I have a question about the National, or more precisely, the empty lot across from it. What's going up there?

That was a different time, however. In 2005, most families want to live in the suburbs with thier plot of land. The people who tend to move into the cities in droves are younger people and empty nesters - neither of which have the time and patience to deal with rowhomes. Rowhomes are all nice and good (yes, I do agree with this), but what makes a city better is a mixed environment of both rowhomes and highrises so all are accomodated. Of all the major older urban cities, Philadelphia has the fewest residential highrises and yet at the same time Center City real estate is in demand. Thus there is a market that is not beign satisfied. Developers want to build highrises and many of the oens that are built get filled up. Thus it seems that the demand is there for high rises. So do we want to deny this city the growth it deserves because we want to keep to the old rules (short buildings, etc.). Sure tis change but can you imagine what this city woudl be like had we never goten rid of the Billy Penn rule?

I'm in favor of a nice cityscape. Where we differ is taht I think a lively cityscape is made by a mixture of shorter buildings and taller buildings. It seems like too often Philadelphia is willing to live with abandoned shorter buildings (Locust Club), empty lots ("Flagpole Park"), and ugly parking lots (the parking lot at 17th and Rittenhouse) just to avoid building tall buildings because tall buildings would "ruin the cityscape" (as if the parking lot, the empty lot, and the abandoned buildings don't).

This is Locust Street, however. There really isn't much in the way of historic scale there to begin with. Already the street is filled with a bunch of high rise buildings which do add to the streetscape sicne they ahve storefronts and are often residential. In fact, I think Locust is one of the more interesting streets in the city. Considering that Locust already has several buildings well over 8 stories tall, this proposed building will not be out of place. As for streetscape, the old Locust club has been without a stable tenant for 4 years? 5 years? I think the only somewhat legitimate concern then is the church's concern about sunlight (since there's no historical value to the old 1950's Locust club building or to the streetscape in that immediate area). That concern, however,has to be balanced with what is truly beneficial to the city. I know its only my opinion, but I'd take a building which will add residents to the city and fill up a piece of abandoned streetscape over a few plants anyday.

:droool: I always thoguht the Billy Penn rule was an esoteric weird anachronism of Philadelphia. Now I hear its spun off some kin!!!

This is one of the few cities that has such a hang-up over height - as if it is not Quaker to build tall. We're not talking about putting up the Montparnasse Tower in Paris. Asides from a few select areas, this city does not resemble anything in Europe and never has. People seem to constantly try to impose European ideals on this city and each and every time they fail and not only fail but backfire. The Billy Penn rule forced Philadelphia architechts to design bland boring office boxes like Penn Center (since their buildings would never stand out anyway). The closing of Chestnut Street killed the businesses along there. Now we've got the height laws that are like an albatross stymieing the development that this city needs. Ironically, this city's most major attempt to be European (the Ben Frankling Parkway and the Art Museum) would almost certainly be NIMBYed if it came up today. I can't imagine anyone today approving tearing down entire city neighborhoods to build the Parkway or taking over hte old Fairmount Reservoir to build the Art Museum.

I know the oft quoted statement as to why Philadelphia should keep its old quirky rules is that "if it aint broke don't fix it". However, isn't that what the Detroit automakers said in the 1970's?

So- wouldn't a row-house, townhouse revival bring more people back to the city? Because highrise condo's don't have any land, it prevents the people you mention from considering the city. Rows and townhouses have some yard - and should be more effective at bringing people back, because they appeal to a broader range of potential residents.


Except that what's driving the suburban sprawl is the younger & older people (are there any other kinds?) moving into row homes and retirement quads in the suburbs. How come most of the retirees moving into new places in the suburbs are moving into what are basically row homes?

I'd rather see an ordiance allowing neighbors to create a "block owners association" similar to a homeowners association, and directly fund maintence of the fronts and facades of the homes on the block- and compete head to head with the suburbs.

Agreed- so add midrises in the areas that don't have a mix, instead of adding more highrises to areas that have a perfect mix.


Really? didn't know that-
but what are "major", how old is "older", what defines "urban" and could you mention any city that fits the above criter that actually has more residenital highrises?

Not quite- center city living is in demand- not the real estate itself.
You don't sell real estate, you sell the lifestyle.

Oh, really, name one?

"many of the ones that get built"- that's a nice way of saying lots of projects fail, many are built just for the sake of building, and then you hope to get people to move in- ala Dockside, Bridge 5, Watermill and others.

There was an article in the Sunday inquirer about how the 10 Rittenhouse Project was the first designed-as-condo project in almost 20 years- if that's true, then where are all those highrises coming from?

