The tough time for businesses around there is often when school is out. Its also near a lot of offices so I think the could do OK

__________________
A song that says it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqITJFGyq4s

if it's going to be an "indie chain", i would rather see something actually indie. they may have a better chance at staying around than normal, because they have a ton of customers over their head.

Nice to see I won't have to head to Center City to do my banking.


Good news.

I would imagine that the rent is too high in a building like Domus for an independent operation. Maybe a small chain, like Marathon, could afford the space, but a small business like a start-up burrito operation probably couldn't afford the rent, at least for the first few months. And big landlords generally aren't all that interested in catering to independent business. It's less of a headache for them to get a big corporate tenant in there, who can reliably write a rent check.

I agree. Though if you want to go to an indepedent Mex (well Cali-Mex anyways) restaurant in that area I'd recommend Mexicali on 40th and Sansom. Their food is filling, delicious, and cheap.

www.mexicalicafe.net

Have people started moving into the apartments yet? Whats the final retail lineup look like? Thanks

I live there.

There are some people, current occupants included, who are buying the units (I'm renting currently). Currently it's less than half occupied, kind of depressing to come up on the place at night and see a lot of dark windows, and I've not seen a big rush of potential renters coming in and looking. Gee I wonder why...a 1 BR is renting now for just shy of $2K...and that doesn't include parking. It may pick up again in the warmer months, who knows, but I've noticed a lot of people looking for housing on this side of UC coming up to the place and standing on the corner opposite from the building and laughing at how much it costs to live here. I'd considered looking into buying my unit but with the slowness of renting here I am concerned with getting it off my hands if I leave PA once my fellowship at the university is done. My general feeling is that Hanover and Met Life misjudged the target market on this one--while there are quite a few Penn and Drexel people living here, there's not enough professionals meeting the income requirements who'd want to live in a college town-like environment and fewer people able and willing to pony up the rent to live here than I'll bet they thought. Lot of Wharton and law students in this bunch though, probably as expected, and a few medical people like me.

What I can tell about the appointments of the places...the website advertises hardwoods in living areas--nope. Maybe in some of the units that rent near $3K and upwards, but I have some other type of flooring, have already had one of my bathroom cabinets fall off its hinges, and am generally not impressed with the flimsy cabinetry. We get free internet in the lobby here, wireless and kiosks, but the computer "workstations" are pretty much useless for other than surfing the internet or checking e-mail (not to mention they've been down for the past couple of days here, hopefully they will fix it). The computers don't recognize USB drives or CDs or DVDs--if you want to get any real work done using online resources, you either use your laptop with wireless or have access in your own place. There have been other snafus I'm not going to go into here. I'm hard pressed to want to renew here for a second year...

The convenience of having EMS, Starbucks, Wachovia, and a cell phone place is nice and each gets a steady stream of customers; I think there are still 3 or 4 storefronts still empty. What the plans are for those, I dunno; not seen any further prep on these fronts for retail tenants in a while.

This is just my POV, perhaps someone else can offer up their perceptions and opinions.

Good luck and thanks for the info. I was curious to how this project would fare. I walked by the project and noticed a lack of activity(maybe due to the holidays- alot of renters are out of town).


I have to give the developer thumbs up for being a being a pioneer though and I'm sure 10-15 years down the road this development will be highly successful. But initially a 1 BR at $2000 is certainly different/shock in this specific area.

Good luck.

which cell phone place is located there?

T-Mobile.