PHILADELPHIA | Highrise Development Thread IX

[summersm343]

Originally Posted by Vince_

Looks like 1528 Cherry St. could be getting started soon. That building is mostly demolished: http://imgur.com/Le9y2Iz http://imgur.com/KuS3I3q via http://instagram.com/rhfeenan

1528 Cherry rendering:
http://www.ambitarchitecture.com/projects/1528-cherry-street/

Whoa nice! No idea this was happening. Cool. Thanks for the update and welcome to the forum!

[shadowbat2]

RE: 1528 Cherry....damn that was fast! I was around there during the weekend and those buildings were still intact

Originally Posted by summersm343

Good news on the start ups. I hope they succeed and grow here.

If Unisys moved into Philly that would be huge. They could easily fill a new skyscraper on their own.

A new skyscraper with their name on top...or is it the midsection....

[mja]

Originally Posted by skyscraper

I am the one who accused her of being anti-Philly and having a pro NY bias. It's not conspiracy nonsense, it's my opinion. I've been reading her column for years, and while I cannot call to mind every single article she has written, you have to admit that most of her articles are pretty negative about Philadelphia. When she does write about New York, she does so glowingly as though nothing that happens there can ever be wrong, especially when comparing the two cities.
I am sure you will be able to find specific examples to refute this, but overall that is the slant she takes.

With all due respect, you are out to lunch on this.

She's not a cheerleader. It isn't her job to talk up Philly. It's literally her job to be critical of the city and development within it. I don't even begin to get the NY stuff, she's only very rarely written about NY, and your take on that suggests more concerning your biases rather than hers.

Inga's writing for a very narrow audience of politicians, planners, business leaders, developers, architects, real estate folks, urbanists, and skyscraper geeks. The average Joe may give her articles a cursory read before they flip to the sports pages, but that's about it. I fully appreciate her criticism, even when I disagree with it, because it helps the politicians, planners, business leaders, developers, architects, real estate folks, urbanists, and skyscraper geeks think more deeply about the challenges the city faces, to imagine other possibilities, and to arrive at better solutions.

Everything she writes - EVERYTHING - is with a clear aim to promote a more dynamic urban environment. I don't always agree with her conclusions, but I appreciate her POV nonetheless.

[1487]

Originally Posted by Vince_

Looks like 1528 Cherry St. could be getting started soon. That building is mostly demolished: http://imgur.com/Le9y2Iz http://imgur.com/KuS3I3q via http://instagram.com/rhfeenan

1528 Cherry rendering:
http://www.ambitarchitecture.com/projects/1528-cherry-street/

Ive heard about this but had not seen any renderings until now, I was wondering how this skinny building would look. They really dont have much of a staging area here.

[Teakwood]

Originally Posted by Wayne Junction

Agree. Santander is based in a country (Spain) with 21% unemployment that is steadily increasing. Somehow.... they have yet to gain my confidence. How stable can this be?

Likely more stable than the struggling Wyomissing, PA based Sovereign bank that struggled mightily following the mortgage crisis. Santander has owned Sovereign since 2009, the rebranding is the only thing that is new. The bank on 38th seems like a placeholder to me. In 10-15 years, that may be a very prime location for something much larger, but apparently the current market dictated that this was the best deal at the moment.

[ichigo]

Originally Posted by summersm343

Good news on the start ups. I hope they succeed and grow here.

If Unisys moved into Philly that would be huge. They could easily fill a new skyscraper on their own.

I don't think Unisys would ever move. I've co-oped there a long time ago, and at a time it wasn't very "new tech/new grad" friendly company. Most people who worked there were there for 25+ year and I don't think they would ever go into center city. I'm not sure if situation has improved there, but I'm guessing not by much.

[Kidphilly]

Originally Posted by ichigo

I don't think Unisys would ever move. I've co-oped there a long time ago, and at a time it wasn't very "new tech/new grad" friendly company. Most people who worked there were there for 25+ year and I don't think they would ever go into center city. I'm not sure if situation has improved there, but I'm guessing not by much.

yeah wouldnt it be great for them to add a city office and SAP too

maybe both sites but start to grow a city office so-to-speak

[sayitaintso]

Source has confirmed the Project Management company is moving HQ from SNJ to West Market. Somewhere between 150 and 300 employees.

[josef]

Originally Posted by sayitaintso

Source has confirmed the Project Management company is moving HQ from SNJ to West Market. Somewhere between 150 and 300 employees.

Nice!

So, I was just on a lunch errand walking through the concourse, and I saw two dudes with clipboards and measuring tapes hanging around the long-closed PSFS concourse level entrance (the huge black tile and black window side of the Market Street concourse between the 13th & 11th Street stations, basically). The one guy measured something on the black tile between two of the windows. I wonder what's going on.. Could whoever owns the PSFS building finally reopen their concourse entrances, the signs for which are still there?

[Londonee]

Originally Posted by ichigo

I don't think Unisys would ever move. I've co-oped there a long time ago, and at a time it wasn't very "new tech/new grad" friendly company. Most people who worked there were there for 25+ year and I don't think they would ever go into center city. I'm not sure if situation has improved there, but I'm guessing not by much.

You are familiar with this whole fiasco right?

[ichigo]

Originally Posted by Londonee

You are familiar with this whole fiasco right?

HAHAHA I had no idea. I was there in 2003.

So wait, the announcement about the move was in 2007 and from what I understand they haven't moved yet? What happened?

