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  #61  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2016, 6:32 PM
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Design's ok, I guess. Bad massing.
     
     
  #62  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2016, 6:35 PM
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Office, residential tower to rise at Marketplace Design Center site

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PMC Property Group plans to redevelop the former Marketplace Design Center building at 2400 Market St. into a block-wide 22-story office and residential tower, the latest sign that Philadelphia's most aggressive development is shifting west.

The company, in partnership with real estate investment firm Lubert-Adler, is proposing 450,000 square feet of offices and 350 apartments in a building that uses the former interior design showroom center as its base, PMC executive vice president Jonathan Stavin said in an interview Tuesday.

The proposal follows last year's acquisition of roughly an acre of nearly adjacent land on a long-fallow stretch of west Market Street by PMC and other developers. It also comes amid rapid development directly across the Schuylkill River around 30th Street Station, where the 47-story FMC Tower is rising.

"You're not just seeing it with us," Stavin said of the westward push. "The Schuylkill river is going to become the new center of Philadelphia."

PMC is hoping to capture current high office and apartment rents with the project, expected to cost more than $250 million. Asking rents for Class A office space in the west Market Street business district exceeded an average of $30-per-square-foot during the last three months of 2015, up 3.3 percent from the year-ago period, according to commercial real estate services firm JLL.

Residential rents in Center City's highest-end apartment towers, meanwhile, averaged $2,191 a month last year, an increase of 3.1 percent over 2014, according to market tracker Delta Associates.

PMC's plans 2400 Market St. call for six floors of offices, filling the existing structure - which will be reskinned - and a glass-walled addition to be built on top. The building's residential portion would be built over the offices.

The company is in talks with several office users, some of which may be interested in leasing entire floors of the building, each of which is about 60,000 square feet, Stavin said. One such tenant would also have access to an attached outdoor deck.

The building's ground floor, meanwhile, would accommodate retail services such as restaurants, coffee shops or fitness centers, Stavin said.

As part of the project, PMC would build an elevated passage along the building's river-facing wall that connects Market and Chestnut Streets, from which the reconfigured building's main entrance would be accessed, he said. Crews have begun demolition work at the site and are aiming for occupancy in early 2018, Stavin said.

The project appears to target the financial-service corporations, law firms and other big companies that have long occupied the high-rise district closer to City Hall, said Mitch Marcus, a managing director at JLL.

The current high rents and rising demand for Center City offices make it likely that more big projects will rise on the currently underdeveloped blocks of Market Street between those high rises and the Schuylkill, Marcus said.

"It's the last high-quality developable swatch of land in our primary office submarket," he said. "That's why you're seeing this movement and this push."
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/busines...MlPBVIVWZ6p.99
     
     
  #63  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2016, 7:09 PM
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I like it. It's very Tokyo.


http://media.philly.com/images/pmc17.jpg
     
     
  #64  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2016, 7:15 PM
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As much as I like the ambitious scale of the project, I really don't like how it seems to wall off the river from the rest of Center City, kind of like 2400 Chestnut turned on its side. It would be so much better even if only the upper portion were split into two towers. Lets hope someone forces PMC to change that massing.
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  #65  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2016, 7:21 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cro Burnham View Post
I like it. It's very Tokyo.


http://media.philly.com/images/pmc17.jpg
I like it too. The set-backs with green-space help soften the building's presence - a simple concept that i thought would have really helped the Zuritsky's hideous convention center Hotel. The different facade textures - especially the all glass band that breaks up the building - give it nice dimension. At night, I can almost picture in abstraction 3 distinct light arrays glowing from inside due to the changing exterior skin.

Still, with that massing, it would be a lot more interesting visually if they took those 22 stories and massed it all into a slender 50story 800footer ala Chicago.
     
     
  #66  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2016, 7:32 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Muji View Post
As much as I like the ambitious scale of the project, I really don't like how it seems to wall off the river from the rest of Center City, kind of like 2400 Chestnut turned on its side. It would be so much better even if only the upper portion were split into two towers. Lets hope someone forces PMC to change that massing.
They need that wall to block off the wind tunnels that have been ravishing the city.

I like the height and massing of it if the surface lots behind it on Market get turned into 700+ footers as they would tower over this nicely. That's a gamble at this point though.
     
     
  #67  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2016, 7:53 PM
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Cheap paneling will destroy this building. PMC needs to realize this project is in a highly visible location. They should be making a statement with the design and build quality. But, again, they are known to just want to make a buck.
     
     
  #68  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2016, 8:21 PM
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Originally Posted by Londonee View Post
Still, with that massing, it would be a lot more interesting visually if they took those 22 stories and massed it all into a slender 50story 800footer ala Chicago.
I agree 100%.

But we all know PMC has zero interest in making that kind of statement. To use some sports analogies: if PMC were a baseball manager, it'd have all its hitters swing for low-risk, high-percentage singles rather than swing for the fences; if it were a football coach, it'd focus on getting 4.1 yards per play every play with a solid run and short passing game, and never throw downfield.

This is a very practical proposal. They probably started with the idea of putting up the optimal height/footprint configuration to meet some basic return threshold, which would probably result in an unattractive 18-story block long rectangular econobox that no one would want to work or live in. Then they made a few tweaks spending an extra few dollars to liven up the the facade a bit, slenderize a few proportions, add a floor or two. And this is what you get. The bare minimum necessary to get a few people interested in being there.

