Fox Chase Cancer Center Explores Expansion into Delaware

Neighborhood Opposition Leads Hospital to Seek Other Options

The nationally renowned Fox Chase Cancer Center (FCCC) is located in a residential area in Northeast Philadelphia and has been in a battle with the neighborhood for four years over their controversial efforts to expand into nearby Burholme Park, a city-owned facility. Now the hospital has threatened to take it's expansion to Delaware, accoridng to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Permitting this expansion in Philadelphia involves voiding a part of the Will of Robert Ryerss, who left the area that makes up Burholme Park for the "enjoyment of all the citizens of Philadelphia," in perpetuity. This park includes playing fields, a picnic area, a pavilion, a large hill used for sledding, and the historic Ryerss Mansion, which contains a museum and library. It also hosts a golfing range, a miniature golf course and batting cages, which the city leased to private concessionaires. When the Center announced that the City of Philadelphia had approved a plan that would allow them to expand into Burholme Park, the neighborhood went ballistic.

The original plan would have taken part of the picnic area, the sledding hill and the golf facilities and batting cages. The new plan would only take the golfing facilities and batting cages, but the neighbors are not appeased. While local officials state that the ball fields, sledding hill and the picnic pavilion will remain, the neighbors worry that once the door is opened, there is nothing to stop further expansion. Also, the open space view enjoyed by the people who use the park and visit the Mansion will be destroyed. Soccer games will go on next to a large facility instead of a green field.

The neighborhood's other objection with the expansion is the increased traffic 4,000 new jobs would generate in a residential area. Fox Chase is an old neighborhood with narrow streets. While the hospital says traffic will be directed to enter off of Route 73, on the other side of the hospital away from the residential area, the neighbors fear that it is inevitable that once employees learn the neighborhood, they will soon be taking short-cuts through that residential areas.