PHILADELPHIA | 3151 Market Street | Schuylkill Yards | 226 FT | 14 FLOORS

[mcgrath618]

Title: 3151 Market Street
Project: Office
Architect: SHOP
Developer: Brandywine Reality Trust
Location: 3151 West Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Neighborhood: University City
District: West Philadelphia
Floors: 14 floors
Height: 226 feet




https://schuylkillyards.com/lease-sp...-market-street

[PHL10]

Is this sited on the corner of 31st and Market?

[thoughtcriminal]

That tangerine / orange color is going to go great with the red tower that's going up.

[summersm343]

Design on this one needs a little work - otherwise, build it!

[JohnIII]

This skyscraper is relatively short compare to the over all skyline of the city but I see some promise in it; for one it gives scale to 3001 JFK in its height and scale; and secondly it colour scheme makes the new red skyscraper fit.

Seeing anything built in Schuylkill Yards is encouraging; some of us have been waiting decades for this.

[jsbrook]

Not a very good design for SHoP. But maybe it's just the quality of the renders or the details will get ironed out later.

[wanderer34]

It looks like a major deviation to the original Schuylkill Yards proposals of the past. I was expecting a much taller proposal than the one that's currently being presented. And considering the the former SY proposals featured much taller towers, this one is very underwhelming. And people wonder why I've always felt so nostalgic about the American Commerce Center. I really don't have any faith for SY (including projects such as the 2901 Arch Street - Transit Terminal Tower) if this gets realized and erected.

[hammersklavier]

Originally Posted by wanderer34

It looks like a major deviation to the original Schuylkill Yards proposals of the past. I was expecting a much taller proposal than the one that's currently being presented. And considering the the former SY proposals featured much taller towers, this one is very underwhelming. And people wonder why I've always felt so nostalgic about the American Commerce Center. I really don't have any faith for SY (including projects such as the 2901 Arch Street - Transit Terminal Tower) if this gets realized and erected.

Spoiler alert: It isn't -- see site plan:


upload photo

[wanderer34]

Originally Posted by hammersklavier

Spoiler alert: It isn't -- see site plan:


upload photo

I'm not so much worried about the design, although I still prefer the original design compared to this proposal in the first pic:

https://philly.curbed.com/2017/3/27/...derings-drexel

I thought the original was very sleek and commanded a lot of aesthetic and architecture power that the current proposal. I'm still waiting for the taller tower that's supposed to be adjacent and I hope the developers build that in addition to the supertall and the new bus station (sorely needed to replace the old and decrepit Chinatown location).

If the developers can pull a rabbit out of the hat and stay on course, I can slowly see the nexus of energy pull from Center City into Schuylkill Yards as far as economic activity goes. We've lost a lot of companies to either the suburbs and to competing cities and I hope Mayor Kenney and Governor Wolf can understand how very important this project is not only to the future of the city, but to PA and the region as well. I still won't hold my breath for SY, and it seems like we're headed to be a one company town:

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/blog...Nashville.html

https://www.bizjournals.com/philadel...-of-phila.html

I'm not saying Aramark will leave Philadelphia, but seeing companies like Lincoln Financial, Crown Holdings, Sovereign/Santander, and especially Sunoco leave the city limits doesn't give me any confidence that Philadelphia can compete. Don't blame me, I just follow the current trends.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by wanderer34

I'm not so much worried about the design, although I still prefer the original design compared to this proposal in the first pic:

https://philly.curbed.com/2017/3/27/...derings-drexelI'm not saying Aramark will leave Philadelphia, but seeing companies like Lincoln Financial, Crown Holdings, Sovereign/Santander, and especially Sunoco leave the city limits doesn't give me any confidence that Philadelphia can compete. Don't blame me, I just follow the current trends.

Any company leaving the city is unfortunate, and I'm the first to bash the city's tax code...but I also see this as a case of old vs new. These are old line traditional companies without a lot of growth prospects. They're also likely run by old men who still think in old ways. They're not concerned about recruiting the best and brightest young people because young people don't want to work for them. Mostly, they're just re-arranging the deck chairs on the titanic and trying to pump up earnings any way they can.

They'll be replaced by more dynamic upstarts that know where you plant your flag is just as important as how you run your company.

Sunoco won't be around in 25 years.

[Arch+Eng]

Originally Posted by wanderer34

It looks like a major deviation to the original Schuylkill Yards proposals of the past. I was expecting a much taller proposal than the one that's currently being presented. And considering the the former SY proposals featured much taller towers, this one is very underwhelming. And people wonder why I've always felt so nostalgic about the American Commerce Center. I really don't have any faith for SY (including projects such as the 2901 Arch Street - Transit Terminal Tower) if this gets realized and erected.

I agree completely. Major disappointment.

Originally Posted by hammersklavier

Spoiler alert: It isn't -- see site plan:


upload photo

It is. See the photo below. The building is significantly shorter than the previous renderings. Not to mention the quality reduction of the facace. I am looking at the plans for this project now... The new design runs from market to JFk, so there is no room to build a separate taller building behind it.

[summersm343]

^^Just wait till the site plan comes out. Be patient.

[summersm343]

Don’t count out office buildings yet. Philly developers push ahead with new, pandemic-resistant designs.

Undaunted by the upheavals of the last eight months, Philadelphia developers are moving ahead with three large commercial projects in the city.

Two of those buildings were in the works before the pandemic hit — a new law firm headquarters and a lab building at West Philadelphia’s uCity Square — so you might argue that the developers had little choice but to finish the job. But, on Tuesday, Brandywine Realty Trust will announce plans for a massive lab building at 31st and Market, suggesting that certain kinds of commercial projects still have a future.

