PHILADELPHIA | Highrise Development Thread IX

[Philly Fan]

Originally Posted by josef

The only entire metro I can think of is Boston, where almost all the towns in the area have walkable downtowns. I can't think of any other American metro with suburbs I'd ever dream of calling "walkable".

I suspect (and I may be totally off on this) that's because Boston, unlike other cities such as Philly and NYC, did not expand it's legal boundaries in the nineteenth century to encompass its close-in, relatively dense suburban communities of the time. The comparable 19th-century suburbs of Philly were incorporated into the city proper in 1854, whereas their Boston counterparts have mostly remained independent municipalities to this day.

I also suspect that the further out suburbs of Boston are comparable to Philly suburbs that are similarly distant from its historic core, in terms of the "spottiness" of their walkability (thinking here of the further out Main Line towns, Doylestown, Media, etc., and even some of the Chester County towns).

But again, I may be totally wrong about this.

[tsarstruck]

Originally Posted by josef

Full article at http://philly.curbed.com/archives/2014/0...-square-could-start-around-labor-day.php

Great news. Love everything about this project.

[br323206]

Originally Posted by josef

Just out of curiosity, which American city has walkable suburbs? The only entire metro I can think of is Boston, where almost all the towns in the area have walkable downtowns. I can't think of any other American metro with suburbs I'd ever dream of calling "walkable".

And for the record, most of Jersey is in fact a sprawling mess, except for some fairly significant exceptions.



That. Is. Amazing.

Well I may not have been completely clear. They used both urban neighborhoods AND suburban places for the methodology.

Their methodology said that to qualify as a walkable urban place, you needed:

OFFICE & RETAIL SPACE
• Office: ≥1 .4 million square feet or more
and/or
• Retail: ≥ 340,000 square feet or more
• WALK SCORE:Value ≥ 70, averaged across the place/neighborhood

So you need to be walkable, and there needs to be lots of jobs or retail to walk to. For Philly that applied to 11 city neighborhoods, but only 5 suburbs:

Ardmore, Bryn Mawr, Phoenixville, Wayne, West Chester.

NYC, by contrast, has 21 walkable suburbs- by that definition. Los Angeles has 27. DC has 28.

[josef]

Originally Posted by Philly Fan

I suspect (and I may be totally off on this) that's because Boston, unlike other cities such as Philly and NYC, did not expand it's legal boundaries in the nineteenth century to encompass its close-in, relatively dense suburban communities of the time. The comparable 19th-century suburbs of Philly were incorporated into the city proper in 1854, whereas their Boston counterparts have mostly remained independent municipalities to this day.

I also suspect that the further out suburbs of Boston are comparable to Philly suburbs that are similarly distant from its historic core, in terms of the "spottiness" of their walkability (thinking here of the further out Main Line towns, Doylestown, Media, etc., and even some of the Chester County towns).

But again, I may be totally wrong about this.

True, I believe several towns resisted consolidation. Brookline comes to mind. Via Wikipedia:

Throughout its history, Brookline has resisted being annexed by Boston, in particular during the Brookline-Boston annexation debate of 1873. The neighboring towns of West Roxbury and Hyde Park connected Brookline to the rest of Norfolk County until they were annexed by Boston in 1874 and 1912, respectively, putting them in Suffolk County. Brookline is now separated from the remainder of Norfolk County.

Originally Posted by br323206

Well I may not have been completely clear. They used both urban neighborhoods AND suburban places for the methodology.

Their methodology said that to qualify as a walkable urban place, you needed:

OFFICE & RETAIL SPACE
• Office: ≥1 .4 million square feet or more
and/or
• Retail: ≥ 340,000 square feet or more
• WALK SCORE:Value ≥ 70, averaged across the place/neighborhood

So you need to be walkable, and there needs to be lots of jobs or retail to walk to. For Philly that applied to 11 city neighborhoods, but only 5 suburbs:

Ardmore, Bryn Mawr, Phoenixville, Wayne, West Chester.

NYC, by contrast, has 21 walkable suburbs- by that definition. Los Angeles has 27. DC has 28.

Ahh, ok, that makes more sense then. I feel like we are particularly bad at placing jobs in walkable areas in our suburbs.

[McBane]

I think what's very fascinating with regards to density is the difference between urban density and metro density. I recall reading this in another City Discussions thread and basically, the LA metro area is more dense than the NYC metro area. I find that so hard to believe, but apparently it's true.

