PHILADELPHIA | Lowrise/General Developments Thread

[Trich]

Hey PhilliesPhan - great pics. I haven't been on campus in years so I really appreciate the pics. Did they install air conditioners into J&H? I lived in a corner room of Johnson freshman year and despite the cross breeze it was a constant balmy 90 degrees in my room. Courtesy of being above a kitchen. Also is anything taking over Peabody space? Or just green space?

[Gerdman]

Not sure if anyone saw this yet

Amazon headquarters: Philadelphia among final 20 cities for HQ2

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/am...adelphia-pittsburgh-newark-20180118.html

[PhilliesPhan]

Originally Posted by allovertown

Thanks for the photos. Haven't been on campus in over 5 years.

No problem!

Originally Posted by iheartphilly

Nice Pics...glad to see the progress on the wonderful new library. Go TEMPLE OWLS!!!!!

Fight, fight, fight for the Cherry and the White! I couldn't be prouder to be an Owl

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

These pictures make me miss college.

I'm so jealous of everything that's happening around campus. The freshmen who will be coming to campus this fall have no idea how much campus has improved. There are brand new facilities, new green spaces, the area around campus is remarkably safer ever since the TU police expanded their patrol boundaries, Cecil B. Moore Ave is busier than ever (it REALLY needs to be upzoned to CMX-2.5, and the stretch from Broad to Ridge should really have pedestrian-scale lighting for increased safety), and the University and its individual schools (especially Fox) continue to climb in the rankings. I'll be graduating this spring, and I have confidence that my alma mater will continue to rise.

Originally Posted by Trich

Hey PhilliesPhan - great pics. I haven't been on campus in years so I really appreciate the pics. Did they install air conditioners into J&H? I lived in a corner room of Johnson freshman year and despite the cross breeze it was a constant balmy 90 degrees in my room. Courtesy of being above a kitchen. Also is anything taking over Peabody space? Or just green space?

I'll answer some of your points, along with bringing up some that you would probably be interested in:

-J&H was completely renovated this summer. I saw construction crews hoisting new AC units up all across the complex. In the long-term, Temple has plans to demolish and redevelop the complex

-Peabody Hall has no immediate replacement. It was demolished since it would have costed the University more than it was worth to keep it standing. The running joke around campus is that it will be a parking lot for the new stadium!

-Speaking of the stadium, Temple's board is, according to my sources, fully committed to a stadium between Broad, 16th, Berks, and Norris. So long as the stadium conforms to principles of good urban design, I'll support it. It won't need a tremendous amount of parking since the campus is very transit-accessible. Also, it can be a mixed-use stadium complete with classrooms, a new new outpost for the TU police, retail, an indoor athletic field to replace Geasley Field, and a community outreach center. I don't think that the stadium would have received so much blowback from the community if it were emphasized to be mixed-use.

-Temple has plans to develop the northwest corner of Broad and Diamond, which is currently a grass lot. I believe that White Hall will be expanded during this development.

-I'll post pics either during the spring or when the weather gets warmer, but public spaces around the campus have been greatly improved! Liacouras and Polett Walk both received new bricks within the past year. O'Connor Plaza has been completely redone, and we now have a new owl statue on the outside of it. The Bell Tower was resealed over the summer, and I believe that greenery will ring around it when the spring rolls around.

-Finally, the SAC has a ton of new restaurants! It was also redone over the summer. Chick-Fil-A has been, by far, the most popular new edition

[Fairmount2Fishtown]

Originally Posted by PhilliesPhan

No problem!



Fight, fight, fight for the Cherry and the White! I couldn't be prouder to be an Owl



I'm so jealous of everything that's happening around campus. The freshmen who will be coming to campus this fall have no idea how much campus has improved. There are brand new facilities, new green spaces, the area around campus is remarkably safer ever since the TU police expanded their patrol boundaries, Cecil B. Moore Ave is busier than ever (it REALLY needs to be upzoned to CMX-2.5, and the stretch from Broad to Ridge should really have pedestrian-scale lighting for increased safety), and the University and its individual schools (especially Fox) continue to climb in the rankings. I'll be graduating this spring, and I have confidence that my alma mater will continue to rise.



I'll answer some of your points, along with bringing up some that you would probably be interested in:

-J&H was completely renovated this summer. I saw construction crews hoisting new AC units up all across the complex. In the long-term, Temple has plans to demolish and redevelop the complex

-Peabody Hall has no immediate replacement. It was demolished since it would have costed the University more than it was worth to keep it standing. The running joke around campus is that it will be a parking lot for the new stadium!

-Speaking of the stadium, Temple's board is, according to my sources, fully committed to a stadium between Broad, 16th, Berks, and Norris. So long as the stadium conforms to principles of good urban design, I'll support it. It won't need a tremendous amount of parking since the campus is very transit-accessible. Also, it can be a mixed-use stadium complete with classrooms, a new new outpost for the TU police, retail, an indoor athletic field to replace Geasley Field, and a community outreach center. I don't think that the stadium would have received so much blowback from the community if it were emphasized to be mixed-use.

-Temple has plans to develop the northwest corner of Broad and Diamond, which is currently a grass lot. I believe that White Hall will be expanded during this development.

-I'll post pics either during the spring or when the weather gets warmer, but public spaces around the campus have been greatly improved! Liacouras and Polett Walk both received new bricks within the past year. O'Connor Plaza has been completely redone, and we now have a new owl statue on the outside of it. The Bell Tower was resealed over the summer, and I believe that greenery will ring around it when the spring rolls around.

-Finally, the SAC has a ton of new restaurants! It was also redone over the summer. Chick-Fil-A has been, by far, the most popular new edition

Someone sent me this link today about the stadium/multipurpose facility. I'm on board.

https://www.temple.edu/sites/www/files/uploads/MPFPublicNarrative1-18-18FINAL.pdf

[PhilliesPhan]

Originally Posted by Fairmount2Fishtown

Someone sent me this link today about the stadium/multipurpose facility. I'm on board.

https://www.temple.edu/sites/www/files/uploads/MPFPublicNarrative1-18-18FINAL.pdf

That jaw-droppingly gorgeous!! I love how the stadium is shown to be in scale with the neighborhood. I see that the north-south orientation really helps out with that. Also, note the lack of parking lots! That's a quality urban stadium.

This is why I believe that Temple made a HUGE mistake in presenting the idea of a stadium to the neighborhood: the proposed sketch is nothing like what the residents of the neighborhood fear it to be. They are afraid of shadows, parking issues, drunk college kids (we already have a ton), and more. A mixed-use stadium could be a great asset to the community, especially since Temple seems committed to community involvement and job training. A community center could easily fit within a multipurpose stadium. Also, a new police outpost could be placed in there to control drunk and rowdy crowds after the games. Finally, who needs parking when there are several bus lines, the Cecil B. Moore and Susquehanna-Dauphin BSL stops, and a major Regional Rail station all around campus?

[summersm343]

American announces new nonstop service from Philadelphia to Pensacola and 6 other stops

American Airlines on Thursday announced the launch of new nonstop service this summer from Philadelphia to seven new domestic destinations that will feed into the airline’s growing transatlantic hub at Philadelphia International Airport.

The airline, the dominant service provider at PHL, said it will begin service June 7 to Des Moines, Iowa; Fort Wayne, Ind.; Madison, Wis.; Oklahoma City; Omaha, Neb.; Pensacola, Fla.; and San Antonio. The service will be available for booking starting Monday.

Read more here:
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/en...son-des-moines-summer-2018-20180118.html

[Trich]

Originally Posted by PhilliesPhan

No problem!



Fight, fight, fight for the Cherry and the White! I couldn't be prouder to be an Owl



I'm so jealous of everything that's happening around campus. The freshmen who will be coming to campus this fall have no idea how much campus has improved. There are brand new facilities, new green spaces, the area around campus is remarkably safer ever since the TU police expanded their patrol boundaries, Cecil B. Moore Ave is busier than ever (it REALLY needs to be upzoned to CMX-2.5, and the stretch from Broad to Ridge should really have pedestrian-scale lighting for increased safety), and the University and its individual schools (especially Fox) continue to climb in the rankings. I'll be graduating this spring, and I have confidence that my alma mater will continue to rise.



