PHILADELPHIA | Highrise Development Thread IX

[Knight Hospitaller]

Originally Posted by jjv007

Yeah but's that still just 3 or 4 legitimate highrise projects under construction at most. It only comes in waves if the city's economy is mediocre. Cities directly in front of Philly in many ways like Boston and San Fran, or even Seattle, have at least a dozen of these scale projects underway with more constantly going through the review process.
2016 Philadelphia is light years ahead of 2000 Philadelphia, but unfortunately still trails behind and is for the most part growing slower than all the cities classified above it.
I say this as someone who loves Philly and wants nothing but the best for it. Sorry if this post sounds negadelphian.

Not "negadelphian," but realistic. This city has amazing qualities and potential - not to mention location, location, location - but our particular political and tax structure is like a drag chute holding us back. That our little boomlet has happened in spite of that is testimony to the city's strengths.

[Knight Hospitaller]

Inga on Jewelers' Row:
http://www.philly.com/philly/living/2016...tens_Jewelers_Row_history__heritage.html

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by jjv007

Yeah but's that still just 3 or 4 legitimate highrise projects under construction at most. It only comes in waves if the city's economy is mediocre. Cities directly in front of Philly in many ways like Boston and San Fran, or even Seattle, have at least a dozen of these scale projects underway with more constantly going through the review process.
2016 Philadelphia is light years ahead of 2000 Philadelphia, but unfortunately still trails behind and is for the most part growing slower than all the cities classified above it.
I say this as someone who loves Philly and wants nothing but the best for it. Sorry if this post sounds negadelphian.

I call B*llsh*t.

I'm the first person to criticize Philadelphia when needed but a dozen "skyscrapers" going up in Boston at any one time at all times? If that's the case, why does Boston's skyline look like Wilmington Delaware's and not ours? Further more, why doesn't its skyline look more like Miami or Seattle.

We are indeed in a boom and we aren't really trailing all that many cities at this point. The only thing I think I'd like to see that we don't have is an additional commercial high rise going up (in addition to CITC and FMC). There are few cities in this country building more than 3 true skyscrapers for businesses (i.e. offices) at any one time. That list might be limited to New York and maybe Los Angeles and maybe Chicago. Even then, I think honestly it's only NYC.

I was actually just thinking that there is SOOO much more going on here than one would be led to believe based on the activity on this thread, which seems to have died down over the years. Not sure why. I was just thinking that in the next crop of development (and by next, I mean 1-2 years), we'll likely have:

1. The first Schuykill Yards building
2. Phase II of CHOPs development on the East Side of the Schuykill
3. 2100 Market
4. 1911 Walnut

On top of that, by the time those things get underway, we'll likely have a bevy of cranes in the Loft District for new residential buildings north of Vine Street and serious movement on the 3rd Comcast building. I would think it wouldn't be out of the question to also have a yet unknown commercial building underway west of the Schuykill and the SLS and/or another hotel.

Literally this post leaves out buildings ALL over the city that don't seem to impress you. 1601 Vine, The Bridge, One Water Street, CHOP Phase I, the W, various spec buildings in University City, Wistar, the medical centers, 1213 Walnut, East Market, 500 Walnut, The Dalian, etc. Yes, these buildings are not all tall, but they are all massive. Building a building with 300+ apartments is no small feat for any city. The amount of construction happening here is historic by any standard, let alone just Philadelphia's.

If anything, people aren't impressed by the torrid pace of construction at this point because they're used to it? I dunno.

[3rd&Brown]

I just did a count of unique (building) threads in the "Highrise Construction" section of this forum and Philadelphia had 14 buildings with threads in the section and Boston had 5.

Not intended to be a city versus city discussion but yes, Philadelphians always have perceptions that are worse than reality. It's exhausting.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

I just did a count of unique (building) threads in the "Highrise Construction" section of this forum and Philadelphia had 14 buildings with threads in the section and Boston had 5.

Not intended to be a city versus city discussion but yes, Philadelphians always have perceptions that are worse than reality. It's exhausting.

And I left out the Supertall forum in which Philadelphia had 1 Entry (CITC) and Boston, 0.

So total score, Philadelphia = 15. Boston = 5.

