As long as the feverishly efficient Philadelphia Parking Authority, greedy parking companies, slew of homeless, the hood rats blasting their stereos mistaking Market Street for Germantown Ave or the Wildwood Boardwalk , then Center City will never ever realize its potential.

Center City has found its niche as a cool place to have a drink, dinner maybe a morning latte but it will always play a secondary role to King of Prussia and Cherry Hill on the retail front.

I don't see why this is hard to understand. Crate & Barrel is not the kind of place that has a store every 10 miles or so. (one reason for their success) It is much easier for people from CC to shop in New Jersey then it is for people from New Jersey to shop in CC. Not to mention that there are many more people in NJ who can afford C&B then there are in CC. A CC store will mostly get shoppers who live in CC. Once you filter out students, young people struggling to pay the rent, retired people who are done buying furniture, transients only here for a few years or until the baby arrives etc. etc. Cherry Hill is a good central location for covering the eastern half of the metro which is why it has a branch of nearly every store in the world.

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Can’t we all just get a lawn?

get a better goverment in city hall who will reform zoning and taxes, at least try to work on the crime issue and work on market east and you might get a store like c&b. (even though i much prefer cb2 to c&b...) but really having a c&b in cc would not be as big a draw as it will be in cherry hill or kop as access to the latter two is far easier by car for suburbanites, who are squarely c&b's taget audience.

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"i live my life in the city"

As far as I know, it's just a Starbucks but with two levels.

I've never been to C&B, but doesn't Bo Concept, West Elm, and Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams count a substantive retail?

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"Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness."

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)

...will follow when there becomes too many redundant places for food in town. We're not NY, we dont need a Starsucks on every corner & i think eventually, possibly after the next census, new places for substantial retail will trek into town.

(Side note: I still want that damn House of Blues in town!)

I perosnally like C&B, but I think theres more than enough home-furnishing places in Center City. Maybe the CPDC can call up Illinois and work on getting a CB2---sooo much more fitting for the narrow rowhomes/dense condos of CC. While theyre at it, maybe they can ressurect that Target proposal at 8th & Market (huge $$$maker!!) or, fill my personal dream and get a Container Store in town!!

The Container Store would be a bin win for Philly, especially if it opens in Center City.

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Buh-bye.

Is that the same place that was in the court @ KOP near Macys that closed?
I loved that store but if you can't make it in KOP.......where can you then?

I can understand the logic of Starbucks in a crazy way. There is no need to travel more than one block for coffee and a snack so I guess they want as much of the action as they can get by opening on every block.

I am surprised that they make enough profit to pay the rent but then I guess that is another of life's mysteries.

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Can’t we all just get a lawn?

C&B has 2 components; housewares/casual DIY furniture & the regular furniture dept; not all C&B stores have the furniture dept.

Although there is a Williams Sonoma @ The Shops at the Bellvue, I would agree that CC can use another housewares specialty store like PB or C&B without the furniture. I am very surprised that PB doesn't have a store here, though. They have stores with footprints as large as West Elm and as small as Williams Sonoma, so they don't necessarly need a large retail space.

I do understand the logic of the Cherry Hill site. However, part of why I'd never want to scout locations for a big company is precisely because I simply have a distaste for the culture of opting for suburban locations over urban ones. I realize business is about making money and customers (supposedly) control the market, but I would still like to believe that CC can pull some significant retail.

The lack of any real housewares stores (Target, Linens N Things, a Macys with a housewares dept) in Center City has made my getting a car this year all the more useful. Of course, I fill my coffee cup at one of the 10 or so coffee shops within a 4 block radius of my place before I drive to the burbs.