Well, one guess, developers are in the business of developing property- so even when there's not need- ala philly region with almost zero-net-population growth, you have people develop property - but it's a zero-sum game, based on getting people to move from suburbs to ex-urbs, then inner ring to suburbs, then north philly to inner ring, and north philly stays deserted...

Yes, Liberty 1 & 2 wouldn't have been built, most of the highrises along West Market wouldn't have been built, and the office space along Broad Street would have been restored and refurbished instead.

Building don't create jobs. Businesses create jobs. Residenital construction is normally a net loss for the city, and now it's even worst with the 10 year tax abatement.

First the city was paying people to build hotels, now they're paying to build condos- you can't continue the Potemkin Village model of building just to keep people employed, eventually we have to focus on saving affordable commercial space, retail space for those businesses which employ and grow- otherwise, Philly is simply going to be a bizzare cross between a florida retirement condo and historic Williamsburg.

You can't run a city where everyone under 40 works in a Stephen Starr restaurant, and everyone over 40's retired.

It's the developers who cause the abandoned buildings, not the zoning.
For any building, I can give you a laundry list of young upstart businesses who'd like to rent there- but, once you rent, you're locked into the John Guielgood model "make money the old fashinoned way- we earn it",
rather than the get rich-quick by building a store-spa-hotel-condo or whatever the fad is.

Zoning has nothing to do with abandoned buildings. Building downtown get abandoned becasue people see dollar signs, channel the ghost of Sam Rappaport, and demolish the buildings a little at a time inorder to build something new.

So, to preserve this "mix" you're in favor of having all tall buildings?
That's like Henry Ford - "buy a Model A Ford in any color you like as long as it's black"

Eh, there's a giant gap between the occasional 8 story building and the buildings being proposed. Most of the "tall" buildings you see around that are are only 5-10 stories, nowhere near the size of many of the new condo projects...

Agreed- so they can start building on Locust Club right after they've finished condo-conversion from Broad and Race up to the Botany Bay building up by the Amtrak station on Broad Street...

Hal

Um, you do know that building the Ben Franklin Parkway drove the largest manufacturer in the City- Baldwin Locomotives- out of the city around 1910?

In much the same way, in 2005, tourism and hospitality is the major economic engine for the City of Philadelphia-

So, yes, if we work hard, demolish as-fast-as-we-can, we can hope to emulate Atlanta, and copy West Conshohocken, and produce rows and rows of buildings with no businesses to go into them.

If we replace the original and historic buildings with new, why is there any reason to stay? Why not just head to Houston, Phoenix or any other "new" area?

Hal

Hal, even though I often don't agree with you and Jayfair on these issues, I do respect your very informed opinions. However, I think the above one foes a little far. Philadelphia is FAR, I mean FAR, from running out of rowhomes. This entire city is practically made up of them. All I am calling for is a diversity of building types to suit all needs. According to the Center City District, the growth in Center City is mostly with younger single people and empty nesters - the type of demographic that favors high rises because they do not want to maintain a row home. The reason the growth isn't as strong for family people isn't due to lack of row homes (there's PLENTY of them in Center City) but due to other factors such as cost (which the addition of mroe housing stock should lower), the preference of family types for the suburbs (hey, that's jsut the way it is much as we would like to think that they would choose the city if given a chance), fear of exposing their children to the crackheads on the street (and there are plenty of them in Center City), and, above all, a poor school district.

That still doesn't negate, however, the fact that what is driving growth in Center City is also younger people and retirees, not middle aged people. We can keep on modelling Philadelphia after Paris (never mind that it is not European, not a city that grew organically over 1,000 years, not a major cultural center of the entire world, not the capital of a major country, etc.) but nothing will change the fact that this is an American city. Generally speaking, middle aged family-oriented people move to the suburbs. The fact that they are doing so is not because they want to live in the city but can't because Philadelphia is loosing its rowhomes. If anything, Philadelphia has plenty of rowhomes for the picking and yet they are not choosing them.

I read that somewhere in the Inquirer. I don't know what criterea they use. However, it is oft-repeated that Philadelphia is not a high-rise residential city. Does this mean that there's a lack of demand for high-rise livign or does it mean that there is demand that hasn't been met because the city's traditionally conservative environment (wherein local developers tend to be more conservative as well), I don't know.

True. Which is why even though many might consider livign in a low-rise mroe desirable than living in a high-rise, people would choose to live ina high-rise if that means they get to live in the heart of things. If we applied the strict row-house planning rules to Rittenhouse square, FAR fewer people would be able to partake in living on the Square. Of course many of us may not care. However, there's no doubt taht what maks hte Square the Square is the fact that there's a density of people living on it that keeps it alive after 7PM.

