Central Waterfront | |
---|---|
Country | United States |
State | New Jersey |
County | Camden |
City | Camden |
Area code | 856 |
The Camden Waterfront, also known as the Central Waterfront, is a commercial and entertainment district in Camden, New Jersey, on the Delaware River south of the Ben Franklin Bridge and north of Port of Camden.
The district is characterized by its visitor attractions and its location offering views of the river and the Philadelphia skyline. [1] It is served by RiverLink Ferry which crosses the river to Philadelphia and the Cooper St-Rutgers, Aquarium, and Entertainment Center stations of the River Line light rail system. According to the 2000 U.S. census, the neighborhood has a population of 962. [2]
The Adventure Aquarium originally opened in 1992 as the New Jersey State Aquarium at Camden. In 2005, after extensive renovation, the aquarium was reopened under the name Adventure Aquarium. [3] The aquarium was one of the original centerpieces in Camden's plans for revitalizing their city. [4]
The Freedom Mortgage Pavilion, formerly known as the BB&T Pavilion, Susquehanna Bank Center, and Tweeter Center, is a 25,000-seat open-air concert amphitheater that was opened in 1995 and renamed after a 2008 deal in which the bank would pay $10 million over 15 years for naming rights. [5]
The USS New Jersey (BB-62) was a U.S. Navy battleship that was intermittently active between the years 1943 and 1991. After its retirement, the ship was turned into the Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial, that opened in 2001 along the waterfront. The New Jersey saw action during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and provided support off Lebanon in early 1983. [6]
Other attractions at the Waterfront are the Ulysses Wiggins Park Riverstage and Marina, One Port Center, Nipper Building (aka Victor Lofts), the Walt Whitman House, [7] the Walt Whitman Cultural Arts Center, the Rutgers–Camden Center For The Arts and the Camden Children's Garden. [8]
In May 2013, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority announced that it would seek developers for the site of the demolished Riverfront State Prison just north of the Central Waterfront and the Ben Franklin Bridge in Cooper Point. [9] [10] In September 2013 Waterfront Renaissance Associates announced that it proposed to a develop a 2.3-million-square-foot commercial complex on 16 acres (6.5 ha) called the Riverfront World Trade Center. The project would be built in four phases, the first of which would be a promenade along the Delaware River. The plan calls for two 22-story and two 18-story buildings. [11] [12] [13] However, this proposal never came to pass.
In September 2016 the Philadelphia 76ers opened the Philadelphia 76ers Training Complex on the Waterfront. [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] The new headquarters and the state-of-the-art, 120,000-square-foot practice center was made possible in part by $82 million in tax credits approved by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. [19] [20] [21]
In October 2013, Herschend Family Entertainment announced they would add an attraction adjacent to the Adventure Aquarium, a 300 ft (91 m), 25-story observation tower ride with a moored balloon and gondola that would carry passengers above the site offering views of city, the Delaware River and the Philadelphia skyline. It was planned to open in Spring 2015. [22] [23]
The state of New Jersey has offered numerous tax incentives to corporations to locate in Camden, many along the Waterfront and Port of Camden districts. [24] In November 2014, the state offered tax incentives to Lockheed Martin to relocate 250 jobs to labs at the L-3 Building and Waterfront Technology Center. [25] [26] Proposals to build two towers 590 ft (180 m) [27] and 450 ft (140 m) [28] were unveiled in September 2015. [29] [30] [31] Other elements of the project began construction in December 2016. [32] American Water Works opened its new headquarters. A new Hilton Garden Hotel broke ground in May 2019. [33]
New Jersey is a state situated within both the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is the most densely populated of all 50 U.S. states, and is situated at the center of the Northeast megalopolis. New Jersey is bordered on its north and east by New York state; on its east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on its west by the Delaware River and Pennsylvania; and on its southwest by Delaware Bay and Delaware. At 7,354 square miles (19,050 km2), New Jersey is the fifth-smallest state in land area, but with close to 9.3 million residents as of the 2020 United States census, its highest decennial count ever, it ranks 11th in population. The state capital is Trenton, and the state's most populous city is Newark. New Jersey is the only U.S. state in which every county is deemed urban by the U.S. Census Bureau with 13 counties included in the New York metropolitan area, seven counties in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, and Warren County part of the heavily industrialized Lehigh Valley metropolitan area.
Camden is a city in and the county seat of Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Camden is part of the Delaware Valley and is located directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, the nation's sixth most populous city. At the 2020 United States census, Camden was the 14th-most populous municipality in the state, with a population of 71,791, a decrease of 5,553 (−7.2%) from the 2010 census count of 77,344, when it had been ranked 12th in the state by population, which in turn reflected a decline of 1,984 (-2.5%) from the 79,318 counted in the 2000 census. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the population was 70,996 in 2022, making it the 528th-most-populous in the country. The city was incorporated on February 13, 1828. Camden has been the county seat of Camden County since the county was formed on March 13, 1844. The city derives its name from Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden. Camden is made up of over 20 neighborhoods. The city is part of the South Jersey region of the state.
The Delaware Valley, sometimes referred to as Greater Philadelphia or the Philadelphia metropolitan area, is a metropolitan region in the Northeast on the East Coast of the United States that centers on Philadelphia and spans four U.S. states: southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, northern Delaware, and the northern Eastern Shore of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the core metropolitan statistical area of the Delaware Valley had a total population of 6.288 million residents, making it the nation's seventh-largest, the continent's eighth-largest, and the world's 35th-largest metropolitan area. The combined statistical area of the Delaware Valley is even larger with a total population of 7.366 million.
The Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA), officially the Delaware River Port Authority of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, is a bi-state agency instrumentality created by a congressionally approved interstate compact between the state governments of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The authority is principally charged to maintain and develop transportation links between the two states with four bridges and a mass transit rail line across the Delaware River. Though the DRPA has "port" in its name, it does not own or operate any ports.
South Jersey comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of New Jersey located between Pennsylvania and the lower Delaware River in the west and the Atlantic Ocean in the east. The designation of South Jersey with a distinct toponym is a colloquialism rather than an administrative definition and reflects geographical and perceived cultural and other differences between South Jersey and the northern part of the state. South Jersey is part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area, the seventh-largest metropolitan region in the nation with 6.288 million residents in the core metropolitan statistical area and 7.366 million residents in the combined statistical area as of 2020. South Jersey is known for containing the unique ecoregion known as the Pine Barrens, which remains largely undisturbed despite its location within the Northeastern megalopolis. The South Jersey Pine Barrens are the largest remaining example of the Atlantic coastal pine barrens ecosystem.
George E. Norcross III is an American businessman, Democratic Party organizer, and power broker in southern New Jersey.
Interstate 676 (I-676) is an Interstate Highway that serves as a major thoroughfare through Center City Philadelphia, where it is known as the Vine Street Expressway, and Camden, New Jersey, where it is known as the northern segment of the North–South Freeway, as well as the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Highway in honor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Its western terminus is at I-76 in Philadelphia near the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Fairmount Park. From there, it heads east and is then routed on surface streets near Franklin Square and Independence National Historical Park, home of the Liberty Bell, before crossing the Delaware River on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. On the New Jersey side of the bridge, the highway heads south to its southern terminus at I-76 in Gloucester City near the Walt Whitman Bridge. Between the western terminus and downtown Camden, I-676 is concurrent with U.S. Route 30 (US 30).
The Freedom Mortgage Pavilion is an outdoor amphitheatre and indoor theater complex in Camden, New Jersey located in the Camden Waterfront entertainment district on the Delaware River across from Philadelphia.
Cooper Street–Rutgers University station is a station on the River Line light rail system, located on Cooper Street in Camden, New Jersey, near the Rutgers–Camden campus. The southbound (westbound) platform is located west of 2nd Street while the northbound (eastbound) platform is east of 2nd Street in the Cooper Grant neighborhood.
South Camden is a neighborhood in Camden, New Jersey. Located in the southern part of the city, below Central Waterfront and east of the Port of Camden on the Delaware River. Interstate 676 runs through the neighborhood.
Campbell's Field was a 6,425-seat baseball park in Camden, New Jersey, United States that hosted its first regular season baseball game on May 11, 2001. The ballpark was home to the Rutgers–Camden college baseball team, and until 2015 was home to the Camden Riversharks of the independent Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. The naming rights were owned by the Camden-based Campbell Soup Company, which paid $3 million over ten years. Stadium demolition started in mid-December 2018.
The Benjamin Franklin Bridge, originally named the Delaware River Bridge and known locally as the Ben Franklin Bridge, is a suspension bridge across the Delaware River connecting Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Camden, New Jersey. Owned and operated by the Delaware River Port Authority, it is one of four primary vehicular bridges between Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, along with the Betsy Ross, Walt Whitman, and Tacony-Palmyra bridges. It carries Interstate 676/U.S. Route 30, pedestrians/cyclists, and the PATCO Speedline.
The Walt Whitman Bridge is a single-level suspension bridge spanning the Delaware River from Philadelphia in the west to Gloucester City in Camden County, New Jersey in the east. The bridge is named after American poet and essayist Walt Whitman, who resided in nearby Camden toward the end of his life.
The Port of Camden is situated on east bank of the Delaware River in Camden and Gloucester City in southern New Jersey. It is one of several ports in the Delaware Valley metro area port complex and is located near the mouth of Newtown Creek opposite the Port of Philadelphia. The port is one of the nation's largest for wood products, steel, cocoa and perishable fruit.
Cooper Library in Johnson Park is located in the Cooper Grant section of Camden, Camden County, New Jersey, United States. It was built in 1916 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 11, 1980, for its significance in architecture, art, education, and sculpture. It is part of Rutgers University–Camden.
Riverfront State Prison (RSP) is a former prison in Camden, New Jersey that was operated by the New Jersey Department of Corrections from August 12, 1985, to 2009. It was located in the neighborhood of Cooper Point at the intersection of Delaware Avenue and Elm Street.
The Adventure Aquarium, formerly the Thomas H. Kean New Jersey State Aquarium, is a for-profit educational entertainment attraction operated in Camden, New Jersey on the Delaware River Camden Waterfront by Herschend Family Entertainment. Originally opened in 1992, it re-opened in its current form on May 25, 2005 featuring about 8,000 animals living in varied forms of semi-aquatic, freshwater, and marine habitats. The facility has a total tank volume of over 2 million US gallons (7,600,000 L), and public floor space of 200,000 square feet (19,000 m2).
The Glassboro–Camden Line (GCL) is a planned 18-mile (29 km) diesel multiple unit (DMU) light rail system to be located in South Jersey.
The Philadelphia 76ers Training Complex is a 125,000-square-foot athletic facility and office building in Camden, New Jersey, which houses the training center and corporate offices of the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association. It opened in September 2016 and is managed by Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment.