PHILADELPHIA | Highrise Development Thread IX

[1487]

Centre Square sold for $328M this month per philly.com. Seems like a good sign for the market. Major upgrades planned by new owner.

[New2Fishtown]

This was one of the big tenants the city was courting. Nice for the City Ave area that they're remaining in place, but this takes one of the would-be anchors for new construction out of the market.

https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia...ce-bala-plaza-city-ave-headquarters.html

[summersm343]

Amazon to West Philly?

According to multiple sources, Amazon will be opening *something* in the building at 41st and Chestnut owned by Penn. It seems way too small to be a warehouse of some kind.... anybody have any idea what it could be?

[Knight Hospitaller]

Originally Posted by summersm343

Amazon to West Philly?

According to multiple sources, Amazon will be opening *something* in the building at 41st and Chestnut owned by Penn. It seems way too small to be a warehouse of some kind.... anybody have any idea what it could be?

Maybe relocating Amazon@Penn, currently located in the Commons?

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by summersm343

Amazon to West Philly?

According to multiple sources, Amazon will be opening *something* in the building at 41st and Chestnut owned by Penn. It seems way too small to be a warehouse of some kind.... anybody have any idea what it could be?

Possibilities:

1. A Amazon To Go store. These are the staff-less conveniences stores that have been rolling out in Seattle over the past few months.

2. A last mile facility. I imagine the volumes for Amazon deliveries in West Philly are very high. Add to that, Amazon has been buying its own planes etc to start cutting out UPS and FedEx. Maybe this is some sort of hyper local deployment/test of their supply chain of the future.

3. Meal Kit facility. Buying Whole Foods; maybe this will be a test kitchen / prep-facility to build out that functionality for Whole Foods once they own it?

4. Drone research & development.

[City Wide]

Originally Posted by summersm343

Amazon to West Philly?

According to multiple sources, Amazon will be opening *something* in the building at 41st and Chestnut owned by Penn. It seems way too small to be a warehouse of some kind.... anybody have any idea what it could be?

Do you mean the old 2 story printing factory? The last time I heard, that whole block was owned by Campus Realty or UC Realty, both private companies. New windows were put in several years ago, but nothing except paid parking since then.

[Urbanthusiat]

http://www.ocfrealty.com/naked-philly/west-philly/amazon-warehouse-coming-to-west-philly

Amazon Warehouse Coming to West Philly?

...
According to a reader, Amazon is opening a warehouse in this building. They didn't know whether the plans call for a warehouse that handles typical Amazon fare or whether it will be related to their Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service, but nevertheless it was incredible to hear that Amazon will soon be planting a flag in the middle of West Philly, next door to Penn.

Perhaps you're doubtful- we were too. To verify the story, we went to the New Style Pizzeria right across the street to ask around. We asked the guy behind the counter, as soon as the construction workers from across the street were finished putting in their order, if he knew what they were working on. Without prompting, he said it's going to be an Amazon warehouse. And that was pretty much all the info that he had. But that was good enough for us. An Amazon warehouse is coming soon to West Philadelphia, they'll be reusing a great old building to boot, and we got a pretty good slice of pizza out of our investigative efforts. It's been a good day.

This is the building. An Amazon logo is going to look really good here. This area has actually had quite a few proposals recently - The Girard Electric building is getting rehabbed, a 14-story mixed-use building at 4125 Chestnut, U3 Ventures redevelopment at 40th and Chestnut, and I believe there was an office building proposal at 41st and Walnut.

I'm actually going to speculate that this will be a testing ground for AmazonFresh/Whole Foods in partnership with Penn. I understand that Penn has been in litigation with Fresh Grocer at 40th and Walnut, and they've been wondering how to make the transition to a new store without disrupting food access for students. An Amazon Whole Foods partnership would be able to set up shop relatively quickly, I imagine. Having Penn management and supply-chain experts around to advise on how to make the concept work is a great perk too, because Amazon is still a ways off from actually becoming profitable.

[Justin7]

Originally Posted by summersm343

Delaware Waterfront Park project starts with highway ramp demolition

Read more here:
http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/...95-cap-penns-landing-ramps-20170725.html

This is great. Wish they would make the loop a bit more pedestrian friendly while they're at it.

[McBane]

I'm not following the enthusiasm for this Amazon warehouse. Look, I shop at Amazon (and Whole Foods) all the time. But what's so celebratory about a warehouse opening on what is supposed to be a commercial street in one the city's hottest neighborhoods? We're not talking about an industrial park in the far NE or something out by the airport, it's 41st and Chestnut. And it's not as if these are high paying jobs either.