Brandywine’s new project, which will be part of its Schuylkill Yards development, is a perfect distillation of those trends. When Brandywine first released renderings for Schuylkill Yards in 2016, those images showed a group of pencil-thin skyscrapers around the former Bulletin Building and 30th Street Station. Only a year ago the company was intensively shopping around plans for a fire-engine-red flagship tower by PAU Studio architects. Now Brandywine is pivoting from the traditional high-rise office form to pursue a horizontal workspace where scientists can splice genes and concoct new medical treatments.

Because those experiments require a lot of space and equipment, they dictate the size and shape of lab buildings. Brandywine’s proposed building is just 12 stories, yet it, by necessity, will be a sprawling behemoth with 500,000 square feet of space — half as much as One Liberty Place, which towers 61 stories over Center City. To make the immense glass structure look less like a giant, see-through shoe box, the architects at Gensler, have twisted the building on its axis, so it sits slightly off-center from the podium. Triangular terraces have been carved into the facade, creating deep indentation and ensuring that workers will have access to fresh air and views.

The demand for such lab, or life sciences, buildings was strong before the pandemic, but the need has grown more intense in the last few months, said Robert Zwengler, an executive at CBRE, a commercial real estate firm. Philadelphia is among the top five cities receiving funds from the National Institutes of Health, which supports many small research companies. Even if scientists with NIH grants can run computations on their home computers, they still need to come into the office to operate a centrifuge or cool a solution at super-low temperatures. Yet there is virtually no vacant lab space available right now for start-ups that want to be in the city.

Brandywine’s project, which is being called 3151 Market and is across the street from Drexel’s business school, is intended to tap into that pent-up demand for space in West Philadelphia, said its chief executive, Jerry Sweeney. The company is just wrapping up a major renovation that turned George Howe’s former Bulletin newspaper building at 30th and Market into labs for Spark Therapeutics. The pharmaceutical company has expanded at such a fast clip that Brandywine had to provide spillover space across the street in a castle-like building that started out as a slaughterhouse in 1906. Brandywine is also scrambling to convert the two lower floors of the Cira tower into labs.

The pandemic also prompted Brandywine to adjust the design for one of its mixed-use towers on JFK Boulevard. Instead of an apartment building set on top of a traditional office podium, Sweeney says the lower floors will be designed for labs. He expects that project to break ground in the first half of 2021, around the same time as work starts at 3151 Market.

Read more here:
https://www.inquirer.com/real-estate...-20201117.html

[hammersklavier]

Originally Posted by Arch+Eng

It is. See the photo below. The building is significantly shorter than the previous renderings. Not to mention the quality reduction of the facace. I am looking at the plans for this project now... The new design runs from market to JFk, so there is no room to build a separate taller building behind it.

No, the supertall site was always at 31st and Market, never at 32nd and Market. It's to the right of the building you circled. As Summersm has pointed out, the rumor mill also suggests the 32nd and JFK side of this parcel is going to have a tower base as well, too. (Which means vertical annexes may well be in the cards.)

[gjrip]

Originally Posted by hammersklavier

No, the supertall site was always at 31st and Market, never at 32nd and Market. It's to the right of the building you circled. As Summersm has pointed out, the rumor mill also suggests the 32nd and JFK side of this parcel is going to have a tower base as well, too. (Which means vertical annexes may well be in the cards.)

Sorry if there's a simple explanation here (my brain is currently functioning very poorly while watching the Eagles suck eggs) but what do you mean by "vertical annexes may be in the cards?" I don't know what "vertical annexes" means in this context.

[wanderer34]

Originally Posted by Arch+Eng

I agree completely. Major disappointment.



It is. See the photo below. The building is significantly shorter than the previous renderings. Not to mention the quality reduction of the facace. I am looking at the plans for this project now... The new design runs from market to JFk, so there is no room to build a separate taller building behind it.

-

The original proposal was perfect in every way. Even if the recent ones call for chopping off a significant chunk of 3151 (which I still cringe to this very day, as Philadelphia always has a penchant for lowering and chopping off it's proposals), the 1,095 ft supertall (the golden tower to the right) was supposed to be the centerpiece of the 30th St Station District. If the developers don't build the supertall despite chopping off 3151 Market and the other tower along JFK Blvd, I'd consider this project a waste of time, money and energy. I'd love to see 3101 become a reality, at the very least, and if it doesn't, I'm not holding my breath for it or any of the SY projects.

Originally Posted by Arch+Eng

Once again, the quality may still be there, but the scale of these towers have gone down. Brandywine got this right the first time, and now it's being downscaled to this. Don't get me wrong, nothing really wrong with the towers, but it's the scale, the size and the height that has me thinking buyer's remorse. I don't mind changing a few of the towers to a different design, but when you don't have the centerpiece supertall tower in this proposal, it reminds me of another mothballed tower I won't name here, but like I said, if 3101 Market doesn't get built, then I won't be surprised. SY has been changed so many times, it looks totally unrecognizable from the original, and I won't even be surprised that we'll still be taking the Greyhound bus terminal on Filbert St in the next 20 years.

[Justin7]

^ I'm not sure you understand what buildings are.

[summersm343]

PDF from Brandywine with a better rendering of this building:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=...AAAAAdAAAAABAD

[Justin7]

^

[iheartphilly]

^
I like the multiple balconies at an angle. Overall not a bad design.