[Milksteak]

Let's also remember that Philly just reversed 50 straight years of population loss only 6 years ago. 50 years. I'd say we're killin' it at the moment.

[Boku]

Plus 1900 Chestnut, Cira II, the uCity Square buildings, et al...like, I'm not sure where that sentiment came from.

[jjv007]

A lot of the stuff you guys are mentioning are proposals that are starting a while down the road and will come to fruition relatively slowly. Also, I'm not talking about highrises exclusively but also major projects in general.
That being said, your sources on Boston are flat out wrong. Please be objective. Summers has some good statistics on highrise projects by city so maybe he could shed some light.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by jjv007

A lot of the stuff you guys are mentioning are proposals that are starting a while down the road and will come to fruition relatively slowly. Also, I'm not talking about highrises exclusively but also major projects in general.
That being said, your sources on Boston are flat out wrong. Please be objective. Summers has some good statistics on highrise projects by city so maybe he could shed some light.

No they're not. Compare apples to apples.

Currently under construction in Philadelphia there are 15 highrises (minimum). You can search the thread on "HIGHRISE CONSTRUCTION" and see pictures yourself. Boston has FIVE.

////END OF STORY.

BUH-BYE.

[Jsiegel]

I know we're not comparing high rises/skyscrapers, but I just drove through Boston on Saturday and maybe they have some good construction projects hidden from view, but it's no joke their skyline looks like it's stuck in the mid-70s and is at best on par with Baltimore. I'd take Philadelphia's quality over it any day in terms of what's going up and what's already here.

[Larry King]

Boston has nothing interesting going on, I was just there recently

[Skyscraper.Phanatic]

Does Boston have all of the buildings that line Chestnut and S. Broad St. that were moth balled? Then turmed into either apts. or condos. I think alot of the office building construction other than CITC is just repositioning firms. Although in the last year a number of smaller firms located in the city.

[summersm343]

Toll Bros. plans to work with Jewelers' Row merchants on tower

Toll Brothers Inc. said it plans to work with the Jewelers' Row community on a controversial 16-story condominium tower the developer is proposing in the heart of the historic diamond district in Philadelphia.

The project involves razing six properties in the 700 block of Sansom Street to make way for the building that would have 80 units. The development was first reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Toll’s City Living division has received zoning approval from Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses & Inspections for the project.

“Despite the by-right zoning status of this project, Toll Brothers City Living plans to engage the local community throughout this process,” said Michael J. Duff, a Toll spokesman, in a statement. “We are committed to delivering a residential building that is respectful of the history of Jewelers’ Row while rejuvenating it for the future. Although we are still considering our prospective development plans for this project, we intend, through contextual architectural design, for the existing cornice line of Sansom Street to remain intact while retaining retail space along the street level for jewelry stores to preserve the iconic Jewelers Row streetscape.”

http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/...-jewelers-row-petition-tower-sansom.html

[summersm343]

Jewelers Row condo tower plan hits zoning speed bump

The Toll Bros. plan for a 16-story condo building on Philadelphia's Jewelers Row has hit a procedural snag that could delay the project by months while it is considered by the city design-advisory board.

Zoning review staffers erred in issuing Toll Bros. a zoning permit for the 80-unit project without requiring it to be considered by the city's Civic Design Review Committee, David Perri, commissioner of the Department of Licenses and Inspections, said Wednesday.

Projects exceeding certain size and other thresholds must go through the Civic Design Review process. Horsham-based Toll's 107,000-square-foot Jewelers Row project is covered by that requirement because it exceeds 100,000 square feet, Perri said in an email.

L&I has issued a conditional permit in place of the final one granted earlier this month, Perri said. "We expect that the CDR process will inform and influence the overall design of the project," he said.

The design-review panel's suggestions are nonbinding, so it is uncertain how much of an impact it can have on Toll's plan, which involves displacement of five Jewelers Row properties in the 700 block of Sansom Street. Toll has 150 days to begin the review process, which also requires the developer to meet with members of the community.

Once started, the process can take months, depending on how quickly community groups and the design-review board can get the project on their calendars, said Peter Kelsen, a land-use attorney with the law firm Blank Rome who is not involved in the case.

