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Center City District summer programming returns this week to Dilworth Park and Sister Cities Park, featuring smaller-scale, lower-key events for guests of all ages.
Center City’s modern office district is becoming more residential with the construction of new high-rise developments. New restaurants and retailers are opening to serve the district’s growing population.
On December 18, 2018, CPDC hosted a panel discussion with business leaders and asked them to highlight both the opportunities for more dynamic job growth in 2019 and the challenges and hurdles that Philadelphia needs to overcome to capitalize on these opportunities.
Since the Center City District (CCD) began gathering data in 2001 on downtown establishments that provided outdoor seating, the number of seats has steadily increased. That trend has continued in 2019, with locations throughout Center City providing a record number of 6,969 seats, a 5% increase from 6,631 in 2018.
All of Dilworth Park’s popular winter attractions are returning in November. The Rothman Orthopaedics Ice Rink will again offer skating seven days per week, the Greenfield Lawn will host reindeer topiaries in the Wintergarden and the west facade of historic City Hall will once again be illuminated by the Deck the Hall Light Show presented by Independence Blue Cross with support from 6abc. The Rothman Orthopaedics Cabin and the Made in Philadelphia Holiday Market will round out the park’s seasonal transformation.
This week, Dilworth Park again begins its transformation for winter festivities. With the weather turning cool, the park’s fountains were turned off for the season on October 12.
Recovery is progressing by nearly all measures: employment, hotel occupancy, retail and restaurant sales, transit ridership, pedestrian volumes and city tax collections are all up. Job recovery is slow but steady and most significantly, Philadelphia’s unemployment rate fell in October, to the lowest point since 1990.
This report from the CPTMA, CPDC and CCD is part of a continuing conversation about how better to manage traffic congestion in Center City. It builds upon the March 2018 Keep Philadelphia Moving report.
Center City continued to show promising signs of recovery throughout the summer months, buoyed by returning conventions and office workers and increasing numbers of pedestrians who are contributing to rising retail and restaurant sales, local tax revenue, new business openings and increases in convention travel and hotel occupancy.