Navy Yard gets $30 million in state funds for life sciences and manufacturing development
Ensemble Real Estate Investments and Mosaic Development Partners will use the money for infrastructure work that will support new life sciences and manufacturing facilities.
Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration has awarded a $30 million grant to the companies behind the redevelopment of the South Philadelphia Navy Yard to support up to 700,000 square feet of new life sciences and manufacturing facilities, officials said Tuesday.
Ensemble Real Estate Investments, of Long Beach, Calif., and Philadelphia-based Mosaic Development Partners will use the money for “roadway and utilities, soil excavation, grading, and stormwater management” on a 54-acre section of the Navy Yard known as the Greenway District, according to Shapiro’s office.
The Navy Yard was one of 11 projects across Pennsylvania that won approval for a total of $64 million in grants and loans in the first round of funding under Shapiro’s PA SITES program, which seeks to support the development of shovel-ready sites for businesses.
The Philadelphia project is part of a Navy Yard plan that envisions 8.9 million square feet of new commercial and adaptive redevelopment across 109 acres over the next two decades. The yard is expected to attract $6 billion in investment over that time period, according to the 2022 plan.
“The Navy Yard is experiencing a tremendous amount of momentum today that has built on all our previous work surrounding infrastructure, business attraction and retention, and really great sustainability development and incredible design,” said Mark Seltzer, managing director at Ensemble.
That has resulted in demand for large-scale advanced manufacturing and life sciences buildings, he said, but “there are only a handful of remaining pad-ready sites to accommodate” prospective tenants.
Seltzer said the state money would help jump-start the next phase of development at the eastern end of the yard. “These funds make it a really attractive, marketable site for a new tenant coming in,” he said.
Ensemble and Mosaic were selected in 2020 by Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. — the city’s public-private economic development entity — to lead the continued redevelopment of the former Philadelphia Naval Base, which closed in the 1990s. It’s been owned by the city since 2000.
Today the Navy Yard is home to 150 employers including Urban Outfitters’ corporate headquarters, Jefferson Health, and tech start-ups. The yard’s first private-sector housing is expected to open in the fall.
Shapiro, a first-term Democrat, said in a statement that sites like the Greenway District “are key to growing our economy, creating more jobs and thriving communities, and helping Pennsylvania compete ― and win.”
In the budget that passed last summer, the state legislature authorized borrowing $400 million for the PA SITES initiative and another $100 million for additional site development efforts.
The administration said it received 66 applications in the first funding round. The state Department of Community and Economic Development is continuing to accept applications and will award funds on a rolling basis, the administration said.
The PA SITES program won bipartisan support in the General Assembly — the top House Republican, Rep. Jesse Topper, celebrated a $2.8 million grant announced Tuesday for a business park in his Bedford County district — but has drawn criticism from some Harrisburg observers.
The right-leaning Commonwealth Foundation, a think tank, has dismissed the program as “corporate welfare.”
“Rather than ineffective targeted handouts, Pennsylvania’s economic development strategy should focus on broad-based tax and regulatory reform,” the group said last year.