience of vending, to provide space to displaced vendors and to do some real streetscape," Scheman said. "And our ideas have continued to evolve."

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