Two buildings and a concrete plaza?

No, I think the idea is to create a more pedestrian friendly area with walks, shops and restaurants at the Girard location to serve as a link from the Convention Center and Chestnut Street, and not just tall flat elevations such as an indoor mall.

If they're touting P.F. Chang's as an early major tenant, no, they're not.

I will grant this much after a visit to Bellevue, Wash.:

Given that Edge Cities are here to stay in some form, I'd rather they looked like cities, as Bellevue does, than like amorphous blobs at freeway interchanges, like King of Prussia.

But when your amenities are all chain operations, then you still don't have something truly urban, for urban places tend to grow and develop organically over time and attract small independent businessfolk that give the places their distinctive character. (Bellevue's older Main Street serves as a contrast there and underscores my point. The new Edge City has arisen immediately to Main Street's north, around a shopping mall that opened just after WW2 but which is built to respect the city street grid -- as are all the other, newer retail, residential and office developments in downtown Bellevue.)

Still, I wish Phoenix well in its efforts to create an instant downtown. It's about time: the city's been around since 1900 or so.

__________________
Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
"Jazz and blogging are both intimate, improvisational, and individual -- but also inherently collective. And the audience talks over both." --Andrew Sullivan, "Why I Blog," The Atlantic, November 2008

With out a cover that would never work. Not here and certainly not in Phoenix. Our weather is only nice enough for that scenerio for a few weeks in the spring and fall. If it were in Phoenix then obviously it would have to close for the summer. East Chestnut is getting there, block by block. Any word on that funny looking hotel that was supposed to be coming? That would help as would even more residential.

__________________
Forget it Jake……It’s CHINATOWN!

I meant the renderings from Phoenix.

Anyone know what happened to Union Trust, the steakhouse next to Morimoto that was being opened by Grasso? It was supposed to open in spring 08.

probably what seems ot happen to nearly all new restaurants...the PGW/L&I gamut. BTW, 707 is going to be run by garces.

__________________
"You down wit OPM?"
Fumo: "Yeah, you know me!"