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Winter traditions continue safely at Dilworth Park with the addition of Deck the Hall Holiday Lights! The newly redesigned illumination will feature festive projections on the west façade of City Hall. This unique experience will premiere on Monday, November 23 and will run through January 1, 2021.
Citywide employment has fully rebounded from the spring 2020 shutdown with 2.4% more jobs in October 2023 than in February 2020. But there is a difference between the return of workers to payrolls and the return of full vitality to Center City. The report suggests ways to accelerate the job growth and business formation rates in Philadelphia.
This report compares Philadelphia to five other urban areas in United States. It documents how Philadelphia lags in firms that sell services nationally and globally, but suggests that if we replicate the success achieved by others, we will grow more family-sustaining jobs and a prosperous network of small, local businesses.
Center City retail and restaurants have almost fully rebounded from the events and challenges of 2020.
CCD has started construction on a new coffee kiosk at the southern end of Dilworth Park adjacent to 15th Street with the installation of foundations and plumbing lines. This follows approval by the city’s Historical Commissionand the Art Commission. The coffee kiosk will open in April.
This edition of the CCD and CPDC quarterly newsletter details everything we are doing to speed up Philadelphia’s slow but steady recovery. The cover essay seeks to answer the question: If crowds are comfortably returning to sports arenas, theaters and concert halls, bars and restaurants, what’s the problem with offices, where social distancing and masking in common areas is much easier to achieve?
This is a transformational moment for Philadelphia, when investments in economic development funded by the American Rescue Plan (ARP) can be combined with the long-recommended changes to Philadelphia's tax structure to prompt faster and more equitable citywide job growth.
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.
After a two-year hiatus, workers returning to the office will have the opportunity to socialize with colleagues after hours with the return of Philadelphia’s favorite happy-hour tradition: Center City District Sips.
Café Cret in Cret Park at 16th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, one of four parks managed and programmed by the CCD, on September 26 began offering beer and wine and expanded its hours of operation.