Plaza

Plans for New Garden Plaza, a proposed 76,700-square-foot shopping center between Old Route 1 North and South on Scarlett Road, have received a favorable review from the New Garden supervisors. A decision on whether to approve construction of the 8-acre shopping plaza is expected to come at the June 6 supervisors' meeting pending a favorable review by the Chester County Planning Commission and the township's engineering firm, GEO Technical Services of Harrisburg. The township Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval subject to favorable comments by the county Planning Commission.

For ages it's been a short, dirty stretch of concrete, a wide spot in the road where 10th Street crosses the Vine Expressway. It's served mostly as a bed for the homeless and a dump for beer cans. No more. Today, a giant, granite foo dog guards each end of the property - transformed into an open, brightly lit plaza complete with benches and tables. The makeover was designed to turn a no-man's land into a welcoming connector, helping to join Chinatown to the fast-growing neighborhood that constitutes "Chinatown North.

Philadelphia can rest easier tonight: Two giant stone guardians are now on watch. The seven-ton Chinese lions, stationed at opposite ends of a renovated 10th Street Plaza, were awakened during Buddhist rites performed on Wednesday, as nearly 70 people gathered to dedicate a reclaimed section of Chinatown. Community members, police and fire commanders, school children, city officials, and businesspeople joined leaders of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corp. to cut a ribbon at the plaza, where 10th Street crosses the Vine Street Expressway.

An estimated $3 million renovation project for the Woodcrest Shopping Center received preliminary approval last night from the Cherry Hill Planning Board. The proposal, part of the new owner's efforts to increase the income and aesthetics of the 1950s-style plaza, would add 30,000 square feet to the 900,000-square-foot retail area. Former Cherry Hill tax collector Joseph Zerbo and Alan Wechsler, who bought the property last year, also plan to revamp the parking surrounding the center at the corner of Haddonfield-Berlin Road and Browning Lane.

Occupy Philadelphia starts Thursday at 9 a.m. The place: the Plaza around City Hall. That was the decision this evening of a standing-room-only crowd at Arch Street United Methodist Church in Center City. The Philadelphia group wants to echo the Occupy Wall Street protest that started Sept. 17 in Manhattan and has spread coast to coast. The protests are coalescing around the feeling that conditions are worsening for most Americans while the financial powers at the center of the financial meltdown that brought the economy to its knees three years ago have not been held accountable.

The Plaza at King of Prussia, which sold bell bottoms and platform shoes in its first incarnation, has redone its 1960s look and tomorrow will unveil the first phase of a $163 million renovation and expansion. The Plaza, which opened 30 years ago, is one of the region's oldest shopping complexes. By the 1980s it had grown worn and was dramatically outdone by its flashier, upscale neighbor, The Court. After 10 months and $38 million of construction, The Plaza has added a second level of small specialty stores to two wings, and new interior courts at the entrance to the three existing department stores.

If you've walked through the plaza of the Municipal Services Building at 15th Street and Kennedy Boulevard during the last two weeks, you probably noticed that it looks as though Gulliver has come to town and dropped his toys. The plaza has been transformed into a giant game board. Colorful chessmen, checkers, dominoes, bingo chips and board-game pieces have been scattered about the plaza. The pieces make up an installation called Your Move, by two Los Angeles artists and an architect.

At first, they appear to be signs of gloom: storefronts throughout the Plaza at King of Prussia plastered with signs announcing closings, relocations and major markdowns. What they actually signify is the next stage of the mall's major renovation and expansion project. Forty of the plaza's 225 stores will be relocating within the Plaza or moving out to make way for renovations over the next six months, said Kristen Moore, public-relations manager for the Court and Plaza at King of Prussia.

As residents of Philadelphia's Grays Ferry neighborhood cut across the vacant lot at 29th and Wharton Streets, they no longer have to wade through knee-depth weeds or dodge trash and discarded tires. Now, they can stroll down earthen paths dotted with mosaics created by neighborhood children. They can admire a bed of ornamental grasses and hardy perennials or rest under newly planted birch trees. Finally, they have a fitting plaza to contemplate "Peace Wall," a mural painted three years ago to help the Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood heal from the racial conflict of the late 1990s.

