The fast-casual eatery, based in Center City, plans to open up to 18 new locations next year, following 17 new outposts in 2025, founder and CEO Justin Rosenberg told The Inquirer on Monday.
“It was definitely a good year,” said Rosenberg, adding that the company is “just continuing to build the pipeline for 2026 and beyond.”
Honeygrow sells made-to-order stir-fries as well as salads and desserts. Since launchingin 2012, the company has grown to 71 locations across several states, including Ohio, Massachusetts, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and New York.
Philadelphia-area stores include Center City, Kensington, University City, North Philadelphia, Bala Cynwyd, and Cherry Hill.
The company’s expansion plans include adding locations in Ohio and New Jersey, as well as in Boston. The eatery is also currently in negotiations to bring Honeygrow to the Detroit metropolitan area, a new market, said Rosenberg.
Honeygrow also aims to open a location in Middletown, Del.
“Saleswise, it’s kind of neck and neck between certain Philly stores and our two Boston stores,” Rosenberg said.
Further expansion in Philadelphia is also possible.
“We are always looking at Philly,” Rosenberg said. “We’ve been poking around South Philly for a while. We just haven’t found the right opportunity.”
Honeygrow, at 11th Street in Center City, in 2024.
The company typically seeks 2,500-square-foot locations for new stores, but Rosenberg says it’s a competitive market for that kind of real estate.
“One of the things that has made us successful — and I give credit to my team for this — is that we’ve been very disciplined on growth, just saying, look, if we can’t get the deal we need in terms of underwriting, let someone else take it,” he said.
The company employs roughly 2,000 people, and each new store adds some 30 new hires, Rosenberg said.
Some of the considerations when looking at new markets include what other fast-casual concepts are in the area, and how they’re doing, Rosenberg said.
“If a Starbucks is underperforming in that market, that’s certainly going to spook us. Or a Chick-fil-A, if it’s below average unit volume, it’s probably not the right market for us,” he said.
On the flip side, if a Chipotle, Chick-fil-A, Starbucks, Raising Cane’s, or another brand is doing well in an area, Rosenberg said, “We feel that those would be very similar customers to ours. We’re willing to put a restaurant in there and see what happens.”
The plans for new locations come as the company shuttered some stores in Chicago, Washington, and New York in 2018 after rapid expansion plans. Some stores were “dragging down profitability,” Rosenberg has said, and he hasattributed closures to growth that happened too quickly as well as poor real estate.
Since then, the company has roughly tripled in size, said Rosenberg, adding “you just keep learning with every opening that you have.”
“My mission remains the same,” he said. “I want to build something that’s from Philadelphia — make this a national, if not international, brand that we can be proud of.”
Chicken Parm Stir-fry at Honeygrow at the 11th Street location in Philadelphia in 2024.
California biotech BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. will pay $4.8 billion in cash for Amicus Therapeutics, a Princeton rare-disease company with a presence in Philadelphia, the two publicly traded companies announced Friday.
The acquisition of Amicus, expected to be completed in the second quarter of next year, will give BioMarin treatments for rare genetic diseases that generated $599 million in revenue over the last 12 months, according to BioMarin, which is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Amicus has a treatment for Fabry disease, which is caused by a genetic mutation that allows fatty waste to build up in the body, damaging tissues and organs, according the BioMarin. The second treatment is for late-onset Pompe disease, which is an inherited genetic condition that causes muscle weakness that worsens over time.
BioMarin CEO Alexander Hardy said on a webcast about the deal that both of those treatments have the potential to reach $1 billion in global sales. BioMarin had $2.85 billion in revenue last year, compared to $528 million at Amicus.
The Philadelphia tie
In 2019, Amicus established its Global Research and Gene Therapy Center of Excellence at 3675 Market St. in University City, saying at the time that the facility would employ 200 people eventually. The company’s website now lists the location as its Research Center of Excellence.
Amicus now has 12 people in its Philadelphia office, a spokesperson said Friday.
John Crowley, chief executive of Amicus at the time, liked to call Philadelphia the “Cradle of Cures,” a name that hasn’t stuck. Crowley is now president and CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), a biotech trade organization in Washington.
Drexel University has signed a lease that will enable it to consolidate its College of Medicine research labs in University City, Drexel and the developers of a new building at 3201 Cuthbert St. said Thursday.
