Temple University has released a new strategic plan with a list of real estate projects that President John Fry hopes will transform the North Philadelphia neighborhood around the main campus over the next two decades.
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The initiative, shared with the public late last month, calls for the expansion of on-campus housing as the university looks to minimize the impact students have on the surrounding neighborhood. It also includes upgraded spaces for STEM students.
Temple is plotting a new residence hall at the northern end of Liacouras Walk at the site previously occupied by Peabody Hall, which was demolished in 2018. The mixed-use building, with retail and recreational facilities, will enable the school to renovate the nearby Johnson and Hardwick halls.
It will be the first new residential building at Temple since the college opened Morgan Hall in 2013.
Temple is also planning to knock down Beury Hall, which houses its geology and chemistry departments, and is plotting selective demolitions and renovations at the nearby Biology Life Sciences Building. That project will include an expanded pavilion to serve as a new welcome center, as well as classrooms, labs and administrative offices.
Additional green space and landscaping improvements are also priorities for the main campus and the Health Sciences Center about a mile north. Construction is also underway at Terra Hall, a former University of the Arts property that Temple bought for $18M following the smaller school’s 2024 bankruptcy.
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No price tag has been shared for the projects announced, and Temple may not have the bandwidth to take them all on at once. The on-campus housing and STEM plans appear to be the top priorities, but it isn’t clear which one would take precedence.
"We have to see how much capacity do we have,” Fry told the Philadelphia Business Journal. “And if we don't have capacity to do both at once, we'll pick one and we'll engage."
In December, he revealed that Temple was seeking a developer for a new residence hall during a NAIOP Greater Philadelphia event.
“Temple has to do its part to house more first- and second-year students,” Fry said.
The lack of new on-campus housing has led students to lease private market apartments in the surrounding neighborhood. Their late-night antics and sometimes questionable stewardship of rental properties has created tension with longtime residents.
“We just didn’t invest in our own housing stock,” Fry said in December. “We allowed students to live anywhere they wanted to with chaos everywhere.”
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