Wooden spools and reels at the Navy Yard

A campus that keeps building

The Navy Yard at the southern tip of Broad Street is one of the busiest places in Philadelphia for new construction and building fit-outs. The organisation that runs it describes a 1,200-acre campus with more than 150 companies, about 16,000 employees and 8 million square feet of space, and a plan for more than 30,000 jobs when it is fully built out. A campus growing toward that scale is a campus where cable is pulled every week: new offices and labs, conversions of old naval buildings, manufacturing spaces, and the power and communications infrastructure that serves them all.

What the reels look like here

Navy Yard reels come from three kinds of work.

• Tenant fit-outs. Office and lab interiors produce small plywood spools from branch wiring and data cable, and 30- to 42-inch nailed reels from feeders to new panels. They collect at loading docks and in basements until the contractor clears them.
• New buildings. Ground-up construction produces the big reels: service entrance and feeder cable on 48- to 72-inch nailed and bolted reels, left in a corner of the site when the electrical rough-in is finished.
• Campus infrastructure. Medium-voltage distribution, street lighting and fibre between buildings produce large wooden reels and some steel reels that belong to the cable makers.

Getting in and out

Trucks reach the Navy Yard by Broad Street from the north, or from I-95 and I-76 at the stadium complex. The Walt Whitman Bridge is the obvious crossing for loads continuing to South Jersey. Inside the campus, buildings have their own docks and delivery rules, and construction sites have gate logs. In a request, give the building or site name, the dock or gate, the contractor contact who signs drivers in, and the hours trucks are allowed.

Clearing a fit-out

Fit-out crews usually stack empties in a service corridor or a dock area that the building manager wants back. A single visit with a box truck can take a mix of spools and mid-size reels from several floors. Plywood spools ride stacked; nailed reels stand on their rims. If the reels are on an upper floor, say whether the freight elevator can be booked. Damaged reels, which fit-out work produces plenty of, go in the same load for recycling.

Clearing a construction site

On new-build sites, the reels are bigger and the timing is set by the schedule: the reel pile has to go before the site is paved or landscaped. Large reels need the site forklift or a truck with its own handling. Steel reels and stencilled reels are set aside and listed for the electrical contractor to return. One-way reels, sound and broken, are loaded and recorded for the job file.

Returnables on campus

Because the Navy Yard has a lot of medium-voltage and infrastructure work, it sees more returnable reels than an ordinary commercial area. Check every large reel for a maker's stencil, a reel number or a welded plate before including it on a list. The returnable reels entry explains the signs.

Buyers near the Navy Yard

South Philadelphia's makers, bars and restaurants ask for table-size reels, and Navy Yard fit-outs are a good source of clean 24- to 36-inch reels. If you are buying for delivery in 19112, 19145 or 19148, say so; a delivery can ride with a Navy Yard pickup.

Old naval buildings, new wiring

Many Navy Yard projects reuse buildings from the shipyard era: brick workshops, warehouses and offices with thick walls and few straight cable routes. Rewiring them means long pulls through new conduit and trays, often in several stages as tenants move in floor by floor. That pattern produces reels in waves rather than all at once, and it suits a recurring pickup: a contractor working across several Navy Yard buildings can have reels collected from one central spot each month instead of from every dock. See recurring pickup.

Weather by the water

The campus sits where the Schuylkill meets the Delaware, and reels left outdoors there take the wind and wet hard. Reels stored on open ground near the water rot faster at the bottom rim than reels stored inland. Stand them on pallets or gravel, keep them chocked, and clear them before winter if you can.

Typical list from here

"Navy Yard, building fit-out, dock B. Twenty plywood spools 12 to 24 inch, six 36-inch nailed, two 48-inch nailed, one 60-inch with tie rods. Forklift available mornings. Contractor contact signs drivers in." A list like that gets a precise reply within a day or two.

Shipyard cranes and dry docks

Shipbuilding continues at the shipyard on the Navy Yard's eastern side, alongside offices and labs. Marine contractors there use heavy shore-power and welding cable, often on sturdy drums that suit reuse once released.

Questions

Can you collect from a building with security screening at the gate?

Yes. Give us the gate procedure and the contact's name, and the driver will follow it.

Do you take reels from several contractors in one visit?

Yes, if each one agrees. List them separately so each contractor gets its own record.