Drexel’s space in the $500 million building, a joint project from Gattuso Development Partners and Vigilant Holdings, is slated for completion in 2027. Drexel researchers moving from sites in Center City and East Falls are expected to fill four floors of the structure.
“By bringing our research spaces together in University City, we will create an environment that fosters greater interdisciplinary collaboration, accelerates innovation, and strengthens our collective capacity for discovery,” Drexel president Antonio Merlo said in a message to the school community.
Drexel will occupy 150,741 square feet of the 11-story, 520,000-square-foot building. The developers’ goal is to fill the rest of the building with life sciences tenants, though that could be harder than it was in 2022, when the building was announced as a partnership between Drexel and Gattuso Development.
The move of research labs to University City is part of a long-term plan to centralize the Drexel College of Medicine, which includes the combined operations of the former Hahnemann Medical College in Center City and the former Medical College of Pennsylvania in East Falls.
Capstan Therapeutics’ sale this year for $2.1 billion, the highest price paid for a private early-stage biotech company since 2022, was a triumph for its founders at the University of Pennsylvania.
Unfortunately for Philadelphia, the company is based in San Diego. Investors wanted an executive who lives there to be CEO.
Capstan was a miss for Philadelphia, said Jeffrey Marrazzo, who cofounded a high-profile regional biotech company, Spark Therapeutics, and is now an industry investor and consultant.
If Philadelphia had a bigger talent pool of biotech CEOs, “it would have and should have been here,” he said.
The Philadelphia region has lagged behind other biotech centers in landing companies and jobs, but industry experts are working to close the gap and better compete with Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, and San Diego.
According to Marrazzo and others, the Philadelphia region’s relatively shallow pool of top biotech management is a key challenge.
Big investors go to managers who have proven ability to deliver big investment returns, said Fred Vogt, interim CEO of Iovance Biotherapeutics, a California company with a manufacturing facility in the Navy Yard.
“They want the company to perform. They’ll put it in Antarctica, if that was where the performance would come from,” he said.
The Lilly announcement last month also reflects Philadelphia’s national biotech stature. It’s the fourth U.S. city to get a Lilly Gateway Lab, behind Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, and San Diego.
Those places have far outpaced Philadelphia in the creation of biotech research and development jobs, even as the sector’s growth has slowed.
From 2014 through last year, the Boston area added four biotech research and development jobs for every one job added here, according to an Inquirer analysis of federal employment data.
window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}});
Penn’s role in Philadelphia biotech
Philadelphia’s reputation as an innovation center — boosters like to call the region “Cellicon Valley” — starts with the University of Pennsylvania, which has long been a top recipient of National Institutes of Health grants to advance scientific discovery.
Research at Penn has contributed to the creation of 45 FDA-approved treatments since 2013, according to the university.
“Penn discoveries help spark new biotech companies, but we can’t build the whole ecosystem in this area alone,” said John Swartley, Penn’s chief innovation officer. “Great science is just one ingredient. We also need capital, experienced leadership, real estate and manufacturing infrastructure, and strong city and state support.”
Penn was one of two Philadelphia institutions receiving more than $100 million in NIH funding in the year that ended Sept. 30. The otherwas the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman spoke at a University of Pennsylvania news conference after they were named winners of a 2023 Nobel Prize in medicine. Their work was instrumental to modifying mRNA for therapeutic uses, such as the rapid development of lifesaving vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
By contrast, the Boston area was home to 10 institutions with at least $100 million in NIH grants, generating more spinoffs and jobs.
The Philadelphia region has a healthy number of biotech spinouts, but the biggest markets have more from a larger number of research institutions, said Robert Adelson, founder Osage University Partners, a venture capital firm in Bala Cynwyd.
That concentration of jobs and companies in the Boston area — where nearly 60,000 people worked in biotech R&D last year — makes it easier to attract people. By comparison, there were 13,800 such jobs in Philadelphia and Montgomery County, home to the bulk of the regional sector.
If a startup fails, which happens commonly in biotech, “there’ll be another startup or another company for me to go to” in a place like Boston, said Matt Cohen, a managing partner for life science at Osage.
Another challenge for Philadelphia: It specializes in cell and gene therapy, a relatively small segment of the biotech industry, whose allure to investors has faded in the last few years.
Such market forces shaped the trajectory of Spark, a 2013 Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia spinout that developed Luxterna, the first FDA-approved gene therapy, used to treat an inherited form of blindness. The promise of Spark’s gene therapy work for a form of hemophilia spurred its 2019 acquisition by Swiss pharmaceutical titan Roche for $4.8 billion.