It's not bad in my opinion considering the process they likely went through to come up with it. I think Varenhorst has shown he is not bad at making a silk - well, maybe satin - purse out of a sow's ear.

It is probably a very safe bet that PMC will never be the kind of developer that views it as worthwhile to take extra risk by attempting to generate greater value through vanity features like unnecessarily tall, very expensively designed buildings (think Mandeville Place).

Their projects always seem to be about keeping things simple, inexpensive, and low-risk as possible to ensure the highest likelihood of decent returns.

They are not ever going to try to whack the ball out of the park, so there's not a lot of point either expecting it or even complaining about it. They will not change, I don't think it is in their developer DNA.
     
     
  #69  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2016, 9:13 PM
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Not impressed at all by the design which seems like something from the 60s, but 22 floors at that location sounds good to me. The roof deck would be great as well.
     
     
  #70  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2016, 10:18 PM
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I like it, but I don't love it. This thing screams "brutalism" without the concrete. I wish it would be split into two towers on each side of this building on top of the office space instead of a shorter, single apartment section. I do appreciate that they are saying a pedestrian path will finally connect Market and Chestnut along the river (not shown in render). In an ideal world where money was no objection, I would love to see them build over the CSX tracks with a large plaza that leads down to the river park and trails.
     
     
  #71  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2016, 10:19 PM
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Originally Posted by 1487 View Post
Not impressed at all by the design which seems like something from the 60s, but 22 floors at that location sounds good to me. The roof deck would be great as well.
I think this is more a case of need more information. Density great, Schuylkill-facing deck great, mixed use great. Massing a bit disappointing but I think we already knew that was more or less the plan. Critically, that rendering is just really vague in terms of the look and materials of the apartment part. And obviously, PMC's track record in this department not a good signal. But really need more information. The rendering looks like it doesn't know whether it's actually a rendering or a massing study.
     
     
  #72  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2016, 10:50 PM
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Kiss those CC views from Cira Green goodbye. In a perfect world, building a tall, slender tower atop the northern portion of the building (left of the whale) would've been awesome. This is a very wide building, look at that footprint ...22 stories across the entirety of this structure is a HUGE wall. Hoping for the best.

[IMG]Untitled
     
     
  #73  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2016, 11:29 PM
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Originally Posted by TallCoolOne View Post
Kiss those CC views from Cira Green goodbye. In a perfect world, building a tall, slender tower atop the northern portion of the building (left of the whale) would've been awesome. This is a very wide building, look at that footprint ...22 stories across the entirety of this structure is a HUGE wall. Hoping for the best.
I agree adding to the market st canyon would be awesome.
     
     
  #74  
Old Posted Feb 17, 2016, 1:09 AM
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Brandywine should covertly use its connections to try to get the planning commission to demand a (taller) north-south orientation of the tower to preserve views in both directions. Between its Cira complex and its new acquisition at 24th and Market, Brandywine has interest in preserving those views, I would think. Why not?

While I dislike that aspect a lot, I don't think it will totally kill the view. Especially from atop Cira Green. However, that picture shows how friggin ugly 2400 Chestnut is - that's the template for this building and the city and neighbors would be crazy to accept another 2400 Chestnut.
     
     
  #75  
Old Posted Feb 17, 2016, 1:58 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TallCoolOne View Post
Kiss those CC views from Cira Green goodbye. In a perfect world, building a tall, slender tower atop the northern portion of the building (left of the whale) would've been awesome. This is a very wide building, look at that footprint ...22 stories across the entirety of this structure is a HUGE wall. Hoping for the best.

[IMG]Untitled
Yeah. Wow. The impact of this from the West is like the wall 2400 Chestnut created but even wider. A much wider Tetris wall. Two towers on a property this big would be a much better design - but as others have pointed out, probably not the most efficient (cheapest) use of space.
     
     
  #76  
Old Posted Feb 17, 2016, 3:37 AM
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Big impact yes. Murano views impacted. But the best impact will be the slight diminishing effect of the ugly 2400 Chestnut. It has stood too tall and proud there for too long.
     
     
  #77  
Old Posted Feb 17, 2016, 1:18 PM
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Originally Posted by BenKatzPhillytoParis View Post
I think this is more a case of need more information. Density great, Schuylkill-facing deck great, mixed use great. Massing a bit disappointing but I think we already knew that was more or less the plan. Critically, that rendering is just really vague in terms of the look and materials of the apartment part. And obviously, PMC's track record in this department not a good signal. But really need more information. The rendering looks like it doesn't know whether it's actually a rendering or a massing study.
well if they are releasing this I can only presume its going to CDR soon. Then we will have all the details.
     
     
  #78  
Old Posted Feb 17, 2016, 2:39 PM
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Originally Posted by 1487 View Post
well if they are releasing this I can only presume its going to CDR soon. Then we will have all the details.
Was wondering about the timeline on this. I was wondering what was necessary as far as approvals and if we could potentially see some design changes. Hope so. There is some potential here. I don't think PMC will make changes unless they have to, though. Must protect bottom line!
     
     
  #79  
Old Posted Feb 17, 2016, 3:28 PM
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I must be the only one who doesn't hate 2400 Chestnut.

But combined with 2400 Market the wall effect is going to be too severe.
     
     
  #80  
Old Posted Feb 17, 2016, 9:43 PM
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This building needs to have a Masonry Facade. Metal Panels will ruin this. I don't mind it, I think its pretty cool. The foliage in renderings is always much better then in real life though.
     
     
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