PHILADELPHIA | Highrise Development Thread IX

[kingtut]

Is that a good thing or bag thing ? Does that mean that Philadelphia is last in a sellers market .

[MikeNigh]

Originally Posted by kingtut

Is that a good thing or bag thing ? Does that mean that Philadelphia is last in a sellers market .

Strange because the value of similar units to mine in my building appear to gone up 5% in less than a year and currently there is only 1 unit for sale when there used to be consistently about 5-7.

[Cro Burnham]

Originally Posted by MikeNigh

Strange because the value of similar units to mine in my building appear to gone up 5% in less than a year and currently there is only 1 unit for sale when there used to be consistently about 5-7.

Let's face it - other than the main line sand a few other more interesting suburbs, most of Philly's burbs (and large parts of the city remote from Center City) flat out suck. There's no surprise if it's a buyer's market in, say, Deptford, Horsham, Pennsauken, East Mt Airy, Torresdale, or Broomall, no offense to anyone who lives there. These are working / middle class places, lacking any compelling aesthetic reason to move there, whose populations are getting whacked by structural economic shifts, in a region that isn't really growing jobs. Would anyone expect prices to be skyrocketing in such places.

Greater Center City, on the other hand, seems to be doing fine, based on all the construction and buying going on.

[Philly Fan]

Brandywine buys on Market

Brandywine Realty Trust is considering a mixed-use development at the current site of a parking garage at 618 Market St. that it bought for $17 million, chief executive Gerard Sweeney told analysts in a conference call. The site, which now also houses a suit shop and the office of radio personality Jerry Blavat, could accommodate at least 600,000 square feet of development, Sweeney said. The company does not have a specific plan for the parcel and will operate the garage until one is chosen. - Jacob Adelman

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20150424_Business_news_in_brief.html

[summersm343]

Originally Posted by Philly Fan

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20150424_Business_news_in_brief.html

Boom! Love it. At this site, 600,000 sq feet could be 400-500 feet.

[MikeNigh]

Originally Posted by summersm343

Boom! Love it. At this site, 600,000 sq feet could be 400-500 feet.

618 Market St

[summersm343]

Originally Posted by MikeNigh

618 Market St

I just did some digging. The lot size is 27,000 sq feet. That makes a 600,000 square foot development here about 22-23 floors. So we're realistically looking at about 350-375 feet here.

http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/14527197/618-Market-Street-Philadelphia-PA/

[summersm343]

Speaking of Market Street - the 2100 block

I was out on the town with a few commercial brokers last night who told me the 2100 block of Market is about to go under contract. They couldn't divulge who the buyer is, but hopefully this is a good sign that Basciano is looking to sell off the land he owns in Center City.

[br323206]

Originally Posted by Cro Burnham

Let's face it - other than the main line sand a few other more interesting suburbs, most of Philly's burbs (and large parts of the city remote from Center City) flat out suck. There's no surprise if it's a buyer's market in, say, Deptford, Horsham, Pennsauken, East Mt Airy, Torresdale, or Broomall, no offense to anyone who lives there. These are working / middle class places, lacking any compelling aesthetic reason to move there, whose populations are getting whacked by structural economic shifts, in a region that isn't really growing jobs. Would anyone expect prices to be skyrocketing in such places.

Greater Center City, on the other hand, seems to be doing fine, based on all the construction and buying going on.

Agree with the sentiment. Just going to nitpick the inclusion of Horsham. I'll agree it is uninteresting but it's not really working/middle class. It's more upper middle class and probably not a buyer's market. The median income is $82,000, which is higher than Montco as a whole.

[Cro Burnham]

Originally Posted by br323206

Agree with the sentiment. Just going to nitpick the inclusion of Horsham. . . .. probably not a buyer's market. The median income is $82,000, which is higher than Montco as a whole.

I stand corrected. But the place is about as generic a suburb as they come.

[Cro Burnham]

Originally Posted by summersm343

Speaking of Market Street - the 2100 block this is a good sign that Basciano is looking to sell off the land he owns in Center City.

Probably going to offshore the cash ASAP so his collapse victim families can't take it all from him, greedy old mafia lacky that he is.

[1487]

Originally Posted by summersm343

Speaking of Market Street - the 2100 block

I was out on the town with a few commercial brokers last night who told me the 2100 block of Market is about to go under contract. They couldn't divulge who the buyer is, but hopefully this is a good sign that Basciano is looking to sell off the land he owns in Center City.

One can only hope that is the case. That stretch is a disgrace.