The company still employs about 300 in the city, a spokesperson said, and work continues on its $575 million Gene Therapy Innovation Center at 30th and Chestnut Streets in University City.
The long arc of biotech
A handful of companies dominated the early days of U.S. biotech. Boston had Biogen and Genzyme, San Francisco had Genentech, San Diego had Hybritech, and Philadelphia had Centocor. All of them started between 1976 and 1981.
Centocor started in the University City Science Center because one of its founders, virologist Hilary Koprowski, was the longtime director of the Wistar Institute. Centocor’s first CEO, Hubert Schoemaker, moved here from the Boston area, where he had gotten his doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Another drug still under development at the time of the sale, Stelara, went on to become J&J’s top-selling drug as recently as 2023 with $10.9 billion in revenue. Stelara, approved to treat several autoimmune disorders, remains a testament to Centocor’s legacy.
Despite its product success, Centocor didn’t have the same flywheel effect of creating new companies and a pipeline of CEOs as peer companies did in regions outside of Philadelphia.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Smilow Center for Translational Research, shown in 2020, is one of the school’s major laboratory buildings.
“There are a lot of alums of Centocor that are really impressive, but they seem to have wound up elsewhere,” said Bill Holodnak, CEO and founder of Occam Global, a New York life science executive recruitment firm.
Among the Centocor executives who left the region was Harvey Berger, Centocor’s head of research and development from 1986 to 1991. He started a new company in Cambridge, Mass.
At the time, the Philadelphia area didn’t have the infrastructure, range of scientists, or management talent needed for biotech startups, he said.
Since then, he thinks the regional market has matured.
“Now, there’s nothing holding the Philadelphia ecosystem back. The universities, obviously Penn, and others have figured this out,” Berger said.
Conditions have changed
Penn’s strategy for helping faculty members commercialize their inventions has evolved significantly over the last 15 years.
It previously licensed the rights to develop its research to companies outside of the area, such as Jim Wilson’s gene therapy discoveries and biochemist Katalin Karikó and immunologist Drew Weissman’s mRNA patents. Now it takes a more active role in creating companies.
Among Penn’s latest spinouts is Dispatch Bio, which came out of stealth mode earlier this year after raising $216 million from investors led by Chicago-based Arch Venture Partners and San Francisco-based Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.
Dispatch, chaired by Marrazzo, is developing a cell therapy approach that uses a virus to attach what it calls a “flare” onto the cells it wants the immune system to attack.
Marrazzo said in July that he wasn’t going to be involved in Dispatch if it wasn’t based largely in Philadelphia. As of July, 75% of its 60 employees were working in Philadelphia. Still, Dispatch’s CEO is in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Philadelphia region is increasingly well-positioned for the current biotech era, said Audrey Greenberg, who played a key role in launching King of Prussia’s Center for Breakthrough Medicines about five years ago. The center is a contract developer and manufacturer for cell and gene therapies.
“You no longer need to move to Kendall Square to get a company funded,” she said, referring to Cambridge’s biotech epicenter. “You need good data, a credible translational plan, experienced advisers, and access to patient capital, all of which can increasingly be built here.”
Greenberg now works as a venture partner for the Mayo Clinic, with the goal of commercializing research discoveries within the health system’s network of hospitals in Minnesota, Arizona, and Florida.
She plans to bring that biotech business to the Philadelphia region.
“I’m going to be starting my companies all here in Philadelphia, because that’s where I am. And I know everybody here, and everybody I’m going to hire in these startups that are going to be based here,” she said.
Philadelphians without retirement savings plans through their employers could soon have access to a plan through the city after lawmakers approved legislation Thursday to enable the novel program to move forward.
City Council members unanimously passed legislation that creates PhillySaves, which is modeled on state-facilitated “auto-IRA” programs that allow people to invest through payroll deductions at no cost to their employers.
Voters would have to approve the creation of an investment management board through a ballot question, which is slated to appear in the May primary election.
The measure was part of a flurry of legislation Council considered during a marathon meeting Thursday, its last session of the year before legislators reconvene in mid-January. Lawmakers passed dozens of pieces of legislation touching on issues including housing, public health, small-business growth, and public safety.
In addition to approving the retirement savings program, Council approved legislation to:
Ban mobile outreach groups that provide medical care and support services to people in addiction from a swath of Kensington, the epicenter of the city’s drug crisis.
Prohibit so-called reservation scalpers, or websites that allow users to reserve tables at coveted restaurants and resell them without the permission of the businesses.
Here’s a breakdown of what else happened on Thursday:
H.O.M.E. inches forward over Parker’s objections
City Council on Thursday approved a key piece of legislation related to Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s Housing Opportunities Made Easy, or H.O.M.E., initiative, the latest step in the drawn-out fight over how the city should spend the proceeds from the $800 million in city bonds the administration plans to sell to support the program.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker speaks to the crowd at The Church of Christian Compassion in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood of West Philadelphia on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025. Parker visited 10 churches in Philadelphia on Sunday to share details about her HOME housing plan
Over Parker’s objections, Council successfully pushed to lower income eligibility thresholds, prioritizing poorer residents. For instance, lawmakers ensured that 90% of the bond proceeds that will be spent on the Basic Systems Repair Program will go to households making 60% of area median income, which is about $71,640 for a family of four.
“This budget opens city housing programs to ensure that more than 200,000 low-income and working-family households have a chance to get into a program that provides housing stability and economic mobility and increases,” said Councilmember Rue Landau, who helped lead the push to lower the income thresholds. “This is a transformational investment, a win-win.”
Supporters react as City Council approves a key piece of legislation related to Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s H.O.M.E. initiative Thursday, Dec. 11, 25 on the last day of the 2025 session.
A separate but related piece of legislation — an ordinance authorizing the city to sell the bonds — also needs to pass before the administration can take on debt for the initiative. That proposal, which won committee approval Wednesday, is expected to come to the Council floor in January.
In a statement Thursday, Tiffany W. Thurman, Parker’s chief of staff, thanked Council for its vote.
“We look forward to continuing conversations with Council President Kenyatta Johnson and members of City Council in the weeks ahead, and to fulfilling Mayor Parker’s strong vision to save Philadelphia’s rowhomes,” she said.
Council waters down a bill on training for security officers
Council approved a bill requiring private security guards in Philadelphia to go through 12 hours of training when they are hired and an additional eight hours of training every subsequent year.
But the final version of the bill, authored by Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, has been significantly watered down by amendments following a legislative showdown between the Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, which championed the original version, and real estate and private security industry leaders, which said it was overly onerous and costly.
Thomas’ original bill required security guards to receive 40 hours of training upon hiring, and it prohibited employers from conducting the training for their own workers. Instead, the instruction had to be provided by a nonprofit — potentially including a labor union. SEIU 32BJ, one of the most influential unions in the city, represents building services workers, including security guards.
The amended version, however, allows employers to conduct the training after getting approval for their program from the Philadelphia Office of Worker Protections — a major relief for business leaders.
The new version, which now heads to Parker’s desk, also exempts security guards for bars and restaurants from the training requirements, and pushes back the bill’s effective date from Jan. 1 to March 1.
An inquiry into DEI contracting changes is coming next year
City Council next year will examine Parker’s decision to end its long-standing policy of prioritizing women- and minority-owned businesses in city contracting and replace it with a system favoring “small and local” firms.
Johnson authored a resolution allowing the Committee of the Whole, which includes all 17 members, to look at the history of minority contracting policies in the city and “the rationale, design, and anticipated effects” of Parker’s new policy. The resolution was approved in a unanimous vote, and a hearing will likely be scheduled in the first half of 2026.
Race- and gender-conscious government policies have been targeted by conservative legal groups following a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in college admissions. The Inquirer revealed in November that Parker quietly ended the city’s 40-year-old contracting policy earlier this year due to the likelihood it would be challenged in court.
The mayor has said her new “small and local” policy will accomplish many of the goals of the old system because many small Philadelphia businesses are owned by Black and brown residents and have faced roadblocks to growth.
Attorneys hired by the city, however, had recommended a race- and gender-neutral policy of favoring “socially and economically disadvantaged” businesses, according to administration documents obtained by The Inquirer.
Lawmakers will get the chance to weigh in on that decision next year.
A controversial zoning change passes for University City
Council on Thursday also approved Councilmember Jamie Gauthier’s controversial University City zoning overlay, which seeks to regulate how higher education institutions dispose of property.
The legislation has been diluted from its original form, and it now regulates the sale of property over 5,000 square feet in University City — which would largely affect only universities themselves.
Councilmember Jamie Gauthier in chambers as City Council meets Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025, on the last day of the 2025 session.