[tsarstruck]

Originally Posted by McBane

I'm not following the enthusiasm for this Amazon warehouse. Look, I shop at Amazon (and Whole Foods) all the time. But what's so celebratory about a warehouse opening on what is supposed to be a commercial street in one the city's hottest neighborhoods? We're not talking about an industrial park in the far NE or something out by the airport, it's 41st and Chestnut. And it's not as if these are high paying jobs either.

Because it's not a warehouse?

A) It makes no sense as an Amazon warehouse. Not enough space. Not enough loading.
B) It would require a variance for a warehouse, which it doesn't have.

[Knight Hospitaller]

Unless someone has information to the contrary, I'm thinking that they're probably just relocating the "Amazon@Penn" location that's currently in the 1920 Commons building. An "Amazon Go" location also sounds plausible, if the concept is ready for prime time (I thought the store in Washington state was still in "beta" mode).

[summersm343]

Vine Street Cap Parks

These two caps just north of Logan Square are now open and are very nice. They make you long for the day that all of the Vine Street is capped with Green space. It really connects Center City/Logan Square with the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and all points North now. The way the Free Library interacts with the Parkway and Logan Square now is amazing.

Now that the I-95 cap park is pretty much under way, the city needs to turn it's full attention towards capping Vine Street. It really needs to be done. Ideally all of Vine Street from 10th Street to 22nd Street needs to be capped, but if we can start with everything West of Broad, that would be great.

The day when someone could go from Wisshickon Gorge, down Lincoln Drive/Kelly Drive to Fairmount Park, and then branch off and go down the Schuylkill River Trail, or down the Parkway... to connect to Logan Square, and then down the "Vine Street Greenway" and then to the Reading Viaduct Park...

What a superb and World Class connection of green spaces/parks that would be.

[Knight Hospitaller]

^Was with the family in the Sister Cities Park portion of Logan Square on Saturday. Even with the new bridges, hard/landscaping, and new partial cap, the uncapped portions stick out like a sore thumb - maybe more than they did before.

[39.95n]

Thought this was pretty cool, although it would have been nice if they went further back in time and included Old City and west Philly. Still, sorta fun...

https://technical.ly/philly/2017/07/27/skyline-video-100-tallest-buildings/

[summersm343]

1500 Spring Garden gets 2 new tenants

Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, which is part of the Free Library of Philadelphia, signed a 15-year lease on 10,183 square feet at 1500 Spring Garden St. in Philadelphia and will relocated from 919 Walnut St. Keith Kiner and Mike Anderson of PernaFrederick Commercial Real Estate represented the tenant. In another lease at 1500 Spring Garden, Hussian College signed a 12-year lease on 32,771 square feet at the building. The school was represented by Veronica Blum of MPN Realty and is relocating from the Bourse at 111 S. Independence Mall. George Cauffman, Joseph Wolff, Kevin Maloney and David Mendez of CBRE Inc. represented the landlord, Nightingale Properties. The building is now 90 percent occupied.

https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2017/07/27/cre-nightingale-mpn-realty-nai-mertz.html

[eixample]

Originally Posted by summersm343

1500 Spring Garden gets 2 new tenants



https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2017/07/27/cre-nightingale-mpn-realty-nai-mertz.html

I wonder what will happen to the 919 Walnut Free Library facility. I hope they open a regular branch there.

[1487]

Originally Posted by summersm343

Vine Street Cap Parks

These two caps just north of Logan Square are now open and are very nice. They make you long for the day that all of the Vine Street is capped with Green space. It really connects Center City/Logan Square with the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and all points North now. The way the Free Library interacts with the Parkway and Logan Square now is amazing.

Now that the I-95 cap park is pretty much under way, the city needs to turn it's full attention towards capping Vine Street. It really needs to be done. Ideally all of Vine Street from 10th Street to 22nd Street needs to be capped, but if we can start with everything West of Broad, that would be great.

The day when someone could go from Wisshickon Gorge, down Lincoln Drive/Kelly Drive to Fairmount Park, and then branch off and go down the Schuylkill River Trail, or down the Parkway... to connect to Logan Square, and then down the "Vine Street Greenway" and then to the Reading Viaduct Park...

What a superb and World Class connection of green spaces/parks that would be.

well you better hope the much talked about infrastructure bill comes to fruition. Federal assist is only way you will ever see such a major project. City typically only contributes a small % (if anything) to major transportation projects within its limits. And with the current financial situation the prospect of floating bonds for such a big project are slim to none. Especially if the Rebuild bonds move forward.

[summersm343]

One Franklin Tower - 16th and Race - luxury apartments/office/retail - redevelopment

[iheartphilly]

I'm really impressed with how One Franklin turned out from the re-cladding. Plenty of candidates for this treatment within our city. Cough...cough...some of the hotels need to up their game.

[summersm343]

Took a ton of photo updates yesterday... just uploaded them today. Enjoy!