[1487]

Originally Posted by sayitaintso

Source has confirmed the Project Management company is moving HQ from SNJ to West Market. Somewhere between 150 and 300 employees.

i had heard about this a while ago, it was rumored they were looking for 70k sf of space in CC coming from Marlton, that is a great come up for the city if true. I wonder which building? Mellon Bank? Centre Square?

[Londonee]

Originally Posted by ichigo

HAHAHA I had no idea. I was there in 2003.

So wait, the announcement about the move was in 2007 and from what I understand they haven't moved yet? What happened?

I'm not sure if this was the only factor...but they wanted to put a huge UNISYS sign at about the 37th floor of Liberty 2. I think people like SCRUB and other groups fought it for some reason--it became a huge sticking point.

Really though? My guess is the recession hit, and UNISYS used the sign fiasco as a reason to not commit a ton of capital to an expensive and costly relocation.


source: philly.com

[ichigo]

Originally Posted by Londonee

I'm not sure if this was the only factor...but they wanted to put a huge UNISYS sign at about the 37th floor of Liberty 2. I think people like SCRUB and other groups fought it for some reason--it became a huge sticking point.

Really though? My guess is the recession hit, and UNISYS used the sign fiasco as a reason to not commit a ton of capital to an expensive and costly relocation.


source: philly.com

oh, right. I remember reading about this (probably on this forum ). I think the sign was probably used as a sticking point by people that didn't want to move in the first place. Unisys always had lots of red tape bullshit. They were Windows only shop when I was there and even had crazy ass proprietary OS for their servers and they laughed at me when I said they should just use Linux. 3 years after I left, they started Linux division hahaha.

Anyway, back to the point, I don't think they would move. But who knows, they might

[josef]

Originally Posted by ichigo

Anyway, back to the point, I don't think they would move. But who knows, they might

I have to imagine it's at nontrivially possible, and as the years go on, and those lifers have retired, that possibility will increase. I mean, look at their HQ campus picture on Wikipedia. It's a poster child for the kinds of sprawling suburban campuses that young technology people don't want to work in. At least, myself, most of the people I know, all the people I work with, most of the people I graduated college with, and almost everyone I read about on Technically Philly.

Other metros are figuring this out. MetroWest in Boston, their sprawling office park area, has been losing out to Cambridge and Boston for a few years now as young people chose to work in cities, or at least, denser urban environments. I just don't understand how you can look at that trend and not capitalize on it, unless you're a very old, very slow moving, declining dinosaur. Is that what Unisys is?

[Philly Fan]

Originally Posted by ichigo

oh, right. I remember reading about this (probably on this forum ). I think the sign was probably used as a sticking point by people that didn't want to move in the first place. Unisys always had lots of red tape bullshit. They were Windows only shop when I was there and even had crazy ass proprietary OS for their servers and they laughed at me when I said they should just use Linux. 3 years after I left, they started Linux division hahaha.

Anyway, back to the point, I don't think they would move. But who knows, they might

Hmmmmmm, maybe if you offer to come back and head up their Linux division . . . . . . but ONLY if they agree to move into Center City.

[Cro Burnham]

The rich folks who lived in the condos upstairs at 2 Liberty refused to have a big red Unisys sign on their building. They put alot of weight on the mayor, who basically told Unisys that the sign was a non-starter, so Unisys walked away from the deal.

Personally, I think we should have let them have the sign, but in the end it's probably not a big loss. I always had the impression they were sort of a shrinking dinosaur of a company. Doesn't it seem like most of their clients are backwrd govt agencies?

I doubt they'd consider setting foot in Philly again. I imagine the typical worker there a guy about 55 with thick plastic glasses and a pocket protector with mechanical pencils in it. Like Michael Douglas' character in Falling Down, or an image of an IBM man in the 1960s.

Not exactly N3RD St types.

[Larry King]

Originally Posted by Cro Burnham

The rich folks who lived in the condos upstairs at 2 Liberty refused to have a big red Unisys sign on their building. They put alot of weight on the mayor, who basically told Unisys that the sign was a non-starter, so Unisys walked away from the deal.

Personally, I think we should have let them have the sign, but in the end it's probably not a big loss. I always had the impression they were sort of a shrinking dinosaur of a company. Doesn't it seem like most of their clients are backwrd govt agencies?

I doubt they'd consider setting foot in Philly again. I imagine the typical worker there a guy about 55 with thick plastic glasses and a pocket protector with mechanical pencils in it. Like Michael Douglas' character in Falling Down, or an image of an IBM man in the 1960s.

Not exactly N3RD St types.

the sign would've been obnoxious. I'm glad we don't have it

[Teakwood]

Originally Posted by Londonee

I'm not sure if this was the only factor...but they wanted to put a huge UNISYS sign at about the 37th floor of Liberty 2. I think people like SCRUB and other groups fought it for some reason--it became a huge sticking point.

Really though? My guess is the recession hit, and UNISYS used the sign fiasco as a reason to not commit a ton of capital to an expensive and costly relocation.


source: philly.com

The 37th floor? I'm quite happy we got R2L instead.

[ILovePhilly]

Hill has an office in Center City already in 1500 centre square. I heard a while ago they were going to be moving the Jersey people into a combined Center City office and I'm glad they are finally getting that under way. Also moving downtown are all of Jacobs Engineering employees currently in the West Chester office. (or, the jobs are moving, I suppose the Jacobs employees may or may not go with them). I don't know how many employees they have out there currently but they will be consolidating with their (much smaller) Center City presence somewhere in CC.