Gauthier has further amended the legislation to exclude healthcare institutions. Among other things, the bill would require that property owners have building permits in hand before they are allowed to move forward on demolitions.
A sale of land would also trigger review by the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The legislation is part of Gauthier’s outraged response toSt. Joseph’s University’s sale of much of its West Philadelphia campus to the Belmont Neighborhood Educational Alliance, a nonprofit that operates charter schools. The organization is led by Michael Karp, who is also one of the larger student-housing landlords in the area.
Thomas, a Democrat who represents the city at-large, was the only member to vote against the bill. His vote was a break with the tradition of councilmanic prerogative, in which members generally approve legislation offered by Council members who represent geographic areas when the measure affects only their districts.
Quote of the week
Councilmember Brian J. O’Neill (left) uses his end-of-session speech in City Council Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025 to say goodbye to longtime legislative director Robert Yerkov (right), who is leaving for a job outside government.
That was Councilmember Brian J. O’Neill, Council’s longest-serving member, who is typically its shortest-winded. But on Thursday, he took his time in a speech saying goodbye to longtime legislative director Robert Yerkov, whose last day as a Council staffer is next month.
O’Neill said he was struggling to wrap up his remarks and joked that Council should limit the amount of time that its members can speak. Public commenters are generally limited to three minutes of remarks.
To quote Shakespeare: “Brevity is the soul of wit.”
When Adam Sawyer and his wife, Marissa Tan, moved to Philadelphia in 2024 from Baltimore, they were attracted to Center City by its proximity towork and mass transit.
The couple figured if they sold their car, they could even afford to rent in one of the thousands of new, high-rise apartments that have been built across Center City over the last 10 years.
Tan had just gotten a new job with the Cooper University Hospital in Camden, and Adam needed access to 30th Street Station for work. They eventually settled on the PMC Property Group’s Riverwalk North at 23rd and Arch Streets and have been impressed by the city, its transit system, and life without a car.
Adam Sawyer and his wife, Marissa Tan, moved to Philadelphia in 2024 from Baltimore.
“One of the things I love about living in a city is that you’ll be walking down the street and there are five different events you didn’t even know about,” Sawyer said. “Festivals, farmers markets, just activity, people doing things. I love that Philadelphia has so much energy.”
In many ways Sawyer and Tan — who are both 35 — are representative of the people who have taken up residence in the new apartment buildings across Center City. Between Pine and Vine Streets, river to river, 3,500 new apartments have opened since 2023.
Center City District (CCD) set out to learn more about who is calling these apartments home, with a survey of more than two dozen buildings constructed since 2015.
Like Sawyer and Tan, the vast majority of respondents to CCD’s survey are under 45 (83%), more than half don’t own a car (55%), and close to half moved from outside the Philadelphia area (44%). Sawyer works remotely like 21% of respondents, and Tan works in healthcare like 32% of them.
window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}});
In a city where a fifth of all residents live in poverty, the respondents aren’t representative of the average Philadelphian in many ways. The buildings surveyed have an average rent of $2,645, well above the median of $1,387.
But the results show that there is a market for the kind of new buildings that are still being proposed. They alsohighlight that many people are attracted to the most central parts of Philadelphia because it offersmore density, walkability, and other urban characteristics that few other American cities can boast.
“People actively choose Philadelphia over other cities and metropolitan areas because we outperform them in some ways,” said Clint Randall, vice president of Economic Development with CCD, which is funded by downtown property owners and provides advocacy and services like additional security and cleaning downtown.
“The city spent so many decades shrinking,” Randall said. “When you see this entire skyline of high-rise apartment buildings emerge, it contradicts what longtime Philadelphians think they know about this place, which is that it does not grow or attract residents.”
Reversing reverse commuting
Center City District’s survey confirmed a longtime finding of the organization’s other research reports: People who live downtown are likely to work there or very close by.
In Philadelphia, reverse commuting is common, a testament to the fact that many private-sector employers have remained outside the city to avoid wage and business taxes. But among survey respondents, only 12% commuted to the suburbs for work compared to almost 40% citywide.
Over half of respondents work in either Center City or University City, and a similar proportion work in either healthcare (32%) or in the jobs more typically associated with office towers: “business, professional, or financial services” (27%). Twenty-one percent work from home.
