The Fairmount Park Conservancy has hired a veteran of the University of Pennsylvania’s community and economic development efforts to serve as its next chief executive officer.
Tony Sorrentino, an associate vice president at UPenn who has worked on projects such as the revitalization of the 40th Street retail corridor and the development of the Pennovation Works tech hub, will take up the helm at the conservancy in October.
The 27-year-old nonprofit organization serves as the “steward” for the city’s 10,000-acre park system, raising funds, overseeing big park renovations, and running recreational and educational programs.
Sorrentino, a Philly native and a UPenn-trained urban planner, said he is looking forward to amplifying the impact of the public-private partnership between the city and the conservancy to increase funding for parks and improve residents’ access to green spaces.
“I’ve seen first-hand examples of philanthropy coming in and playing huge roles in improving civic life in cities, and I believe there is a group of people that may not even see themselves as philanthropists, that will be excited about supporting open green space, resilient cities and sustainability,” he said in an interview.
He joins the conservancy as it oversees the largest project in its history, a controversial $250 million renovation of FDR Park in South Philly, as well as a major overhaul of the Welsh Fountain and surrounding landscape in West Fairmount Park and other projects. The nonprofit is also approaching the final stages of a five-year, $110 million fundraising campaign.
“Tony brings just a wealth of experience and enthusiasm and really relevant knowledge of Philadelphia’s public green space, as well as ability to really advocate for our work and for the benefit of the residents, given his prior experience in public-private partnerships at Penn and and elsewhere,” said Carol Eicher, the conservancy’s president and board chair.
Between town and gown
Sorrentino was born in Overbrook and grew up in Upper Darby, and he has roots in South Philly, where his father’s family ran a corner grocery store. He attended La Salle University and UPenn, and lived in Germantown, Center City and West Philly before settling in Chestnut Hill, he said.
“The Wissahickon is just kind of part of my DNA at this point. It kind of courses through me,” he said. “Wherever I’ve lived, I’ve kind of sought out the parks, whether it was Rittenhouse or Fitler Square, or the Wister Woods in Germantown, Clark Park in West Philadelphia, or the Schuylkill Banks.”
Sorrentino headed communications departments at the Franklin Institute and the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance before joining UPenn, where he’s currently an associate vice president in the office of the executive vice president. His duties include overseeing staff involved in land planning, real estate development, community development, marketing communications, and several other areas.
He said his work has been part of the “anchor institution” movement of the last two decades, which aims to use the resources of big organizations like universities and hospitals to improve urban environments.
He spent years meeting with residents in their homes and churches, asking them what they wanted from the university, and then worked to turn 40th Street into a “cool Main Street” with shops, restaurants, a reopened public library, improved street lighting and other amenities, he said.
Sorrentino worked on the university’s redevelopment of a large swath of land along the Schuylkill River into the Penn Park sports fields complex and created a farmer’s market at 36th and Walnut, he said. He worked on Penn’s 30-year campus development plan, ran a campaign to publicize the university’s socioeconomic impact on the city, and contributed to its Climate Action Plan.
He has a book coming out called Medicine for the City, about how academic medical districts like Philadelphia’s “break boundaries in healthcare and drive economic growth.”
A “green backbone” with economic benefits
At the Fairmount Park Conservancy, Sorrentino plans to focus on the idea that healthy parks make for a resilient city, providing a place of respite for all residents in an era of advancing climate change, he said.
“We have 1.6 million people, we have a lot of acreage, and it seems that there are parks that have maybe greater amenities than others, and I don’t think anybody — whether you’re a senior citizen or a child — should have to travel miles for a safe place to play or a safe place to sit under a cool tree on a hot summer day. That is about access and equity,” he said.
He praised the role of the Fairmount Park Conservancy’s programs in getting young people interested in environmental sciences, its work coordinating an army of volunteers who help maintain parks, and the economic development benefits of its activities.
“All cities need a green backbone, and the park system can be the green backbone. Out of that physical place and the way that it’s programmed, it generates social and economic activity,” he said. “The parks can anchor the city writ large, but on a very neighborhood level, in a city of neighborhoods, they can anchor communities.”
Sorrentino declined to comment directly on the FDR Park controversy, saying he needed to study up on it. A group of residents unsuccessfully sued to try to stop the removal of hundreds of trees as part of the conservancy project. Some have also protested the creation of new wetlands, athletic fields and other features on a former wild meadow.
“Somewhere between the passion of advocacy and the complexity of municipal management, there are solutions in between,” Sorrentino said. “Organizations like the conservancy play perfect roles between that advocacy and that passion, and facts and science and planning.”
A huge demand for resources
Eicher said Philly’s parks have perhaps $1 billion or more worth of needs, and that Sorrentino’s skills will help the conservancy move toward satisfying that demand.
She noted that the organization has grown from 3 staffers to nearly 30 over the past quarter-century, and now has a $40 million budget, $30 million of which goes toward project costs and the rest for operating expenses.
“I like to think that we’re in our adolescence, so we still have an enormous amount of possible growth and projects in front of us that the residents of the city really are looking to someone to undertake,” she said. “Tony coming on board is going to make a step change in our ability to raise funds and to deploy those funds for the betterment of Philadelphia’s parks.”
The conservancy’s previous CEO, Maura McCarthy, stepped down in September after five years in the job. Tim Clair, the organization’s interim CFO, has been serving as interim CEO and will return to his prior position when Sorrentino begins.
McCarthy’s base pay was $251,348 in 2023, according to the conservancy’s most recently available tax filings. Sorrentino’s future salary has not been released.
