PHILADELPHIA | Highrise Development Thread X

[City Wide]

Come on people; any announcement made by OCF on April 1 has to received as a creative outlet, and with a smile. I actually was wondering, in light of covid, what OCF would do this year and I think they nailed it. Something unexpected but not over the top.

Unfortunately a couple of 'Philly Specials' is a plan that wouldn't surprise me. The public, through gov't, can limit what is built at any site, but it would have a very hard time requiring a building to be a certain minimum height. I wish more architects and planners would use this land area to play around with unconventional designs, just to show what might be possible.

[Jayfar]

Originally Posted by Jayfar

The April 1 date notwithstanding, I don't think this was an April Fools post. Noting too that certain websites that do it up big every year for April 1 seem to be sitting out the usual frivolity this year.

Originally Posted by City Wide

Come on people; any announcement made by OCF on April 1 has to received as a creative outlet, and with a smile. I actually was wondering, in light of covid, what OCF would do this year and I think they nailed it. Something unexpected but not over the top.

Unfortunately a couple of 'Philly Specials' is a plan that wouldn't surprise me. The public, through gov't, can limit what is built at any site, but it would have a very hard time requiring a building to be a certain minimum height. I wish more architects and planners would use this land area to play around with unconventional designs, just to show what might be possible.

Aw man! It was indeed a more devious than usual April Fools post after all, per this update now tagged at the bottom: "Edit: Check the date on this story. None of it is true, we’re very sorry to say."

[SEFTA]

I always had big hopes for this site, as i know most here have.
I always thought that, if not a supertall, atleast 600-800' with 2 other smaller towers.
I see the Center City extended, with 3 hubs/centers. The main hub, the center around Suburban Station and 2 hubs flanking it, 30th Street Station and Jefferson Station/8th Street Transit Hub.

I play with redesigning Philadelphia based on it's transit infrastructure.
I'm not an architect but this is how I'd love it to grow. Just for fun.

Here's a 1000ftr at 8th street.
I play with it a lot and change them often, but here's the general vision.
I don't share them here as a rule but I have a lot of time on my hands now, so here;

East Market District 4-2-20 f

East Market District 4-2-20 h

Enjoy

[PHL10]

Originally Posted by Jayfar

Aw man! It was indeed a more devious than usual April Fools post after all, per this update now tagged at the bottom: "Edit: Check the date on this story. None of it is true, we’re very sorry to say."

I think their April Fools posts are generally pretty clever but this one was weird in that it announced that something very unimpressive could be happening soon at this lot. That type of joke needs to include some incredulousness to it, like that Goldenberg was rumored to be in touch with Comcast about building an office for that site for some back office NBC workers coming from NYC.

[summersm343]

Guys... it's an April Fool's joke.

[summersm343]

Nonprofit taking space at planned $100M West Philadelphia research hub

Article behind paywall:
https://www.bizjournals.com/philadel...100m-west.html

[iheartphilly]

Here's a little more from them:

https://wistar.org/news/press-releas...iversity-place

[SJPhillyBoy]

Originally Posted by SEFTA

I always had big hopes for this site, as i know most here have.
I always thought that, if not a supertall, atleast 600-800' with 2 other smaller towers.
I see the Center City extended, with 3 hubs/centers. The main hub, the center around Suburban Station and 2 hubs flanking it, 30th Street Station and Jefferson Station/8th Street Transit Hub.

I play with redesigning Philadelphia based on it's transit infrastructure.
I'm not an architect but this is how I'd love it to grow. Just for fun.

Here's a 1000ftr at 8th street.
I play with it a lot and change them often, but here's the general vision.
I don't share them here as a rule but I have a lot of time on my hands now, so here;

Very nicely done.

[alasi]

Just for laughs,does anybody have the know how to see what the Bridgeman View project would look like at the Disney hole?

[TK2001]

Philadelphia skyline and Four Seasons heart from Riverwinds 04/01/2020 by Thomas Koloski, on Flickr

[JohnIII]

Originally Posted by SJPhillyBoy

Very nicely done.

This is real good; real good. I wonder how such a building would look in the entire panoramic of downtown Philadelphia east to west; it would stretch out the skyline amazingly and Bridgeman View Condo would have as well however the former is still a possibility

[TK2001]

Originally Posted by JohnIII

This is real good; real good. I wonder how such a building would look in the entire panoramic of downtown Philadelphia east to west; it would stretch out the skyline amazingly and Bridgeman View Condo would have as well however the former is still a possibility

That's exactly why I want 1301 Market to happen, Eastward expansion. And another new 500 foot tower in the skyline

[SEFTA]

I'm wondering how this will effect city living.
Will people become wary of high density city living, now that it has made such huge strides forward?
Will this be changing urban life as we know it for years.. decades to come?
I guess a lot depends on what happens over this next month.
Stay strong people!
Always keep hoping for the best.