“A lot of people are in medicine, in healthcare. I see a lot of scrubs,” said Kaz Rivera-Gorski, about her building One Cathedral Squareat 17th and Race Streets.
window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}});
“I would imagine there’s a good amount of people that work remotely, too,” said Rivera-Gorski, who is a management consultant who works from home. “I see people on their laptops in the shared spaces during the day.”
Seventy percentof respondents said their jobs are within walking, biking, or transit distance from their homes, while 80% of them said that owning a car was not necessary to enjoy daily life in Philadelphia.
That’s part of what attracted Sawyer and Tan, even though another part of Philadelphia’s allure was that it was closer to family in central and eastern Pennsylvania (the couple have a Zipcar membership).
“While I do drive, I really, really dislike driving,” Sawyer said. “I’ve lost people. Everybody has, to either accidents or crashes or DUIs. So we were open to selling our car and became more and more convinced it was a good idea.”
window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}});
Retaining out-of-towners
Randall said that he was surprised by the proportion of CCD’s respondents who reported having moved to Philadelphia from outside the region. (A recent Realtor.com report showed that Philadelphia switched from having mostly local interest in rental listings before the pandemic to mostly out-of-towners today.)
The survey also found that the majority of Center City dwellers planned to be living in Philadelphia inthree to five years, with 45% planning to continue renting and 16% hoping to buy.
“You hear about the transience of other places like D.C. or Boston, and it seems like people are here [in Philadelphia] and they intend to stay,” Randall said.
That is certainly the goal of Annika Verma, a student at Temple University who lives in the Logan Lofts in Callowhill.
“I am already calculating: Can I get an entry-level job? What salary would work for the rent in this area?” Verma said. “I would love to stay. The area seems ideal for me in terms of commuting or walking. Anything, everything is a 15-20 minute walk or bus ride away.”
Sawyer and Tan are hoping to stay in Philadelphia, too. They are currently searching Center City for a condo to buy. They may try to stay in their current Logan Square neighborhood for its proximity to the Schuylkill River Trail and 30th Street Station.
“We love it,” said Sawyer, who notes that they’ve lived in three cities in Texas, Cooperstown in New York, and Baltimore before this. “But our favorite place we’ve ever lived is here in Philadelphia.”
Several Philadelphia-area violence prevention efforts will benefit from nearly $3 million in newly released state funding to help hospitals address a leading cause of death and injury.
The new funding for hospital-based violence intervention programs (HVIP) was announced by Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Austin Davis on Wednesday at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. One of the recipients, the Penn Trauma Violence Recovery Program, is based at the Penn Medicine hospital in University City.
Other local awardees includeTemple University Hospital in North Philadelphia and the Philadelphia-based nonprofit Urban Affairs Coalition. The coalition received funding on behalf of the Chester Community Coalition to relaunch a program that had been at the now-shuttered Crozer-Chester Medical Center.
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center also received funding. The amounts awarded to each program were not announced.
The Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, which Davis chairs, received 15 applications in total seeking nearly $12 million in funding — four times what was available.
“Addressing the epidemic of gun violence is a top priority for our administration,” Davis said.
Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis speaks at a press conference announcing the $3 million in grants for hospital-based violence intervention programs.
The programs aim to connect patients at risk of repeat violence with resources while they are in a hospital, so they leave with a safety plan. Services can include long-term community-based case management, mentoring, and home visits.
Since the first HVIP was established in the mid-1990s, dozens have spread around the country and abroad, including in Philadelphia.
Several local institutions have these programs, including Temple Health, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Penn Medicine, Jefferson Health, and Drexel University. The City of Philadelphia, in conjunction with the area’s Level 1 trauma centers, launched an HVIP Collaborative in 2021.
Studies have shown these programs reduce rates of repeat violent injuries and recidivism among participants.
After shootings spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, gun violence is now declining in Philadelphia. As of July, shootings for the year were at their lowest total since at least 2015.
Davis noted that Philadelphia has seen a 15% decrease in homicides this year, with roughly four in fivegunshot victims surviving their injuries.
The new funding will allow the Penn Trauma Violence Recovery Program to increase its community presence and mental health programming, said its director, trauma surgeon Elinore Kaufman.
Through her experience treating victims of violence, she has learned that injuries can be deeper than the physical wounds.
The program was launched to address social factors often involved in violence by providingpsychosocial support and connecting patients with services to help with education,job training, and housing.
“We’ve worked with patients long enough now that we have high school graduation photos, we have baby pictures,” Kaufman said. “We have patients who want to give back and have joined our patient advisory board to help push us forward.”
