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Originally Posted by summersm343
^^Yep... not sure what people are talking about. Newbury got blasted too - almost as bad as Walnut Street.
Madison Avenue in Manhattan has been nearly emptied out as well.
Now... here's the main difference....
Boston still has Copley Place, which is a shopping mall in the Back Bay loaded to the brim with luxury stores.
NYC still has SoHo, Fifth Avenue and many other areas loaded to the brim with retail or luxury stores.
Philadelphia ONLY has Walnut Street, and no other option in the city limits for luxury retailers. It should be better.
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The fact that retail strips like Walnut St, Newbury St, and Fifth Ave will replace the malls is pure bunk. You do need malls like Copley Place and Manhattan Mall to balance the retail outlets and allow high end stores to inhabit the retail strips. That's why malls were built in the first place. And I can't say that Philly only has Walnut St. Chestnut St needs to be high end as well (not necessarily as high end as Walnut, but still)...
Quote:
Originally Posted by PHLtoNYC
Yes. I spend a lot of time in Chicago, it is night and day. In Philadelphia it's almost an anomaly to get a thoughtfully designed building with masonry these days.
A big factor is cost vs. return. It costs a lot more to build in Philadelphia, 1/3+ more, but Chicago and Philadelphia have similar ROI's. Even CC Philadelphia still gets a lot of schlock (Hyatt Centric, 1900 Arch Street).
But there are firms here that produce wonderful buildings in neighborhoods outside of CC, Ambit Architecture is one, so it is possible to an extent... There must be other reasons why Philadelphia has fallen out of the architecture arena? Lack of oversight? Laziness from the city, designers?, etc. There is NO excuse why Center City should be stuck with the new Hyatt Centric building.
(Philadelphia needs to look at Chicago for a lot of things actually).
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Or maybe it's just a lack of foresight, innovation, and just pure laziness.