[1487]

Originally Posted by Cro Burnham

Let's face it - other than the main line sand a few other more interesting suburbs, most of Philly's burbs (and large parts of the city remote from Center City) flat out suck. There's no surprise if it's a buyer's market in, say, Deptford, Horsham, Pennsauken, East Mt Airy, Torresdale, or Broomall, no offense to anyone who lives there. These are working / middle class places, lacking any compelling aesthetic reason to move there, whose populations are getting whacked by structural economic shifts, in a region that isn't really growing jobs. Would anyone expect prices to be skyrocketing in such places.

Greater Center City, on the other hand, seems to be doing fine, based on all the construction and buying going on.

Comparing the cities outlying neighborhoods (especially those that are close to rail lines) to far flung suburbs with tract housing built well after WW2 makes no sense. Not only are the houses in Philly's older areas full of character- those houses are often less than 30min from CC by train. That is much different than suburban towns with split level housing built in the 60s that may or may not be near a far flung regional rail station. New Jersey suburbs are even more at a disadvantage because you only have one rail line extending from CC into South Jersey. Mt. Airy/Chestnut Hill don't have much in common with Broomall or Deptford. Seeing the entire region as either Center City or Everything Else is a tad simplistic.

[UrbanRevival]

Originally Posted by Cro Burnham

Let's face it - other than the main line sand a few other more interesting suburbs, most of Philly's burbs (and large parts of the city remote from Center City) flat out suck. There's no surprise if it's a buyer's market in, say, Deptford, Horsham, Pennsauken, East Mt Airy, Torresdale, or Broomall, no offense to anyone who lives there. These are working / middle class places, lacking any compelling aesthetic reason to move there, whose populations are getting whacked by structural economic shifts, in a region that isn't really growing jobs. Would anyone expect prices to be skyrocketing in such places.

Let's take it down several notches with the suburb-bashing. The presence of a "buyers market" region-wide has literally nothing to do with how "interesting" suburbs are and everything to do with population growth and job market strength.

Do you honestly believe that "hot" regional housing markets in metros like the Bay Area, Seattle, Denver and Dallas have endless interesting, sophisticated, amenity-filled suburbs? Give me a break. In fact, I'd argue that these cities' suburbs are MUCH more filled with endless, post-war tract housing and strip malls compared to the Philly region. Not exactly the utopia you'd expect for a modest, 1970s ranch going for 800K.

No, not every suburb is stimulating, but the towns around Philly, by-and-large, offer a very stable, middle-to-upper-middle class lifestyle with balanced growth, decent-to-amazing public schools, and limited sprawl/widespread open space compared to most other metro regions. Adding in its fair share of authentic town centers, extensive commuter rail, and underrated history, and you have a suburban region that is much more attractive than you're giving credit for.

In this day and age, as affordable housing becomes a distant memory in many cities, the Philadelphia region is lucky to have this economic balance where cost-of-living increases are much more in-line with income growth.

I'll never understand why more people cannot understand the major benefit of being a relatively slow-growth region. It's extremely beneficial to cultivating a thriving middle-class, which is something that cities like NY, SF, DC, Seattle and Boston are struggling to keep around and will trouble them greatly in the long-term.

[summersm343]

Can we stop with these nonsensical debates please? Thank you.

[UrbanRevival]

Deleted.

[1487]

Originally Posted by UrbanRevival

Let's take it down several notches with the suburb-bashing. The presence of a "buyers market" region-wide has literally nothing to do with how "interesting" suburbs are and everything to do with population growth and job market strength.

Do you honestly believe that "hot" regional housing markets in metros like the Bay Area, Seattle, Denver and Dallas have endless interesting, sophisticated, amenity-filled suburbs? Give me a break. In fact, I'd argue that these cities' suburbs are MUCH more filled with endless, post-war tract housing and strip malls compared to the Philly region. Not exactly the utopia you'd expect for a modest, 1970s ranch going for 800K.

No, not every suburb is stimulating, but the towns around Philly, by-and-large, offer a very stable, middle-to-upper-middle class lifestyle with balanced growth, decent-to-amazing public schools, and limited sprawl/widespread open space compared to most other metro regions. Adding in its fair share of authentic town centers, extensive commuter rail, and underrated history, and you have a suburban region that is much more attractive than you're giving credit for.

In this day and age, as affordable housing becomes a distant memory in many cities, the Philadelphia region is lucky to have this economic balance where cost-of-living increases are much more in-line with income growth.

