Venice Island Transformation Receives 2015 Groundbreaker Award

Image via Buell Kratzer Powell

Seems like yesterday that the Venice Island Performing Arts Center in Manayunk had its grand unveiling. Point in fact, it and its surrounding renewal, which involved infrastructure, landscape design, stormwater management improvements, were opened to the public just over a year ago. And now, believe it or not, the results continue to be sung praises.

Its latest prize? The 2015 Groundbreaker Award from the Delaware Valley Green Building Council.

According to a press release, the award is bestowed to those who have taken the initiative and spurred on transformational projects within the green building community and industry.

“The project revitalized an abandoned, flood-prone site into a vibrant community space through collaboration and cooperation,” reads the release announcing the Venice Island Transformation as a recipient of the prize. “By working together, we created something better than each of our individual parts.”

The renewal project involved multiple parties, among them the Philadelphia Water Department, Manayunk community groups, the City of Philadelphia’s Parks and Recreation and Department of Public Property, architecture firm Buell Kratzer Powell, landscape design architecture firm Andropogon, and other design and construction partners.

Previously, Philadelphia magazine dubbed Venice Island the 2015 Best of Philly: Best Urban Space Transformation. It was also named Environmental Project of the Year by the Construction Management Association of America‘s Mid-Atlantic Chapter.

The site had originally housed 19th-century mills.