The Pennovation Center site is located at the northern end of the 3,700-acre ?Lower Schuylkill? district, within the City of Philadelphia's planned "Innovation District". In 2013, the Lower Schuylkill Master Plan (?LSMP?) established a dynamic, 20-year strategy for transforming the deteriorating industrial corridor into an integrated network of three modern business districts, including the Innovation District. The $36.5M Pennovation Center and 23 acre Pennovation Works campus represent the first major developments in the Innovation District. Penn envisions this site as its new campus for innovation, technology commercialization, and new business incubation. In 2014, it released a master site plan, followed by a 2015 announcement that Penn would invest more than $35M to redevelop an existing building on the site into the ?Pennovation Center?. The 58,000SF Pennovation Center will feature innovative co-working, presentation, and garage spaces, along with wet and dry labs, interactive common areas, supportive amenities and programming. Construction of the Pennovation Center will involve disturbance of contaminated material (including arsenic, antimony, cadmium, chromium, and lead) that was capped in the original remediation project. The disturbed material will be characterized and either re-capped or disposed of, pursuant to the PADEP-approved Act 2 plan. Penn anticipates that the Pennovation Center will be complete and open for business in the fall of 2017. It is expected to generate new jobs and tax revenue, as well as anchor the revitalization of this long-deteriorating section of the Lower Schuylkill.
Former Use: The Pennovation Workssite is the former DuPont Marshall Laboratory is located near the eastern bank of the lower Schuylkill River in the Grays Ferry section of Philadelphia. The site is approximately 23.10 acres and has a street address of 3401 Grays Ferry Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19146. The site is identified as tax parcel number 88-4-1230-10. The site is a non residential property bounded by Grey?s Ferry Avenue to the south, the Waste Management transfer station to the west, a crescent of land proposed for a future walking trail (and the Schuylkill River beyond) to the north, and, the University Avenue Bridge (34th Street) to the east. The site was first developed in 1863 as the Harrison Brothers and Company, Incorporated Chemical Works, with over 50 structures across the entire site. Harrison Brothers produced sulfuric acid, lactic acid, aluminum sulfate, aluminum hydrate, acetic acid, hydrochloric acid, and non-aqueous paints. In 1917, DuPont took over operations of the facility and continued to produce the aforementioned products. In 1929, ammonium sulfate and anhydrous ammonia were added to the product line. By 1949, administrative responsibility for the facility was transferred to the DuPont Finishes and Fabrications Department. The facility discontinued or transferred production of most products, excluding paint products, to other sites. Production of solvent based paints was transitioned out to aqueous-based paints in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1979, the facility ceased commercial production of paints. Between 1979 and 2009, the facility operated as the Marshall Laboratories Automotive Finishes Research and Development Center and maintained a small semi-works operation that produced batches of resin and dispersion in quantities up to 300 gallons. The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania acquired the property on October 31, 2010.