so no development projects = bad sign.

lots of development projects = bad sign.

are there EVER good signs in this book?

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Adlerian PLEASE SEEK ANOTHER THERAPIST, this one IS NOT WORKING

You're absolutely right.

The reason why I brought it up in the first place is that you have the after-product of that government revitalization berating private developers who own the land and want to put up a rather un-threatening development. But those same residents are living in essentially what was a government housing project/redevelopment effort on a gigantic scale. Today, we are just discussing a single building. These people are living in a neighborhood that was centrally planned in one huge development project.

Besides, this building isn't threatening. It's not a nuclear power plant, ain't a whorehouse, a project tower, and it isn't a parking garage... it's homes for more rich lawyers.

Whatever finished design isn't ever going to exactly carbon copy any of its 1970s neighbors in the area--but at least they are homes designed to attract people who pay taxes into town--something we need, right?

I digress. Every single neighborhood association in Philadelphia rejects new developments and will only approve them after at least 5 rounds of redactions to the original project... that's why when a developer first approaches a neighborhood association, the plans are quite grandiose.

A 40 story building will get proposed when the developer originally intended only 12 stories to go up... so that way the neighborhood association board feels "empowered" when they reject the proposal multiple times until the building is shaved down to their liking.


It's so weird. Shadows are a concern in Manhattan only because you're dealing with very tall buildings packed closely together--something you only find in Philadelphia in one place.... near Liberty Place.

Everywhere else, shadows and dark sidewalks aren't even a concern for 15 story buildings.

Is 13th Street, dotted with high rise apartments... forever cast in darkness?

Does the St. James forever cloud Washington Square Park?

Do the people at Locust between 15th and 19th never get to see the sun?


Nope.

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Buh-bye.

I don't have the photo -- it's a scan of one that was loaned to me by the late The Rev. Carl Werner, pastor of Emanuel during the first renewal of its neighborhood.

There are more, from his collection, here.

I understand that the Hand of Doom was on the Southwark Projects neighborhood as early as 1939, discouraging the kind of home maintenance that helped other neighborhoods to keep their quaint charm.

A number of the phillyhistory.org photos you posted, the ones with buildings still standing, remind me of some of the shells down in my neighborhood that were lovingly restored before the gut-and-gouge developers took over.

(By the way, one in your series looks suspiciously like a house next to a 2000s clean-and-green lot. I wonder if it was mislabeled.)

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some development projects = good sign

Wow, don't you get the warm fuzzies when seeing that photo collection... how well intentioned the projects were and how the church was gun-ho about them?

Feels sad things didn't turn out so well.

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Buh-bye.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL-SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEIT!


OMFG lol what kind of statement is that? You are hanging your ass out to dry, my friend? If the project fails, you hope to recover it by turning it into rental and coming clean off the loss... or selling the basketcase to another property management firm who can fix your mistakes and do something with the development.

No, the developer has to buy 100% of the land, in cash or with a loan. That is what you have to do to begin the process.

After that, you have to pay an architecture firm to come up with a design and then the plans for that design and go back to your lender to approve the plan, the timeline, and you have to agree on a general contractor and perform estimates for materials and cost.

In case you haven't looked around... the days of slap-happy credit are over, at least for now. Unless a developer is doing this with his own cash (not likely--they all run to banks or setup REITs), the project has to be very well thought out--because the developer is still liable for the project that is using private equity.

This isn't like the DisneyHole where Disney was calling the shots with Philly's money. This is the developer's money and they are calling the shots under the gun of the ZBA and City Council, who give their thumbs up and thumbs down based on whatever the neighborhood association says.

Since the 1970s, development still comes from 3 major sources. Cash on hand (rare), loans to a partner development corp (common), or a Real-Estate Investment Trust (most common).

Trust me... the overbuilding stopped dead cold as soon as the banks said "FU__ YOU" whenever a developer called up with a new idea. Look at South Florida. The only construction work going on now is wrap-up on existing commitments, and walking away from the buildings.

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Buh-bye.

Yes. I guess the funding source has never looked at Financial Times or The Wall Street Journal and is writing blank cheques with their blinders on.

Maybe it's some rich family in India that's funding all this and they haven't gotten word yet that the credit-financing system in America has hit the skids... because the news hasn't been sent to them yet over the telegraph.

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Buh-bye.

You know, I was equally incredulous when I was told that many developers have "no skin in the game". Unfortunately, it's quite true that many developers take no personal financial risk whatsoever when they do a big project. I had this explained in detail to me by a number of NYC condo developers.

As you and I know, there are still many people who believe that Philly is different. Blinders are still on...

From what I hear from the old heads at the church, the projects were fine up till the 70s -- they included a number of folks in moderate- and low-income situations, including foreign medical students -- and it was a vibrant mix filled with optimism and neighborliness. At some point, though, the regulations were changed and it started its decline. By the time the towers were imploded, many of the units were vacant. Others had been vacated by the lease-holders, who'd been driven out by, e.g., daughter's deadbeat druggy boyfriend, who then held onto the place.

Throughout many of these years the church continued as a beacon, changing its language from German to English, offering a solid elementary and middle-school education at relatively low cost and receiving significant "mission" support from the denomination. Eventually, though, this support dried up and the church went into decline.

The miracle is that it is holding its own and even doing a bit of a modest rebirth. By now, though, it is facing monumental expenses to repair the roof and that scary steeple. Didn't it look nice in that 1965 photo?

(Full disclosure: I'm a lapsed member. Every Sunday morning, when sloth gets the better of me again, I cringe. Ditto for every time I go to the website and realize that I really need to find someone in the congregation to keep it up now that I'm hardly ever going.)

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