Philly is getting ready to dress itself up — with Liberty Bells. Lots of Liberty Bells.
Organizers of Philadelphia’s yearlong celebrations for America’s 250th anniversary in 2026 gathered in a frigid Philadelphia School District warehouse in Logan on Tuesday, offering a special preview of the 20 large replica Liberty Bells that will decorate Philly neighborhoods for the national milestone.
Designed by 16 local artists selected through Mural Arts Philadelphia — and planned for commercial corridors and public parks everywhere from Chinatown and South Philly to West Philly and Wynnefield — the painted bells depict the histories, heroes, cultures, and traditions of Philly neighborhoods.
As part of the state nonprofit America250PA’s “Bells Across PA” program, more than 100 painted bells will be installed across Pennsylvania throughout the national milestone, also known as the Semiquincentennial. Local planners and Mural Arts Philadelphia helped coordinate the Philly bells.
“As Philadelphia’s own Liberty Bell served as inspiration for this statewide program, it makes sense that Philly would take it to the next level and bring these bells to as many neighborhoods as possible,” Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said in a statement. “We are a proud, diverse city of neighborhoods with many stories to tell.”
Kathryn Ott Lovell, president and CEO of Philadelphia250, the city’s planning partner for the Semiquincentennial, said the bells are a key part of the local planners’ efforts to bring the party to every Philly neighborhood.
Local artist Bob Dix paints a portrait of industrialist Henry Disston on his bell.
“The personalities of the neighborhoods are coming out in the bells,” she said, adding that the completed bells will be dedicated in January, then installed in early spring, in time for Philly’s big-ticket events next summer, including six FIFA World Cup matches, the MLB All-Star Game, and a pumped-up Fourth of July concert.
Planners released a full list of neighborhoods where the bells will be placed, but said exact locations will be announced in January. Each of the nearly 3-foot bells — which will be perched on heavy black pedestals — was designed in collaboration with community members, Ott Lovell said.
Inside the massive, makeshift studio behind the Widener Memorial School on Tuesday, artists worked in the chill on their bells. Each bell told a different story of neighborhood pride.
Chenlin Cai (left) talks with fellow artist Emily Busch (right) about his bell, showing her concepts on his tablet.
Cindy Lozito, 33, a muralist and illustrator who lives in Bella Vista, didn’t have to look for inspiration for her bell on the Italian Market. She lives just a block away from Ninth Street and is a market regular.
After talking with merchants, she strove to capture the market’s iconic sites, history, and diversity. Titled Always Open, her bell includes painted scenes of the market’s bustling produce stands and flickering fire barrels, the smiling faces of old-school merchants and newer immigrant vendors, and the joy of the street’s annual Procession of Saints and Day of the Dead festivities. Also, of course, the greased pole.
“It’s a place where I can walk outside my house and get everything that I need, and also a place where people know your name and care about you,” she said, painting her bell.
For her bell on El Centro de Oro, artist and educator Symone Salib, 32, met twice with 30 community members from North Fifth Street and Lehigh Avenue, asking them for ideas.
“From there, I had a very long list,” she said. “People really liked telling me what they wanted to see and what they did not.”
Local artist Symone Salib talks with a visitor as she works on her bell.
Titled The Golden Block, the striking yellow-and-black bell depicts the neighborhood’s historic Stetson Hats factory, the long-standing Latin music shop Centro Musical, and popular iron palm tree sculptures.
To add that extra bit of authenticity to his bell depicting Glen Foerd, artist Bob Dix, 62, mixed his paints with water bottled from the Delaware River, near where the historic mansion and estate sits perched in Torresdale, overlooking the mouth of Poquessing Creek.
“I like to incorporate the spirit of the area,” he said, dabbing his brush in the river water. “I think it’s important to bring in the natural materials.”
Local artist Bob Dix displays waters he collected from the Delaware River and Poquessing Creek to use in his painting of one of 20 replica Liberty Bells representing different neighborhoods Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025.
Planners say they expect the bells to draw interest and curiosity similar to the painted donkeys that dotted Philadelphia neighborhoods during the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
Ott Lovell said organizers will install the bells around March to protect them from the worst of the winter weather.
“I don’t want any weather on them,” she said with a smile. “I want them looking perfect for 2026.”
It was a step toward ending a two-year civic struggle to find a site for long-distance buses and their passengers. The renovated station could be ready for a series of big national and international events expected to draw millions of visitors next year.