I'll never understand why more people cannot understand the major benefit of being a relatively slow-growth region. It's extremely beneficial to cultivating a thriving middle-class, which is something that cities like NY, SF, DC, Seattle and Boston are struggling to keep around and will trouble them greatly in the long-term.

PHilly has the advantage of actually having a lot of suburban towns with main streets and rail access to CC. You dont find that nearly as much in the south or west. THere are lots of towns around here that are relatively close to the city but still offer their own little business districts as well as older traditional homes with character. Philly suburbs and Atlanta suburbs are very different animals.

[GarCastle]

Originally Posted by Philly Fan

I think that's always been the plan, but I think they were hoping that the additional subscribers--and perhaps more significantly, the addition of the NYC and LA subscriber markets--that would have resulted from the TWC merger would have provided more support for that. But as I said in another thread, Comcast's history is to occasionally be down, but never out. I'm sure they have other growth plans to pursue now that the TWC acquisition is apparently not going to happen.

Too bad Comcast couldn't grab Time Warner (not the cable company) since that would include: HBO, the CW, Cartoon Network, Bugs Bunny?!, New Line Cinema (Lord of the Rings, etc), Adult Swim, CNN, DC Comics, Hanna-Barbera (Flintstones?!), Castle Rock Entertainment, etc.

Cheers,
G.

[PhillyRising]

Originally Posted by UrbanRevival

Let's take it down several notches with the suburb-bashing. The presence of a "buyers market" region-wide has literally nothing to do with how "interesting" suburbs are and everything to do with population growth and job market strength.

Do you honestly believe that "hot" regional housing markets in metros like the Bay Area, Seattle, Denver and Dallas have endless interesting, sophisticated, amenity-filled suburbs? Give me a break. In fact, I'd argue that these cities' suburbs are MUCH more filled with endless, post-war tract housing and strip malls compared to the Philly region. Not exactly the utopia you'd expect for a modest, 1970s ranch going for 800K.

No, not every suburb is stimulating, but the towns around Philly, by-and-large, offer a very stable, middle-to-upper-middle class lifestyle with balanced growth, decent-to-amazing public schools, and limited sprawl/widespread open space compared to most other metro regions. Adding in its fair share of authentic town centers, extensive commuter rail, and underrated history, and you have a suburban region that is much more attractive than you're giving credit for.

In this day and age, as affordable housing becomes a distant memory in many cities, the Philadelphia region is lucky to have this economic balance where cost-of-living increases are much more in-line with income growth.

I'll never understand why more people cannot understand the major benefit of being a relatively slow-growth region. It's extremely beneficial to cultivating a thriving middle-class, which is something that cities like NY, SF, DC, Seattle and Boston are struggling to keep around and will trouble them greatly in the long-term.

Houses fly off the market in Chester County depending on where they are located...the closer to amenities...the faster they seem to go. Old row homes in West Chester Borough are going for 350K if they are bordering the downtown.

The Philadelphia western suburbs are generally much better than suburbs in other parts of the country.

I also agree with you in the slower growth. It keeps our quality of life more manageable. I would rather see most of the growth in the city....because the suburbs can't really thrive if the core city is dead.

[philatonian]

Originally Posted by 1487

PHilly has the advantage of actually having a lot of suburban towns with main streets and rail access to CC. You dont find that nearly as much in the south or west. THere are lots of towns around here that are relatively close to the city but still offer their own little business districts as well as older traditional homes with character. Philly suburbs and Atlanta suburbs are very different animals.

That's what I love about Philly, and the Northeast in general. The suburbs were built before cars and they reflect that. A lot of city's suburban towns are trying to replicate that (Orenco Station in Hillsboro, OR, the Kentlands in Gaithersburg, MD, Reston Town Center outside DC).

Originally Posted by GarCastle

Too bad Comcast couldn't grab Time Warner (not the cable company) since that would include: HBO, the CW, Cartoon Network, Bugs Bunny?!, New Line Cinema (Lord of the Rings, etc), Adult Swim, CNN, DC Comics, Hanna-Barbera (Flintstones?!), Castle Rock Entertainment, etc.

I think it will be a blessing long term. TW had a lot of content, but I think digital content is going to quickly usurp even premium cable networks. TW was also a beast with a lot of the same problems that plague Comcast. Doubling that would make the integration process and nightmare, and some of Comcast's attempts to branch out beyond telecom could take a backseat.

I wouldn't be surprised if our chances of seeing a third tower are even more realistic without TW, we'll probably just have to wait a little longer for it. Then again, they've already filled the CITC and they have $45B on the table.