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2012/03/lo...nsely_populated_urban_area_in_the_us.php

[spacevator]

Philly has more walkable towns in that border state called NJ....Haddonfield and Collingswood come to mind without much research, so be careful of these numbers

[philatonian]

Originally Posted by spacevator

Philly has more walkable towns in that border state called NJ....Haddonfield and Collingswood come to mind without much research, so be careful of these numbers

eb

...even more on the Main Line with Ardmore, Bryn Mawr, and Bala Cynwyd. Not to mention Doylestown and Media. This study ignores the fact that you can't compare any two cities because none are created equal. D.C., which got #1, is a disasterous example of walkability once you go past Arlington and Alexandria. Even in the city it's a patchwork of neighborhoods only deemed walkable by the fact that you can bus or metro between those neighborhoods. If you look at dense core walkability, you can't match NY and Philadelphia.

[Salonica city]

From living in Europe for a decade I can safely say that the article does not do a good job of documenting facts about walkability and what that means. Philly and NYC are by far the most walkable cities in the US simply because of our grid and maybe San Fran also but the hills there could make it tricky sometimes. What is consider walkable in Europe is how fast you can get to public transit , food , shopping, and entertainment and work and it's simply is a fact that we are more walkable since we also are more densely populated in the square mile around city hall. We are second or third in the amount of people that live in a square mile in the country. That says it all !!! And the suburbs are suburbs completely different conversation and no suburbs are really walkable thus suburbs. So the editor of the article should rethink or at least rename the piece and apologize for misguiding the public.

[shadowbat2]

I remember somebody posting about a move of "jobs to Camden", I'm guessing this is it....

Promise of hundreds of jobs in Holtec move to Camden

A proposal to award a manufacturing company $260 million in tax breaks - one of the largest such subsidies in recent years - could produce more than 400 jobs in Camden, individuals familiar with the deal said Wednesday.

Holtec International Inc., with corporate headquarters in Evesham and another base in Jupiter, Fla., is said to be looking to locate some operations at the city's port if the deal goes through.

The company, which supplies power-plant equipment, has set its sights on growing from 750 employees to thousands through product expansion in coming years.

New Jersey's Economic Development Authority is to vote Thursday on granting Holtec the subsidy over 10 years. The incentive trails only that for the Revel Casino, which received $261.4 million in 2011, and American Dream Meadowlands, an entertainment and shopping mall complex in East Rutherford that was approved last year for $390 million.

More coverage
$260M tax credit proposed to lure Norcross-tied firm to Camden
The vote comes a month after the agency awarded $82 million in tax credits over a decade to the 76ers to build a practice facility and offices on Camden's waterfront.

The two Camden packages were made possible by the Economic Opportunity Act of 2013, which expanded the availability of business tax incentives statewide, but has special provisions to benefit South Jersey - Camden in particular.

"The reality is, the incentive program was designed to work this way," said Assembly Majority Leader Louis D. Greenwald (D., Camden). "A lot of people thought there was never enough you could do" to help Camden. The recent deals, he said, show that "Camden is back."

Three individuals with knowledge of the specifics of the Holtec proposal said the company would construct a facility that would create at least 400 permanent skilled and unskilled manufacturing jobs in the city.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the project publicly ahead of the development authority vote.

Company and other officials have declined to comment prior to the vote.

Holtec's founder, Krishna P. Singh, who has an engineering doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, has grown the company from 180 staff and $90 million in power-plant-component sales in 2006 to 750 employees and an expected $500 million in sales this year, according to the company. Holtec specializes in, among other things, equipment for the storage of spent nuclear fuel rods that allow plants to keep the rods on site.

Evesham Mayor Randy Brown said he had no knowledge of the company's latest plans. "We just renamed the road outside Holtec Way," Brown said. "We love having them in town, and we hope they keep a presence here."

Singh is a member of the board of trustees of Cooper University Hospital in Camden, whose chairman is George E. Norcross III, the powerful South Jersey Democratic leader. Norcross is a member of the board of directors of Holtec and a former co-owner of The Inquirer. Singh is also a former co-owner of The Inquirer. He sold his share of the newspaper company to Norcross, who earlier this year sold out his interest.

On Wednesday, the project elicited praise and concern, though few details were known to the public because the development authority does not release project summaries until the day of its meeting.

Jonathan Whiten, deputy director of New Jersey Policy Perspective, which published a report last month critical of the state's surge in business tax subsidies, questioned whether the city would see direct benefits.

"I think the question is, is it really a good trade-off?" Whiten said. "And would this have likely happened anyway? Sometimes, you do see the tax break as the driving decision, but more often than not, it's just one piece of the puzzle, and it's not necessary to give away the whole store."

The development authority determines how a company will benefit the state based on a 35-year projection, despite the businesses' being required to stay for only 15 years. "The economy changes a lot in 35 years, and there's no penalty if a company leaves once the tax break is up," Whiten said. "It's a shaky thing to do."

Lawmakers on Wednesday defended the basis for awarding the Camden projects big tax breaks.