“A lot of people are going to be coming here for the first time, and when they’re in that station, they’re going to get their first taste of Philadelphia — and we want to make sure it’s a good one,” said Councilmember Mike Driscoll, who sponsored the bill on behalf of the Parker administration.
The city will host events in 2026 for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, as well as FIFA World Cup soccer matches and the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, among others.
Greyhound ran the terminal at 10th and Filbert Streets for more than three decades but ended its lease in June 2023 when the business model of its parent company, Flixbus, called for divesting from real estate and moving toward cheaper curbside service in many U.S. cities.
Since November 2023, customers of Greyhound, Peter Pan, and other interstate bus carriers wait, board, and arrive at curbside along Spring Garden Street in Northern Liberties — with no shelter from the weather and few amenities. It also has proved a nuisance to nearby businesses.
Before that, the buses operated at curbside on Market Street between Sixth and Seventh Streets.
The city senses that over the long term the owner anticipates selling the property, said Michael Carroll, assistant managing director for the Philadelphia Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems.
“That’s the sweet spot, long enough that there’s a meaningful basis to invest in improvements and solve the problems,” Carroll told the committee.
“At the 10-year mark, decisions will have to be made about whether this is a site that forever works best in Philadelphia, or whether there’s a better site,” he said.
The unanimous Finance Committee vote came after it amended the measure to adjust the fees bus companies would be charged to stop in Philadelphia.
Each stop in the city would cost $40 until the bus terminal is open, when it would move to a $65 fee. A smaller number of buses subsidized by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation under a program to provide rural service would pay $16 a stop.
Committee members also asked for suspension of a procedural rule so that all 17 lawmakers could consider the bill Thursday and clear the way for final passage before the holidays.
In the agreement with the city that is part of the bill, PPA would run the terminal; assess the fees on bus carriers for the use of the facility and any street loading zones, such as those in University City; and handle enforcement.
The Filbert Street proposal includes specific requirements designed to address concerns particularto Chinatown.
For instance, the streets department would change traffic patterns so buses are routed to the station via Market Street instead of driving through the heart of the neighborhood as they did in the past.
John Mondlak, first deputy and chief of staff of the city planning department, said that the through traffic had long been a chief complaint of residents and business owners in Chinatown.
This story has been updated to include the name of the firm that owns the former Greyhound station.
Late Thursday afternoon, while Thanksgiving rituals unfurled in rowhouses and neighborhoods across Philadelphia, Rosa Mar Espinosa Rodas took her final steps.
Espinosa Rodas, 41, was struck by a black 2012 Honda Accord at 36th and Market Streets in University City about 3:50 p.m., according to preliminary information released Friday by Philadelphia police.
After hitting Espinosa Rodas, the Honda’s driver didn’t stop. Instead, police said, the car continued eastbound along Market Street, where it then crashed into a Buick LaCrosse near 34th Street.
The driver of the Honda attempted to flee on foot, but was apprehended by police a few blocks from the second crash scene.
Police identified the motorist as Shamir Miller, 30.
Miller was charged with murder, homicide by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter, and nine other offenses, court records show.
His bail was set at $3 million, and he is scheduled to face a preliminary hearing on Dec. 15.
Medics pronounced Espinosa Rodas dead on Market Street, police said. CBS3 reported that Espinosa Rodas had worked nearby and was on her lunch break when she was fatally struck.
The driver of the Buick, a 41-year-old woman, was admitted to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center with neck and back injuries and was listed Friday in stable condition.
Miller was also treated at Penn Presbyterian for head injuries.
On Nov. 20 — a week before Espinosa Rodas was killed — a nearby stretch of Market Street was the scene of another fatal hit-and-run crash.
Early that morning, the driver of a silver Chrysler 300 with tinted windows struck Meaza Brown at 33rd and Market.
Police said that Brown, 48, was hit at such a high rate of speed that she was “launched out of her sneakers” and propelled through the air for several hundred feet. She was pronounced dead at Penn Presbyterian.
Investigators later found the Chrysler at 34th and Race Streets, but no arrests have been reported.
The city, as part of its Vision Zero plan to reduce traffic deaths, is seeking from state legislators the authority to set speed limits for local roadways, and to expand its use of automated speed enforcement cameras, The Inquirer reported this week.
Last year, the city recorded 120 vehicle crash deaths, a 41% increase from 2015, when the Vision Zero program began.
