Gregory Byrnes, manager of economic development for Philadelphia Electric Co., dampened hopes that a proposed baseball stadium would be built over Amtrak's 30th Street rail yards.
"I don't think you'll see a baseball park there," Brynes said. He said Amtrak is considering proposals for a medical center or a mixed-use urban center on the 65-acre site.
In Washington, an Amtrak spokesman said the ballpark is not "totally off the table," but acknowledged the railroad would prefer a residential- commercial development rising above the tracks.
"I think everyone would look at any large site today and see a mixed-use development, particularly around a transportation center," said Donald Pross, Amtrak's director of real estate development. "We're very definitely looking at some residential use."
A residential tower would take advantage of the site's views of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Boathouse Row and Center City's new skyline, Pross said.
A major strike against the ballpark is money. "The ball club can't finance it," Pross said. "The city certainly can't finance it, and Amtrak won't finance it."
Amtrak is in no hurry to decide exactly what it will do with the air rights over the rail yards.
"What has happened to the real estate community in the last five years has led us to re-define what long-term means," said Pross. "We're willing to be patient."
But the local construction industry is impatient for the work that such a project would bring to the region.
Besides the two Mariott hotels - one in Center City and the other at the Philadelphia International Airport - a $30 million SEPTA project in Overbrook, and an $86 million Merck & Co. office building in Montgomery County, there are few private-sector jobs in the construction pipeline.
"Three years ago, I sort of said, 'Survive to '95,' " Byrnes said. ''Things haven't changed too much from that."
