Saw that was listed as part of the parkway beautification budget that was recently approved.

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that. -George Carlin

According to Illiniwek, who lives in the vicinity, they have been doing a fair amount of work in recent weeks moving utility lines from underneath the 16th & Vine lot into the street, presumably to make way for excavation for this building. But I agree that 2009 seems highly unlikely at this point.

Which new condos?

All of that may happen, but I thnk it's gonna take a while. Youth Center has to move before Barnes and that seems to be taking its sweet time.

I thought I read that the condo project for 22nd & Penna Ave fell through? Furthermore, I thought the 17th & Vine project fell through as well.

There's a whole thread on the condos at 22 & Penna: http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/fai...g-tonight.html



Parkway22 condo-sales center suspends activities

The sales center for Parkway22, a planned 35-story condominium complex behind the Rodin Museum, will suspend activities tomorrow because of "uncertain market conditions," according to the developer, V&H Hotel Associates. Dalia Shuster, longtime owner of the property and Parkway22 principal, said the sales center would be back in action when market conditions returned to normal. In the meantime, she said, design and site preparation would continue. - Harold Brubaker
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/18757034.html

Don't hold your breath about the Barnes move because there's going to
yet another attempt, this Fall via the courts, to keep it in Merion.

What condos, they're building? The Parkway project that was to replace
the beat up Best Western, is on hold. Financing again.

(Laughs) That's years away. I see it as another, "Don't hold your breath!" project.

Boston magazine did a piece recently about "the City that Might Have Been," which had five or six pages of artist renderings of major projects that never happened - huge monuments, vast skyscrapers, urban redesigns, dating back decades that were never built, but which would have radically changed the look of the city had they been. It was an interesting idea, but I kept thinking that if we did the same thing in Philadelphia, the article about grand plans that never happened would have to be about 100 pages long.

You can always shop at the new Trader Joe's at Broad and Mt. Vernon. Looks like demolition of the old Wilkie building will begin by the end of the year.

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[SIGPIC][SIGPIC]

and after that you can go next door to the Neiman Marcus and buy some new pajamas.

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Forget it Jake……It’s CHINATOWN!