I'll answer some of your points, along with bringing up some that you would probably be interested in:

-J&H was completely renovated this summer. I saw construction crews hoisting new AC units up all across the complex. In the long-term, Temple has plans to demolish and redevelop the complex

-Peabody Hall has no immediate replacement. It was demolished since it would have costed the University more than it was worth to keep it standing. The running joke around campus is that it will be a parking lot for the new stadium!

-Speaking of the stadium, Temple's board is, according to my sources, fully committed to a stadium between Broad, 16th, Berks, and Norris. So long as the stadium conforms to principles of good urban design, I'll support it. It won't need a tremendous amount of parking since the campus is very transit-accessible. Also, it can be a mixed-use stadium complete with classrooms, a new new outpost for the TU police, retail, an indoor athletic field to replace Geasley Field, and a community outreach center. I don't think that the stadium would have received so much blowback from the community if it were emphasized to be mixed-use.

-Temple has plans to develop the northwest corner of Broad and Diamond, which is currently a grass lot. I believe that White Hall will be expanded during this development.

-I'll post pics either during the spring or when the weather gets warmer, but public spaces around the campus have been greatly improved! Liacouras and Polett Walk both received new bricks within the past year. O'Connor Plaza has been completely redone, and we now have a new owl statue on the outside of it. The Bell Tower was resealed over the summer, and I believe that greenery will ring around it when the spring rolls around.

-Finally, the SAC has a ton of new restaurants! It was also redone over the summer. Chick-Fil-A has been, by far, the most popular new edition

Thank you for all the updates! I heard about the SAC updates from my cousin (in-law). Taco Bell, Cinnabon, and BK were the popular stops when I went. So gross!

[allovertown]

Originally Posted by Fairmount2Fishtown

Someone sent me this link today about the stadium/multipurpose facility. I'm on board.

https://www.temple.edu/sites/www/files/uploads/MPFPublicNarrative1-18-18FINAL.pdf

That looks really good and as others have mentioned, it is not imposing as you would imagine a football stadium would be toward it's neighbors.

However on the whole I still wish this wasn't happening. The Eagles got considerable state and local aid to build their stadium, and part of that rationale is that they would provide a world class facility for a large state school within the city. The Eagles should be forced to give Temple a much more favorable deal with the opportunity to make more money for their program.

At the same time I feel like Temple is happy to use the poor behavior of the Eagles as their excuse to build this stadium because they think it is so essential for their campus. But no matter how hard Temple tries to create a more traditional college campus, they'll always be located in the middle of one of America's largest cities. Rather than view that as a challenge to overcome they should embrace it and how unique it is.

For a certain type of student, the idea of going to college in some backwoods town is unappealing. A lot of kids will pass up on the big College football experience if it means being located in such a cool place with so many other things going on. Temple should just focus on these types of students, if you try and compete with the kid who wants the Penn State atmosphere, you're still just going to come off second rate. Forget them, there are plenty of people who couldn't think of anything worse than living out in nowheresville state college.

Besides, I don't think it's impossible to have a cool college football atmosphere playing at the Linc. Riding a packed subway car to a game isn't the traditional game day experience, but it can still be a lot of fun.

[Frontst17]

They’ve built new student housing, educational facilities, infrastructure improvements, and a new library under construction. They’re not focusing solely on football and plenty of large schools have a large stadium built in a city. It creates a draw for more students and not everyone wants to go to the Linc for a temple game sadly. There’s neighborhood pushbsack but I think people can embrace this idea and make it a success not just for temple football

[iamrobk]

Originally Posted by allovertown

That looks really good and as others have mentioned, it is not imposing as you would imagine a football stadium would be toward it's neighbors.

However on the whole I still wish this wasn't happening. The Eagles got considerable state and local aid to build their stadium, and part of that rationale is that they would provide a world class facility for a large state school within the city. The Eagles should be forced to give Temple a much more favorable deal with the opportunity to make more money for their program.

