I have to disagree. Aesthetically, I think the Cira Centre looks great next to 30th street station. If they had built a monstrosity, it would look out of place.

Price per square foot averages about $24 in Philadelphia, which about half the cost of space in New York City, and very much lower than in Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago. Also, Philly's vacancy rate is higher than New York's, DC's, and Boston's (and the same as Chicago's and SF's).

absolutely everything has a mutually agreeable price.

if a good number of businesses do not find moving to philadelphia on the sole basis of real estate prices economically attractive enough, i can guarantee you that there will be a middle point -which has not been reached yet- somewhere between what businesses are willing to pay and what real estate owners are willing to accept, at which point businesses will decide to make the move, and settle here.

simple.

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¡Es the Ess-dog, ese!

We have to be careful about some assertions (me too)---but Liberty Place is a 20 year old building----since it was built there has been 35 MILLION SQ feet of newer space built in the metro area---since Commerce II was built, there has been >25 MILLION SF built---except for Cira, ALL HAS BEEN in the suburbs.

25 point toss up---since Comcast and Cira were announced---what has happened to the supply of office building SF in Center City? How much has been taken off the market and converted to hotel of residential? And how much more before Comcast gets built------hint---it's a LOT!

Tax reductions YES YES YES---I agree---but did anyone see what the expected sale price of Two Liberty will be (in PBJ)?----about $120/SF---do you know what kind of rents they COULD charge with that basis? And Centre Square---our 40 year old class A skyscraper----it isn't---and they could fill the space easily by charging lower rents (which they could given the basis the current owners have in the building---which isn't bandied about in the discussion---here we HATE profit hungry developers, who invest and BUILD, but we LOVE profit hungry asset buyers and sellers, who make paper transactions on existing assets----hmmmmm go figure!

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SPM

By the way...

10 Rittenhouse was mentioned several times in this thread. Wanted to point out that I just noticed their Web site:

http://www.10rittenhouse.com/

Thanks for providing that. I never came across it before, either.

I never really got into the whole fight surrounding this building (and I think I'll stay that way) but all the hair pulling and screaming seems a little bit over the top, IMO. The renderings look good, it's not huge and I think the design is influenced by the area.

From what I understand, however, its chances are nil.

I agree. I think it is a good design that is sensitive to the area. It seems that it would blend in nicely with the square, actually much nicer than many of the bland boxes already existent on the square. And as far as the buildings that must be demolished to make way for it, well, they were already destroyed when they were "renovated" several times over.