Sen. Raymond J. Lesniak (D., Union), a sponsor of the 2013 incentives overhaul, said that while Camden "cannot be economically viable without a tax incentive program such as this," he wanted to ensure that such deals do not become politicized.

While the Sixers deal has been attacked as overly generous, Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick (R., Union) said the criticism was misplaced. The team will not receive the benefits until it creates the jobs it promised, Bramnick said. The Sixers have promised to locate 250 jobs in Camden.

"It's not like all of a sudden we pull up a truck and give them $82 million," Bramnick said.

Opponents say the credits mean taxpayers will end up shouldering greater costs.

"We don't think it's right that the vast majority of businesses don't get a tax break, the vast majority of residents don't get a tax break," said Mike Proto, communications director for the New Jersey chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/..._move_to_Camden.html#rMSH9JljxhmzUhbp.99

[br323206]

Originally Posted by spacevator

Philly has more walkable towns in that border state called NJ....Haddonfield and Collingswood come to mind without much research, so be careful of these numbers

The study included New Jersey. I agree that Haddonfield and Collingswood are great walkable towns, but they didn't meet the size criteria that the study used. They don't have enough square footage of retail/office.

[br323206]

Originally Posted by philatonian

eb

...even more on the Main Line with Ardmore, Bryn Mawr, and Bala Cynwyd. Not to mention Doylestown and Media. This study ignores the fact that you can't compare any two cities because none are created equal. D.C., which got #1, is a disasterous example of walkability once you go past Arlington and Alexandria. Even in the city it's a patchwork of neighborhoods only deemed walkable by the fact that you can bus or metro between those neighborhoods. If you look at dense core walkability, you can't match NY and Philadelphia.

Did you read the study? It doesn't ignore that fact at all. In fact, it says multiple times that it is very difficult to compare metros, but that they were attempting their best shot.

And DC is not a disastrous example of walkability. Off the top of my head I can think of Bethesda, Rockville, Silver Spring as Maryland examples. Plus, you can't say that the VA cities don't count.

I agree that if you look at dense core walkability Philly and NY have DC beat. But it seems like a lot of you are trying to discredit the study because you don't like what it found. The study gets to a key point that we should all be concerned about. That is that, as a metro area, we are not as walkable as we could be. We should take it as a call to action to push for zoning code reforms to allow walkable development near train stations. We have a great transit system and we should be leveraging that resource.

[MikeNigh]

If you're wanting a walkable suburb you're doing it wrong.

[br323206]

Originally Posted by MikeNigh

If you're wanting a walkable suburb you're doing it wrong.

I don't, but some people do. A considerable part of the population actually. So if we don't cater to them we miss out. Simple as that.

[PhillySteaks]

Really enjoyed these. Definitely worth taking a look.

My favorite is:

Broad & Girard
Then - The Grand Majestic Hotel & Apartment house built in 1902
Now - McDonalds & BP Gas Station

http://crossroads.newsworks.org/index.ph...et?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[bopoqod]

Originally Posted by PhillySteaks

Really enjoyed these. Definitely worth taking a look.

My favorite is:

Broad & Girard
Then - The Grand Majestic Hotel & Apartment house built in 1902
Now - McDonalds & BP Gas Station

http://crossroads.newsworks.org/index.ph...et?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Thanks for posting, I really enjoyed looking at those too... although seeing the sites of some of those old buildings turned into parking lots and gas stations was a bit of a downer. I can deal with it if a nice old building gets demolished in the name of progress, but having it destroyed and replaced by a less urban use seems so senseless.

Although I don't know the particular story behind these buildings, so maybe some of them just burned/collapsed/etc. and weren't actually misguidedly razed.

[josef]

Originally Posted by MikeNigh

If you're wanting a walkable suburb you're doing it wrong.

I live in a walkable suburb, and it's seem to be doing things quite right.

[Jawnadelphia]

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-p...ty-corner-eliminates-the-opposition.html

Looks like fall 2014 now... ugh, I really hate that vacant field.
Reading between the lines, Brandywine might sit on it even longer, and longer, and ...

[Plokoon11]

^ Maybe they plan to increase the height? I mean thats the only idea that I can think of .

[josef]

Originally Posted by TallCoolOne

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-p...ty-corner-eliminates-the-opposition.html

Looks like fall 2014 now... ugh, I really hate that vacant field.
Reading between the lines, Brandywine might sit on it even longer, and longer, and ...

This is different from being a slumlord how?

[Insoluble]

Originally Posted by shadowbat2

I remember somebody posting about a move of "jobs to Camden", I'm guessing this is it....

Promise of hundreds of jobs in Holtec move to Camden

26 million per year for 400 jobs?!?! That works out to $65,000 per job annually. That's crazy. I know Camden needs jobs, but there has got to be a better way.