At the same time I feel like Temple is happy to use the poor behavior of the Eagles as their excuse to build this stadium because they think it is so essential for their campus. But no matter how hard Temple tries to create a more traditional college campus, they'll always be located in the middle of one of America's largest cities. Rather than view that as a challenge to overcome they should embrace it and how unique it is.

For a certain type of student, the idea of going to college in some backwoods town is unappealing. A lot of kids will pass up on the big College football experience if it means being located in such a cool place with so many other things going on. Temple should just focus on these types of students, if you try and compete with the kid who wants the Penn State atmosphere, you're still just going to come off second rate. Forget them, there are plenty of people who couldn't think of anything worse than living out in nowheresville state college.

Besides, I don't think it's impossible to have a cool college football atmosphere playing at the Linc. Riding a packed subway car to a game isn't the traditional game day experience, but it can still be a lot of fun.

While as someone who went to Penn State for undergrad I disagree with your characterizations of State College I agree with your overall point. Temple needs to embrace what's made them, well, Temple. Let the Penn State types go there, and let the Temple types go to Temple; building an on-campus football stadium isn't going to change anything.

Also, a big part of why I'm against Temple building a stadium is because football stadiums get notoriously little usage anyway. By taking Temple football out of the Linc we're just leaving it empty even more...

[Nova08]

Originally Posted by summersm343

American announces new nonstop service from Philadelphia to Pensacola and 6 other stops



Read more here:
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/en...son-des-moines-summer-2018-20180118.html

They will also add PHL-JFK, which can be seen as a bit of a head scratcher. 2018 looks to be quite the comeback year for PHL that has seen some impacts of the AA/US merger optimizations. 2017 will be the lowest passenger count at PHL in the past 10-12 years. But 2018 will bring 8 new domestic destinations, 3 new international destinations, and new daily service from Aer Lingus to Dublin.

[skyscraper]

Originally Posted by iamrobk

Also, a big part of why I'm against Temple building a stadium is because football stadiums get notoriously little usage anyway. By taking Temple football out of the Linc we're just leaving it empty even more...

Time to move the Union to the Linc so the stadium gets use in the summer. They can field a minor league socccer team at Talen Energy Stadium so *that* state-funded stadium still gets some use. Plus Widener University is nearby, they could probably use it.
I am sure the Union would fill enough of the Linc to justify it. Talen Energy Stadium only holds 18,500 and doesn't always sell out, but I think a big reason for that is the lack of transit access and the fact that is way down in Chester. Also the team, shall we say, underperforms, but let's hope that's temporary.

[iamrobk]

I can't be the only one who never even considers going to a Union game because they're all the way down in Chester, right? I'd definitely go to 1 or 2 games a year if they had located in the sports complex though, and I imagine there are lots of other people in the city (particularly millennials and college students) who feel the same. I mean, Chester is even a pain to get to from a lot of the PA suburbs (eastern MontCo and Bucks).

[Fairmount2Fishtown]

Originally Posted by skyscraper

Time to move the Union to the Linc so the stadium gets use in the summer. They can field a minor league socccer team at Talen Energy Stadium so *that* state-funded stadium still gets some use. Plus Widener University is nearby, they could probably use it.
I am sure the Union would fill enough of the Linc to justify it. Talen Energy Stadium only holds 18,500 and doesn't always sell out, but I think a big reason for that is the lack of transit access and the fact that is way down in Chester. Also the team, shall we say, underperforms, but let's hope that's temporary.

I was really disappointed when they put the stadium in Chester. One would think you could find a spot on the river in Phila/Camden.

[ebuilder]

Originally Posted by Nova08

They will also add PHL-JFK, which can be seen as a bit of a head scratcher. 2018 looks to be quite the comeback year for PHL that has seen some impacts of the AA/US merger optimizations. 2017 will be the lowest passenger count at PHL in the past 10-12 years. But 2018 will bring 8 new domestic destinations, 3 new international destinations, and new daily service from Aer Lingus to Dublin.