Moving people from the exurbs to the suburbs and from the suburbs to the city would be a gain under most urbanite's rules. Moving people from North Philly to Center City? North Philly would have emptied out with or without Center City growth. If anything, Center City growth has been driving growth in North Philly recently (Art Museum area, Breweytown, Callowhill, NoLibs - all once undoubtedly labelled "North Philly").

I'd agree to that - build the infill first. The problem is that the infill buildings get opposed too. The building at 17th and Rittenhouse is being opposed to death even though what is on that site right now is a parking lot. Then there was all that opposition to the loss of "Flagpole Park" (more like "Flagpole cracked asphalt empty lot"). Then there was the opposition in University City to Drexel's plans to build a dorm at 33rd and Powelton because building it would cover an empty lot and make the neighborhood loose its "greenspace" even though the area is now a fenced-off weed infested lot with no trees (I know the opposition to a dorm was the real factor but the loss of "greenspace" was often brought up). It seems like anyone proposing anything new is damned if they do and damned if they don't. They can tear domething down and coem under fire from the preservationists or they can build on an empty lot and come under fire of people arguing that the city is being overbuilt and there would be loss of "greenspace" or "sunshine".

Geez, it seems that the city took one step forward and 5 steps back. In getting rid of the arcane Billy Penn rule, which was only a "gentleman's agreement" and not an enforceable law, it set up all these height regulations which are enforceable and restrictive. As I've said before, the people making up these laws msut think we're in some quaint historic European City and not a city that, for the most part, grew in the last 150 yers often on development much more speculative and not historically-minded than the relatively conservative and mdoest development we're seeing today. Back in the 1800's and early 1900's they bulldozed littel vilalges of stone homes and bulldozed hills and covered creeks to put up some pretty ugly look-alike rowhomes just about everywhere. I'm not saying what they did was right (in fact I think it was wrong) but basically this si the type of city layout Philadelphia has. Much as I hate to say it, but it is not Paris and yet we have these zonign ordinances left and right that are treating the city as if it is some endangered species that can onyl be allowed to evolve in very restrictive ways.

That's hardly happening though. Most of the proposed developments are going into relatively small areas and some of them are going onto empty lots or parking lots. In the case of the Locust Club condos and the Wheeler building, it seems like the developer went out of the way to make the buildings historically sensitive (even Inga Saffron criticized the Wheeler building for looking too historic!). It seems like what many in the city want is for Center City to develop like Society Hill - all low-rise buildings and all historically sensitive. That's all fine and good if you want to live in the 1700's (and back then Society Hill was more interesting than it is now sicne they had mroe commercial developments there). The Rittenhouse area dates to the mid-1800's and many of the buildings there are much newer than that. It also has a mixture of low rise and high rise and that's what makes it interesting. The relatively few (compared to other cities) developments being proposed will hardly change that. If anything they add to that and yet they run afoul of the city's archaic zoning rules. I'd be more inclined to agree with the NIMBYs if developers are tearing things down left and right and putting up sterile new buildings btu they aren't.

By the way, I am VERY surprised little opposition has been raised against Old City 108. I like that building but it seems to go against what alot of the NIMBYs believe in. For starters, it is much taller than anything else in that area. Secondly, it isn't in keeping with tis surroundings, being much bigger at the base than the 18th century row homes it surrounds. Thirdly, the materials that it uses are discordant with everything around it. If anything, Old City 108 was built to arrogantly stand out of the crowd and yet we have alot of opposition to buildings like the Wheeler building and the Locust Club codnoes that would not stand out of the crowd.

http://www.bartonpartners.com/BA_Lin...n_natprod.html

http://phillyblog.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3035

http://www.khov.com/Home/PA/GN/_Prop...htm?FlashVer=6

__________________
Cheers,
Jayfar
--
“I am indeed well aware of the history of Conventional (sic) Hall, both globally and locally, and can assure you that we are carefully exploring avenues for its future.” -- Penn President Amy Gutmann 5 days before demolition began.

Uh, you're kidding right?

There are several "highrises" at the northeast corner of 18th & Walnut and along 18th between Walnut & Locust,
and the Wheeler tower makes them look like a speed bump!




That building is head and shoulders higher than anything else along South 18th Street.

Wheeler's building is LITERALLY twice as wide or twice as tall as the biggest buildings in the area.

PLUS, it is twice as wide AND twice as tall as most of "highrises" in that area. That hulk is rouhgly as wide as the
Rittenhouse Claridge AND the Rittenhouse Regency, (Rouge & Bleu)
put together- and it's twice as tall...


Hal