 |  SRP Publications Brownfields Reports 2001
Historic
Camden Waterfront Redevelopment Includes Entertainment, Recreation
and Residential Projects Bringing New Jobs and Visitors
Campbell’s
Field is one the latest brownfield projects along the City of
Camden’s waterfront. A minor league baseball team, named the
Camden Riversharks, opened its season in 2001 at the facility
that features views of the Ben Franklin Bridge and the City
of Philadelphia across the Delaware River. |  |
Redeveloping the City of Camden’s historic industrial
waterfront continued to evolve in 2001 with completion of a minor
league baseball stadium, college soccer field and community park.
These projects compliment previously redeveloped waterfront parcels
that now contain the Tweeter Center (formerly Sony Entertainment
Center), New Jersey Aquarium and Wiggins Park, a city green space. The remediation and redevelopment of a 10-acre
former industrial facility into a minor league baseball stadium
named Campbell’s Field is the largest project south of the Ben Franklin
Bridge just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia that has
come to fruition in 2001. The new ballpark involved a $24 million construction
project that included $7 million for remediation costs. Prior to
the new venture, Campbell’s Field was a vacant, undeveloped parcel
of land that historically housed businesses that included the Campbell
Soup Company Plant No. 2, Pennsylvania & Reading Rail Road’s
Linden Street Freight Station, David Baird & Company’s lumber
mill and Eavenson & Sons’ soap manufacturing company. Another parcel along the northern waterfront area
consisted of the 4.5- acre Palko Continental site, which had ceased
wood refinishing, limited brass works and production of custom architectural
moldings at its facility. Prior to these operations the site was
used as a manufacturing facility of asbestos-wound gaskets. The
contaminated site existed in a mixed residential/commercial area
and there was little space available for public recreation. The
site was cleaned up through an effort of Rutgers University, which
constructed a university soccer field for its Camden campus and
a community park with a grant from NJDEP’s Green Acres Program. The buildings on the site were demolished, some
contamination was removed, but it was not feasible to remove the
vast quantity of historic fill. The solution was to construct a
cap to prevent human contact with the underlying contamination.
The overall construction project cost $5.2 million. What is most
unique here is that the cap is composed of, in part, recycled material.
The cap itself is approximately 18 inches thick, with multiple layers
of stone and fabric. The majority of the site has artificial grass
as a final covering. This grass, composed of a combination polyethylene-polypropylene
mix is impregnated with approximately two inches of recycled black
rubber. The rubber is made of 40,000 tires and sneakers. With these latest brownfield reuse projects completed
at the northern end of the Camden waterfront, other actions underway
and the Battleship New Jersey set to anchor nearby, visitation to
the area is expected to surpass two million in 2002.
 | The
Camden Aquarium, top photo, also enjoys a waterfront location
south of the new ballpark and is a favorite spot for school
children from across the region. In the bottom photo, a view
from the eighth floor balcony of the Camden Port Center looking
north shows the three-story L-3 Communications building to the
right, which has been operational for several years. The historic
six-story “Nipper” building, located behind the L-3 structure,
is now undergoing a conversion to residential use. The “Nipper”
building was the original manufacturing facility for the Victor
Talking Machine Company and contains 500,000 square feet. This
photo was taken in the early stages of construction of Campbell’s
Field. |
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