PHL to JFk is a shuttle to connect with international traffic out of JFK.

[skyscraper]

Originally Posted by Fairmount2Fishtown

I was really disappointed when they put the stadium in Chester. One would think you could find a spot on the river in Phila/Camden.

They definitely could have, but placing them in the Linc would have been the ideal solution. Other teams (New England, Seattle) use their city's NFL stadiums for MLS games. The league's "insistence" on building soccer-specific stadiums doesn't seem to apply to them...
The reason TE is in Chester was strictly political. Gov Rendell (at the time) wanted to create an economic engine to boost struggling Chester. Whelp, that doesn't seem to have worked out 8 years later (unless you count the new supermarket that has since been built.) Stadiums are never the economic engines politicians seem to think they will be.

[skyscraper]

Originally Posted by iamrobk

I can't be the only one who never even considers going to a Union game because they're all the way down in Chester, right? I'd definitely go to 1 or 2 games a year if they had located in the sports complex though, and I imagine there are lots of other people in the city (particularly millennials and college students) who feel the same. I mean, Chester is even a pain to get to from a lot of the PA suburbs (eastern MontCo and Bucks).

Yep. I go to a few Union games a year, but only because my wife works for one of the sponsors and gets free tickets occasionally. And every time I go, I bitch about the location. She's tired of hearing me drone on about it (and I don't blame her )

[OslPhlWasChi]

Originally Posted by ebuilder

PHL to JFk is a shuttle to connect with international traffic out of JFK.

AA only has 2 transatlantic destinations at JFK (MXP, EDI) that are not served already by PHL. PHL has 12 transatlantic destinations not served by JFK. There are arguably some new connection options in both directions but more important is that the service is 6x daily on small regional aircraft (only about 250 seats daily each way), spread evenly throughout the day. So it does not appear to be built for any singular particular connection purpose - perhaps its just added connectivity between two AA hubs and also slot squatting at JFK.

The article itself about the AA adds was a bit misleading. The news yesterday was just the additions on Pensacola, Oklahoma City, and Fort Wayne by AA as of June 7. Earlier, AA also had announced domestics additions at PHL including JFK, San Antonio, Madison, Omaha, Des Moines, as well as international additions of Zurich (moving the flight from JFK to PHL), Prague (summer seasonal), and Budapest (summer seasonal) all beginning on various dates in the first half of 2018. Also, Amsterdam and Lisbon are being upgauged from a 757 to 767 while Shannon, Lisbon, and Quebec City summer seasonal services are being extended for a longer summer season. Many of the new adds in the Midwest have been added and scheduled (most are 2x daily on E175s) with connections to and from the transatlantic flights in mind.

AA has also made other notable revisions in their international schedule as of summer 2018 that are designed to connect more transatlantic fliers through PHL including eliminating Manchester from JFK as well as removing one Paris flight from JFK and cancelling the summer seasonal Paris flight in Boston. There have been lots of Caribbean flying changes too, generally in the scaling back direction, at PHL as well as some other AA hubs.

Outside of AA, many other changes continue to come to PHL including some slight pullback by Spirit Airlines (Detroit down to summer seasonal and Minneapolis summer seasonal not coming back) as well as some new 3 or 4x weekly flights by Frontier to new destinations including Omaha, Jacksonville, Madison, Charleston (SC), and Memphis. They have made lots of changes year over year to destinations, aircraft, and frequency that appear to be a slight increase in total seats at PHL for summer 2018.

As mentioned earlier, Aer Lingus is adding 4 weekly service to PHL on a 757.

[Knight Hospitaller]

Originally Posted by skyscraper

The reason TE is in Chester was strictly political. Gov Rendell (at the time) wanted to create an economic engine to boost struggling Chester. Whelp, that doesn't seem to have worked out 8 years later (unless you count the new supermarket that has since been built.) Stadiums are never the economic engines politicians seem to think they will be.

Precisely

[Groundhog]

Doubt they looked at Philly/Camden, MLS looks for space well outside the core for their stadiums. They like extra cheap land.