Construction will begin this month on a Wal-Mart discount store and several smaller stores at the Liberty Square plaza on Route 541 in one of the township's latest efforts to build its business and population base. Wal-Mart will be the centerpiece of the 321,618-square-foot plaza, now anchored by Bradlees and an Ultra IGA supermarket, said Janet Label-Faso, spokeswoman for National Realty & Development Corp. in Purchase, N.Y. It would be the fourth discount chain to open or plan to open in New Jersey in a year.

Next month, workers will begin putting the lid on the makeover of Dilworth Plaza at City Hall, starting to give shape to what is supposed to be a $70 million, people-friendly space with cafe, glass-covered transit entrances, and fountains. Crews have done much of the underground work, with new passageways, elevator construction, and utility relocation, and they will start pouring concrete to create a new street-level surface in the third week of June, officials said Thursday during a tour of the site.

ATLANTIC CITY - The California development company that plans to buy Atlantic City's Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino for $20 million says the deal is on hold. In a statement issued late Friday, the Meruelo Group said the sale could not currently be completed as planned because Trump Entertainment had been unable to obtain the release of a mortgage held by a "senior secured lender. " When the deal was announced in February, Meruelo said it hoped to close the sale by May 31 The Press of Atlantic City said Trump spokesman Brian Cahill confirmed Meruelo's statement but had no further comment.

Camden's Hotel Plaza, long a vacant shell of its previous life as a bustling inn on Cooper Street, has been approved for demolition. After many arguments for and against razing the hotel, the Camden Planning Board voted, 3-2, Thursday to allow the owner of the hotel, Cooper Plaza Associates of New York City, to tear it down. "It became clear that the building is so far beyond repair and no one would invest to bring the building back," Board Chairman Rod Sadler said Friday morning.

Camden planners delayed a vote Thursday night on whether the owner of the Hotel Plaza on Cooper Street can demolish the 1927 building. The city has told the owner to remove the sign and canopy, citing an imminent hazard. The notice was issued March 4, but workers have not been able to act because of bad weather, said Edward Sheehan, attorney for Cooper Plaza Associates of New York, the owner. Cooper Plaza submitted its plan to demolish the hotel in August, after Rutgers-Camden opened its new student housing building one block west and Rowan University settled its deal to acquire a bank building nearby.

The towering black wall has been impossible to miss. Rising from shiny, white floor tiles at the East Coast's largest shopping mall, it has projected a cloak of mystery all the more stark for being a short walk from Louis Vuitton, Hermes, and Neiman Marcus - stores forbidding for their prices, if not their facades. For months, the black monolith has broadcast nothing to shoppers at the Plaza at King of Prussia. Not even the benign nugget of history that behind it once hummed a now-defunct John Wanamaker department store.

KARBALA, Iraq - It is the most impassioned day of the year for Shiite Muslims - Ashura, when one of the faith's most revered figures, Imam Hussein, was martyred in battle. Hundreds of thousands of Shiites who flocked to his resplendent, gold-domed shrine to commemorate him Saturday found the site has radically changed. The shrine of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, is seeing its most extensive renovation since the 17th century. The construction is part of a push by Iraq's Shiite rulers to reinvigorate sacred shrines long neglected under former dictator Saddam Hussein, reflecting the community's steadily growing pride and power since the fall of their nemesis.

Every December since 1995, a candle has been lit for each of Camden's homicide victims during the year. Near the flame, Sister Helen Cole prays that their families find peace. Cole started the vigil that year out of frustration that the homicide tally had reached a grim record of 58 homicides in one year. This year, as the death toll has surpassed that record and reached 60 as of Friday, a symbol of healing also will mark the four-day vigil, which starts Dec. 28. The hand-painted crosses bearing the names and ages of recent homicide victims that for seven weeks have been clustered in a park in front of City Hall will be part of this year's vigil at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

Aubrey Plaza is far, far away. On her iPhone.   "I just want to let you know that I'm in Romania at a really strange beach bar, so I apologize for any weird Romanian shouting in the background," says the actress, who happens to be from Wilmington, and happens to be somewhere near Bucharest, and happens to have her first lead role in a motion picture in theaters right now. That would be Safety Not Guaranteed, an engagingly off-the-wall love...