[cardeza]

Originally Posted by SEFTA

I'm wondering how this will effect city living.
Will people become wary of high density city living, now that it has made such huge strides forward?
Will this be changing urban life as we know it for years.. decades to come?
I guess a lot depends on what happens over this next month.
Stay strong people!
Always keep hoping for the best.

I def think this is going to have an impact on the desirability of NYC long term,

[ScreamShatter]

Originally Posted by cardeza

I def think this is going to have an impact on the desirability of NYC long term,

If WFH is the new norm, I wouldn’t be surprised if larger row homes around cc become even more desirable. People would opt for larger, multi-purpose houses with office, outdoor decks, indoor gym space, etc over smaller condos.

Wouldn’t be surprised if suburban living increases in demand too.

[R5Ryder]

Will WFH also kill the market for office space and mean the end of supertalls in some areas - specifically ours? Obviously not everyone that's working remotely will continue to do so once this passes, but will companies think about turning their office space into plug-and-play 'hotel' space, with the expectation that on any given day, a good % of employees are working remotely, and therefore they don't need all the space that they're currently leasing?

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by cardeza

I def think this is going to have an impact on the desirability of NYC long term,

This. As someone who works in New York but has a presence in Philadelphia, I think ultimately NY is going to lose some of its stickiness, if you will.

I live in Brooklyn during the week and work for a company (in Manhattan) which already has a relatively liberal work from home policy. Just yesterday, I was talking to my head of HR on an entirely different matter and I explicitly asked her 1. what her best guess (honest) estimate was on when we'd be back in the office and 2. what she saw as the effects of this thing.

She said, 1. June 1st and even then, it would be "optional" as people are rightly worried about commuting on NYC subways. And 2. she said it's proven that we can have an even more lenient WFH policy than we do, because as a company, we've proven we can continue to accomplish our goals remotely (we've launch a ton of new heavy lift initiatives in the last month during WFH and it hasn't seemed to have effected things).

That being said, we will continue to have an office in Manhattan, as it's where the executives want to be, but there will be less pressure to be in the office on a daily basis. Which would mean, over time, we would probably shrink our footprint on a per person basis.

I've already thought that if I could work from home even 2 days a week (consistently), I could relinquish my apartment in BK and just do the long haul commute 3 days a week on Amtrak. If I didn't come all the way back to Philly permanently, I could at least do somewhere like Yardley and commute to NYC on NJ Transit, then continue to spend my weekends as I already do in Philadelphia.

If I could give up my NY residency, I would save about 15-20K in taxes alone.

The other thing that this has demonstrated is that the healthcare in NYC is basically shit relative to the stature of the city. I know Cuomo is doing everything he can do, but I left town (NYC) because god forbid something were to happen to me, I don't want to be in any of those hospitals. The morbidity rate in NYC is much higher than other 1st tier cities in the US. It's terrifying right now.

[City Wide]

Does anyone have first hand knowledge re the status of ongoing construction in east coast cities? I've read press that claims its been shut down and then the next day the construction is continuing.

[Knight Hospitaller]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

The other thing that this has demonstrated is that the healthcare in NYC is basically shit relative to the stature of the city. I know Cuomo is doing everything he can do, but I left town (NYC) because god forbid something were to happen to me, I don't want to be in any of those hospitals. The morbidity rate in NYC is much higher than other 1st tier cities in the US. It's terrifying right now.

"Philly: Not as sick" or "A good place to be sick" are awkward marketing lines, but accurate. For what the IMHE projections are worth, they've consistently showed that PA is far better positioned for its population with hospital beds in general and ICU beds in particular. Ed and Meds are nice industries to have. Again, it cold be garbage in/out, but the projections oddly show this area not remotely suffering what NYC and NJ (mainly driven by North Jersey) are going through. Even if every death in PA occurred in this area, the tally is still projected (please, God) to be under one thousand.

[Londonee]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

This. As someone who works in New York but has a presence in Philadelphia, I think ultimately NY is going to lose some of its stickiness, if you will.

Just devil's advocating that the same thing was prognosticated of NYC post 9/11... desirability, safety, is it *really* worth the premium for businesses to be here, etc. And that lasted for like 6 months.