The University of Pennsylvania is the largest private employer in the City of Philadelphia and the fourth largest in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. With help and guidance from community leaders, Penn has leveraged its purchasing power, its knowledge assets and its capital resources to provide new economic opportunities for local businesses and job growth among neighborhood residents. There have been measurable benefits to the neighborhood, city and region:

• The University Square project, originally built as “Sansom Common,” provided $18 million in construction contracts for local minority and women-owned business, with minority and female construction workers performing 32 percent of the labor hours;

• More than 150 West Philadelphians and 559 City residents worked on University Square construction – and West Philadelphians were recruited to fill more than half of the 400 new permanent jobs;

• In 2001, Penn purchased over $65.1 million in goods and services from West Philadelphia vendors, bringing the six-year total in its “Buy West Philadelphia” program to $261.8 million.

These results have been driven by a number of targeted University programs designed to expand the number of jobs and economic opportunities available to those who live, work and own businesses in West Philadelphia. They include:

• Creating Jobs Through New Construction and Projects
• Buy West Philadelphia”…Leveraging Penn’s Purchasing Power

Creating Local Jobs Through New Construction and Projects
Through a number of major construction projects, Penn has helped transform the business climate in West Philadelphia. Under the University’s Community Advisory Committee for Economic Inclusion, local community participation in such campus employment has increased sharply:

• University Square: Completed in 1999, the $90 million University Square retail and hotel development on the site of a former campus parking lot is the largest commercial investment in West Philadelphia history. The project created 400 new permanent jobs. The University awarded more than $18 million in construction contracts to local minority-and women-owned businesses. Minority and female construction workers performed 32 percent of labor hours worked. More than 150 West Philadelphia residents and 559 Philadelphia residents worked on the site. The project has also had a long-term impact on local employment because West Philadelphia residents fill more than half of the new permanent jobs created by University Square merchants.

• 40th Street: Penn is the principal commercial developer at the corner of 40th and Walnut Streets. Its main anchor is the new 35,000-square-foot Freshgrocer market beneath an 800-car parking garage. Across the street will be a new 8-screen art house cinema. Together with support for smaller merchants along the 40th Street corridor that links campus to the rest of West Philadelphia, these projects provide a new source of local jobs, as well as an environment that attracts further private investment.

• Biomedical Research Building II/III: For the $95-million BRB II/III construction project, Penn awarded more than $28 million in contracts to area minority-and women-owned businesses. A total of 22 percent of those employed by the project were women and minorities, along with more than 80 local residents.

Buy West Philadelphia… Leveraging the University’s Purchasing Power
Penn’s spending on goods and services in West Philadelphia has increased 400 percent since 1995. Through the Buy West Philadelphia Program, the University identifies and purchases products and services from West Philadelphia vendors, while also helping these small businesses in forging partnerships with major national firms. These include IKON Office Solutions, Fisher Scientific, and Staples. In 2001 alone, Penn purchased over $65.1 million in goods and services from West Philadelphia vendors, bringing the six-year total of Buy West Philadelphia to $261.8 million.