On December 5, members of the Mifflin Coalition gathered for a meeting on several important Mifflin Square Park activities. First, members heard from the Philadelphia Water Department about the exciting green infrastructure project that will renovate each corner entrance to the park in 2020 as part of Philadelphia’s Green City, Clean Waters project. Next, the Friends of Mifflin Square Park provided a recap on the many 2019 activities that took place in the park. Finally, Jae Shin from HECTOR, the firm leading the schematic design process, gave an overview of the progress of the schematic designs. Coalition members discussed maintenance commitments for park improvements and upcoming public engagement opportunities. 

SEAMAAC is looking for neighbors interested in being Community Design Leaders (CDLs) in 2020. CDLs will be financially compensated for their time and be able to help guide the engagement process for schematic designs. If you are interested, please contact Joel Arnold at 215-467-0690 x. 124 or email msp@seamaac.org. Keep an eye out for upcoming January and February engagement sessions. Dates will be posted here!

As we continue to work to bring the concept plan announced last year to life, we’ve got some exciting updates to share about Mifflin Square Park and some important opportunities coming up soon for engagement!

Summer Announcement of Funding Support

This July we were excited to welcome State Senator Farnese and State Representative Fiedler to Mifflin Square to announce $70,000 in funding to support to continued operation of the SoPhiE Food Truck, closing our fundraising gap on the installation of decorative pavers in the new plaza being created at 6th and Ritner, and to better fund park programming and events. You can see some great images from this event here and even see coverage that this announcement received in the South Philly Review here. This programming funding has allowed SEAMAAC and the Friends to purchase more games to have regularly at the park (giant jenga, giant connect four, cornhole, etc.) as an easy way to activate the space. 

Events and Programming

Partly with the support of this funding and thanks to community organizations at large, the park has this summer been home to some great events. This has included World Refugee Day in June, the Mutter Museum’s Health Fair on September 7th, and International Peace Day on September 21st. 
To respond to one of the clear comments raised in the Concept Plan of the need for more frequent programming, every Friday through the end of October there are events at the park as a part of Fall Fridays at Mifflin Square. Check out the flyer below for more information and check out the Facebook event here. From game nights to soccer clinics to Halloween events, there will be plenty going on in the park this fall. As always, the Friends of Mifflin Square also meet every first Tuesday of the month at 6pm in the park, please do join if you are interested or if you know of interested neighbors!

Schematic Design Work Underway!

Lastly, work is now underway on the Schematic Design process. This process will take the community vision of the concept plan and work to start turning that into detailed documents that can be used for construction. For this work a team has been put together that will oversee the process: 

• HECTOR (led by partners Jae Shin & Damon Rich) of Newark, New Jersey who led the concept design will continue as the Lead Designer for this phase, working to ensure that the intent and vision of the Concept Design are well-interpreted and sensitively developed into the Schematic Design. 
• KS Engineers, PC of Philadelphia will work as consulting civil engineer, working to provide topographic surveying and needed civil engineering. 
• International Consultants, Inc. of Philadelphia will provide a schematic-design-level cost estimate of the final design. 

The surveying team was out in the park just this last week!

The plan now is to have a final schematic design set complete in early March of 2020 that could then be carried through to final construction documents and actual park reconstruction through the Rebuild program. There will be several engagement meetings and input sessions later this year and early in 2020, so stay tuned for those events and meetings!

Some early construction phases will be taking place before any overall park rebuild thanks to the Philadelphia Water Department’s Green City Clean Waters program, including the new 6th and Ritner plaza, the new rain garden at 5th and Wolf, and rebuilt entrances at all 4 corners of the park.