U., vendors agree on fresh air food plaza locations

Construction will begin in December. The plazas willnot affect a proposed ordinance on vending. University officials and local vendors are finally making progress in negotiations about the future of campus vending. Five on-campus fresh air food plazas will materialize by next spring, with construction set to begin in December, according to the University's top economic development official, Jack Shannon. The plazas will be scattered around campus: behind the Van Pelt Library, between Gimbel Gymnasium and the Mod Six Garage, along the eastern side of 40th Street between Walnut and Locust streets, on the corner of 34th and Spruce streets, and at an undetermined location at 34th and Walnut streets. "We asked vendors to identify underutilized locations at which vending would be appropriately located," Shannon said, noting that the location between Gimbel Gymnasium and the Mod Six Garage was chosen based on suggestions from the Walnut Street vendors. Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs Carol Scheman emphasized that because the plazas will be built on University property, they are "completely separate" from the proposed University City vending ordinance, which aims to regulate and reorganize area vendors. While the majority of vendors will remain on the streets in their current locations until City Council acts on the ordinance, the University will invite 40 vendors to join the plazas as soon as they are built. These designated areas will provide outdoor seating for customers, in addition to electrical hook-ups, sewage and water lines and improved lighting for vendors at a cost of $1 a month for five years. Some plazas will be restricted to trucks, while others will be tailored to suit both trucks and carts. At a meeting yesterday with representatives from the Synterra, Ltd. building firm, the University City Vendors Alliance and the Penn Consumers Alliance, plans for the Van Pelt plaza were finalized. Designs are set to be created in the next week. "We'll replicate the process we've used for the Van Pelt plaza on all of the other locations," Shannon said, stressing that "people are focusing on solutions now and are talking with each other rather than at each other, as they did in the past." He added that the fresh air food plazas have progressed "quite rapidly," after a tumultuous summer of negotiations with local vendors and city officials. UCVA spokesperson Scott Goldstein agreed that the vending issue has made strides recently, as some suggestions from the vendors were "taken to heart," including the need for more than four fresh air food plazas and more accommodations on Walnut Street. "The vendors' views are being taken into consideration," Goldstein said yesterday, praising Synterra for its willingness to listen to the vendors' input. As far as regulating vendors on city streets, the University will have to wait to see if City Council approves the proposed ordinance. Administrators have pushed for the ordinance to stem the safety threat vending trucks pose to students. Scheman said that because lined-up trucks "form an alleyway," students are at risk for being mugged behind them. Additionally, University officials contend that the trucks block the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania's Spruce Street emergency exit. Other concerns are that vendors take up parking places and violate parking regulations, by "feeding" parking meters and leaving their trucks in the same place all day. Food trucks on Walnut and Spruce streets also block storefronts and have impaired University efforts to attract restaurants and retail to the area, Scheman said.

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