PHILADELPHIA — The northward view from John F. Kennedy Boulevard near 30th Street Station here features only a parking lot bordered by a sagging chain-link fence and overshadowed by the rusting trestles of an elevated freight railroad.

The dismal urban landscape contrasts sharply with plans for a 6.4 million-square-foot hub of sleek new buildings for technology incubators, academic offices and retail space that would be built on the parking lot and the surrounding area.

The planned development, on a 12-acre site where Drexel University has acquired properties over the last decade, is part of a vision that might eventually include building over a 75-acre rail yard, an audacious idea that would represent a huge addition to the rapidly developing area immediately west of Philadelphia’s central business district.

Next month, Drexel officials plan to announce their selection of a firm to do a two-year feasibility study of the rail yard idea, which was inspired by New York’s Hudson Yards project, John A. Fry, the university’s president, said in an interview.