PHILADELPHIA | 1528 Cherry | 17 FLOORS
 

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http://www.ambitarchitecture.com/pro...cherry-street/

Best view I have of the site so far LOL....

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29...pscbde292c.jpg

....the two blue faced rowhouses. (Family Court rising in the background)

This is a neat building!

So far I like 3/4 of this building, hopefully that mostly blank wall will be hidden by any future development on the adjacent parking lot.

While the blue houses are old I hope no one tries to claim they are historic, a historic building needs either size, significance or context and at this point these buildings have lost all of their context.

Great looking tower indeed, but I prefer the handsome pre-Civil War building. I'll never understand why someone would purchase a perfectly useful property like that just to tear it town. There are plenty of empty lots available and in my opinion there is no need to cannibalize our historic stock. I think the tower would look fantastic as the twin of this blue relic.

I like the tower too. The ONLY issue I have with it, is the small sliver between this proposed tower and the ramp down to the garage under the family court building will not be utilized. If they can incorporate that into the development I'll be 100% satisfied. The parking lot to the west of this can always be developed in the future with another tower.

Ideally, you keep the two rowhomes intact and build on the empty lot. I think those rowhomes would look really neat wedged between the modern high rises.

Do I care enough to get all NIMBY about it? Nope. Build on!

This is certainly...interesting, creative, and original.
Where's the rest of the building? It sure is squeezed in that small amount of space. The floor plans have got to be small. I'm all for progress and seeing it get built. I just hope it doesn't adopt the name, "the doily building". Another blogger described it like that, and I'm afraid he/she is spot on. It will be interesting to see how the façade/wall turns out. :)

.....and people in Family Court will be able to see you walking around in your undies.

That would be cherry if built the way it is shown in the rendering..:tup::cool::cool::tup:

The glass is strange looking on it, sort of art nouvaish.

Is there a height limit in this area? It always bothers me that they construct these buildings that are the same height next to each other. It's bad enough the Family Court is the same height as the building next door but now the put another one next to them.

Yes there is a height limit in the area. Summers can go over it in detail. It has something to do with the parkway and view blocking. I believe this building would fall in line with it.

250 foot height limit within 250 feet of the Parkway

No decision from the ZBA as of now. They are waiting to hear back from the Planning Commission on their recommendation for the lot.

http://www.phillyliving.com/blog/201...-street-tower/

Wow...the size of their studio is 275 sq ft. Are there going to be many takers for something of this size?

I agree. That's insanely small. I see the city should sell the entire lot to the developer and let them go wild.

Eh, I imagine there's a market for young singles looking for cheap apartments in Center City and are willing to sacrifice space. If the price is right I suspect they'll be willing to sell them. I've lived in an efficiency about that size during grad school. It's not that bad when your young.

I'm more curious about the office space on floors 2 through 8. These are fairly small floor plates I would imagine so I'm guessing they are targeting small start up firms? Is there a reason they don't go all residential? I'm not complaining about the added office space, I'm just a bit surprised. I suppose it's a good sign of the office sector making a comeback.

If they can make it cheap, sure. But I don't mean $900 a month cheap, I mean $450 cheap. It's an odd neighborhood despite its proximity to everything. The Arts Condo still struggles to rent out its small studios for $900 to $1000 and it's in a much more desirable spot.

$450 cheap could be someone's pied-a-terre.:tup:

HAHA good point! If I ever have to (shudder) move to the suburbs I'll keep that in mind :)

Or a crash pad for the less professional :cheers::drunk:

Rowhomes on the site of this project are being demolished.

Thanks to new member Vince for the photo

http://i.imgur.com/Le9y2Iz.jpg

Im right in front of this and had no idea the demo started, then again I dont usually walk north on 16th. This project has really been under the radar.

adjacent parking lot belongs to City building at 1515 arch, you can rest assured it will not be built on as long as city is in that building.

How likely is this tower? The rendering looked really experimental. Is funding in place? Is the apartment developer leveling these houses, or are they being demolished by the original owner for speculative future development? I hope it happens. We don't need another surface lot.

It does kind of look like a building in the background of an early PS2 game.

Im thinking that the project is going forward if the building is being demolished. I dont see them taking on that expense if they werent sure construction of the new building was imminent.

If it is being built this is a really quick turn around time. The building was only proposed in April or at least that's when we heard of it.

That depends on whether the developer owns the property and tore the buildings down, or if the original owner still owns the land. Sometimes the seller will tear down buildings in anticipation of a tentative buyer, the buyer can back out, or the buyer will give up on the project and turn it into parking hoping another, wealthier buyer comes along. It's how we end up with so many dang parking lots.

LOL true. The skin kind of reminds me of the front on the addition to the old coffee shop in the Gayborhood. I can't find a better picture of it.

http://www.thejawn.com/jawn-photos/c...1344978979.jpg

It looks like the lot is completely demolished. Anyone know if this is getting built now?

I'll check on it today hopefully.

update: nothing is going on. There is construction going on in the street right now that actually has access to the site blocked. A contractor is doing utility and light pole foundation work related to family court on this block.

Nothing new, although you can rent ...what looks to be an office cubicle (1) - for $400 a month across the street.

[IMG]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3878/...f87ecc5d_z.jpg004 by TallCoolOne2014, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3868/...08e45f22_z.jpg003 by TallCoolOne2014, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3903/...fa146f31_z.jpg005 by TallCoolOne2014, on Flickr[/IMG]

It absolutely baffles me that the city doesn't sell them the parking lot and the small strip of land next to this so they can just develop the entire thing with a new highrise :???:

Not sure if this project is dead but I hadn't seen this render of the facade on their website previously; strange building.

http://i.imgur.com/X6wQ7mI.jpg

I can't even really figure this one out...just not seeing it built. At lease not in its present incarnation.

Those images have been on the site for many months now. It certainly doesnt appear that anything is happening with this project- which makes me wonder why the buildings were demolished so quickly last summer.

I hope it’s not dead as they tore down two well maintained and perfectly functional 19th century row homes.

From LSNA

https://docs.google.com/a/lsnaphilly...ZiMzY0ODRkYjg0

Slightly new renderings

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http://www.ambitarchitecture.com/pro...cherry-street/

I kinda like that facade treatment. It's an interesting departure from the typical wall of blue glass. That being said, something about these renderings says, "I'm trying to flip this property," to me.

That's a lot of "busy" going on with the skin of this building and some of the adjacent ones.

Well the parking lot has been paved over and has a "for rent" sign on it, so I think it's safe to say this proposal is dead. Along with two old townhouses for no-good-reason.

That's a shame, especially given the interesting facade. Something with a larger footprint is probably a better idea for what is now one big empty lot, although I see from an earlier post that the City owns the adjoining property.

wow.

The developers should get a fine or some punishment for things like this.:hell:

Jazzy rendering to flat surface would truly take "bait and switch" to a new low. I have no information on which to have an opinion about the developer's bona fides. It does seem like a slim building surrounded by asphalt would be a hard sell, but I'm sure they weren't planning on the attempted rental of a paved over postage stamp that will generate no income. It does seem reasonable (except in cases of hardship or danger) to expect a developer to refrain from demolishing a building until all pieces are in place for its replacement.

It’s typical. The same thing happened at 1900 Arch and although everyone hates that building, we are lucky that the developer managed to get it off the ground. That site had several 19th century buildings demo’d before they had a single approval in place for the new building. It’s really a disgrace. I’m not a hyper-preservationists and I’m ok with the sacrificing some older buildings for a superior project but someone needs to be forced to do that analysis and hold the developers responsible.