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A $150 million streetscape project will transform South Broad Street’s Avenue of the Arts with trees, public art, traffic calming, and redesigned medians and sidewalks, starting this winter. 

Both the median strip and sidewalks on South Broad Street will hold landscaping and art under a new streetscape planned to eventually stretch from City Hall south to Washington Avenue. The first phase, from Spruce to Pine Streets, is pictured in this rendering.
Both the median strip and sidewalks on South Broad Street will feature landscaping and art as part of a new streetscape planned to eventually extend from City Hall south to Washington Avenue. The first phase, from Spruce to Pine Streets, is pictured in this rendering.

By Peter Dobrin, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 14, 2026

Lush landscaping and public art will soon line Broad Street, impromptu performances may pop up, and vehicular traffic will be calmed with a new Avenue of the Arts south streetscape about to take shape. 

The project — estimated to take $150 million and a decade to realize — will begin modestly. 

The actual construction is slated to start at the end of January on a small portion of the project: remaking the median strip between Spruce and Pine Streets. That phase is expected to be completed by June. 

In 2027, after the anticipated swell in tourism and street activity during the Semiquincentennial ends, sidewalk beautification will begin on both the east and west sides of that block. 

Eventually, pending funding, all of the blocks between City Hall and Washington Avenue will be remade. 

Looking north toward City Hall, a rendering shows the completed first phase of a South Broad Street streetscape project slated to break ground in January 2026.

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