Toll Bros. lawyer Ronald Patterson said Wednesday that the company had anticipated going through design review before its original permit was granted, so it did not see being told to do so now as a hardship.

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/re...o_tower_plan_hits_zoning_speed_bump.html

[Knight Hospitaller]

I'd still like to know whether they own all of the properties. We went through all this with Blatstein for nothing.

[Aaamazarite]

Hey-- for those of you worried about the lack of announcements of future projects, just wanna let you know that there are plenty of relatively significant new things in the works. Most developers don't want to announce anything until their sales close on the land parcels, etc... a couple of the deals have fallen through before they were ever announced-- I guess they don't want the embarrassment some developers felt in the last boom when they announced proposals for all kinds of goofy crap that never got built. Remember all the crap that was going to be built near Sugarhouse?

I know about some smaller stuff planned for 2019 or so that will make a bigger impact than a new supertall would and more stuff planned for the years after that if the market holds up. Some are waiting to see how the current things being built perform before they move forward... East Market for example. My only real worry is that the market will tank before it can all come to fruition.

Also, there are a shitton of infill and rehab/renovation projects in works for pretty much every neighborhood.

The way I look at it, if I know about x projects being planned, there are 3-5 times more that I don't know about.

[br323206]

Originally Posted by Human Scale

Don't forget about the Southern Sun! Your green space would be ruined by a high rise that would completely shadow the free space there.

Are you for real or being sarcastic? The FMC tower doesn't ruin Cira Green. Rittenhouse is lined with high-rises on its southern side and is literally one of the most successful urban green spaces in the world.

[Knight Hospitaller]

Originally Posted by Aaamazarite

Most developers don't want to announce anything until their sales close on the land parcels, etc.

And then there's Blatstein (and maybe Toll)....

[1487]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

I call B*llsh*t.

I'm the first person to criticize Philadelphia when needed but a dozen "skyscrapers" going up in Boston at any one time at all times? If that's the case, why does Boston's skyline look like Wilmington Delaware's and not ours? Further more, why doesn't its skyline look more like Miami or Seattle.

We are indeed in a boom and we aren't really trailing all that many cities at this point. The only thing I think I'd like to see that we don't have is an additional commercial high rise going up (in addition to CITC and FMC). There are few cities in this country building more than 3 true skyscrapers for businesses (i.e. offices) at any one time. That list might be limited to New York and maybe Los Angeles and maybe Chicago. Even then, I think honestly it's only NYC.

I was actually just thinking that there is SOOO much more going on here than one would be led to believe based on the activity on this thread, which seems to have died down over the years. Not sure why. I was just thinking that in the next crop of development (and by next, I mean 1-2 years), we'll likely have:

1. The first Schuykill Yards building
2. Phase II of CHOPs development on the East Side of the Schuykill
3. 2100 Market
4. 1911 Walnut

On top of that, by the time those things get underway, we'll likely have a bevy of cranes in the Loft District for new residential buildings north of Vine Street and serious movement on the 3rd Comcast building. I would think it wouldn't be out of the question to also have a yet unknown commercial building underway west of the Schuykill and the SLS and/or another hotel.

Literally this post leaves out buildings ALL over the city that don't seem to impress you. 1601 Vine, The Bridge, One Water Street, CHOP Phase I, the W, various spec buildings in University City, Wistar, the medical centers, 1213 Walnut, East Market, 500 Walnut, The Dalian, etc. Yes, these buildings are not all tall, but they are all massive. Building a building with 300+ apartments is no small feat for any city. The amount of construction happening here is historic by any standard, let alone just Philadelphia's.

If anything, people aren't impressed by the torrid pace of construction at this point because they're used to it? I dunno.

I was in chicago and there is little office construction going on and relative to the size of their skyline I'd say there isn't as much being built as in Philly right now. I probably saw 6-10 cranes on major high rise projects during my 4 days there.

[hammersklavier]

Philadelphia currently has three office skyscrapers going up -- CITC, CHoP, and Cira II. Three!! Do you know how many other cities have that many? New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and ... that's about it AFAIK. And we have resi highrises out the wazoo, recently completed and under construction and being announced, as well as crazy infill radiating out ever deeper into the city. 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th streets north of Girard are being rebuilt even as we speak.