PHILADELPHIA | Schuylkill Yards Future Phases | 1,095 - 375 FT | 70 - 28 FLOORS

[SEFTA]

What do you mean?

[mcgrath618]

Originally Posted by SEFTA

What do you mean?

The brick building at the SW corner of 30th and Market is being renovated for Spark. It’s owned by Brandywine, and was historically marketed as space for a skyscraper to be developed.

Unfortunately, they’ve torn off some of the brick facade as part of these renovations and replaced it with sheet metal. It looks terrible. They even took out some of the rounded windows fronting Market.

[gjrip]

Originally Posted by mcgrath618

The brick building at the SW corner of 30th and Market is being renovated for Spark. It’s owned by Brandywine, and was historically marketed as space for a skyscraper to be developed.

Unfortunately, they’ve torn off some of the brick facade as part of these renovations and replaced it with sheet metal. It looks terrible. They even took out some of the rounded windows fronting Market.

Next time you walk by could you please send a photo? I'm intrigued but not visualizing properly for some reason.

[mcgrath618]

Originally Posted by gjrip

Next time you walk by could you please send a photo? I'm intrigued but not visualizing properly for some reason.

This shit:

[Boku]

Originally Posted by mcgrath618

This shit:

Oh no

[700 Level]

Wow. The first floor does not blend with the remaining building at all. It reminds me of what we used to see years ago on some of our declining commercial corridors (east Market, east Chestnut) where a low end store would just cover up the attractive street level presence of historical buildings.

[iheartphilly]

^
Here we go again with the panel look. Philly developers must get a special deal on it. Looks like crap on this nice looking brick building with good architectural detail up top, or it did at least! SMH.

[PHL10]

Originally Posted by 700 Level

Wow. The first floor does not blend with the remaining building at all. It reminds me of what we used to see years ago on some of our declining commercial corridors (east Market, east Chestnut) where a low end store would just cover up the attractive street level presence of historical buildings.

Silly me but I thought we were past doing shit like that for over 25 years.



Edit: Looking at Google street view, they had already fudged up the building pretty well in 2018.

[PurpleWhiteOut]

I don't want to excuse the choices there, but the first floor was already clearly totally altered before, though in a way that didn't draw as much attention. On Google maps, you can see some test sections where a bit of the alteration was removed, and I wonder if they decided restoration wasn't possible. Just wondering. Baffled though that they'd remove the central arched windows actually what makes it look even weirder, is the entrance is off center..

[mcgrath618]

^the thing is, that new facade at the ground floor at least somewhat matches the building. It makes some attempt to fit in. The new one just completely fucks it up.

[Frontst17]

Yeah honestly how do not at least make it symmetrical

[summersm343]

At least we won't be as sad when they demolish it in the future now? Silver linings?

[hammersklavier]

Originally Posted by mcgrath618

Very sad to report that the new work being done on 3000 Market has completely botched the facade. I hope this is just so they can have another excuse to tear it down in a few years after Spark moves out and into their new offices on JFK.

Originally Posted by summersm343

At least we won't be as sad when they demolish it in the future now? Silver linings?

Huh...

Really was no excuse destroying that row of arched windows. It's a single damn floor of brick left on that whole building! Just keep it in place and build up behind it.

[Manitopiaaa]

Originally Posted by Boku

Oh no

Yikes! Philadelphia does amazing work with taller building (CTC excluded), but the low-rise designs are horrific.

I'm considering moving to Philadelphia and have been eyeing Redfin. A lot of their new construction builds look like cyberpunk abominations:





The ugliest lowrise modern vernacular I've seen in the U.S. Which would be OK, I suppose, if it didn't often come at the expense of razing beautiful historic rowhomes.

Just build more traditional Philly rowhomes. Those are timeless!

[SEFTA]

For me, them investing money like this is proving the mega-project planned for this lot will probably not be moving any time soon.
Schuylkill Yards 10-3-21

[summersm343]

Originally Posted by Manitopiaaa

Yikes! Philadelphia does amazing work with taller building (CTC excluded), but the low-rise designs are horrific.

I'm considering moving to Philadelphia and have been eyeing Redfin. A lot of their new construction builds look like cyberpunk abominations:





The ugliest lowrise modern vernacular I've seen in the U.S. Which would be OK, I suppose, if it didn't often come at the expense of razing beautiful historic rowhomes.

Just build more traditional Philly rowhomes. Those are timeless!

Haha! Cool you're considering moving to Philly! Hope it works out for you.

I would say that those are probably still pretty rare. There's not many of them. Of course, it certainly matters what price range you're looking in, but I would say there's a lot of very nice looking new construction homes too.

[Manitopiaaa]

Originally Posted by summersm343

Haha! Cool you're considering moving to Philly! Hope it works out for you.

I would say that those are probably still pretty rare. There's not many of them. Of course, it certainly matters what price range you're looking in, but I would say there's a lot of very nice looking new construction homes too.

That's good to hear! I'd never buy one of those new models. Philadelphia's small historic rowhomes are one of its best assets.

And yeah, work is considering a 1 or 2 day in office requirement. If they choose 1 day in office, I'm definitely tempted to just leave D.C. altogether and move closer to the "center of it all."

D.C. is too expensive for what you get, New York gets you a lot, but the prices are even more obscene, Baltimore is a fun visit - but too dangerous. Which leaves Philadelphia as checking all boxes:

• Cheap housing - even when factoring in local income tax (I think I can get a good rowhome for my budget of $500k. In D.C., I'm essentially confided to the far-off suburbs)
• Proximity to beaches (Jersey Shore)
• Proximity to mountains (Poconos)
• Transit connections to D.C. (Northeast Regional train)
• Transit connections to New York (1h15m is really close!)
• Big arts scene (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rodin, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts)
• Large gay scene (Gayborhood)
• Major corporations like Comcast-NBC, Crown Holdings, Amerisource Bergen (to find a wealthy spouse)
• Famous university (I'm considering going back to get my 2nd Master's - an MBA, and you can't get more prestigious than Wharton at Penn)
• Lots of historic rowhomes
• Proximity to major international airport (PHL is borderline, but EWR isn't that far away)
• Safe (parts of Philly are pretty bad, but I'd be looking south of Center City and North of Wharton, which seems really safe)
• Huge fan of It's Always Sunny

[mcgrath618]

Originally Posted by Manitopiaaa

That's good to hear! I'd never buy one of those new models. Philadelphia's small historic rowhomes are one of its best assets.

And yeah, work is considering a 1 or 2 day in office requirement. If they choose 1 day in office, I'm definitely tempted to just leave D.C. altogether and move closer to the "center of it all."

D.C. is too expensive for what you get, New York gets you a lot, but the prices are even more obscene, Baltimore is a fun visit - but too dangerous. Which leaves Philadelphia as checking all boxes:

• Cheap housing - even when factoring in local income tax (I think I can get a good rowhome for my budget of $500k. In D.C., I'm essentially confided to the far-off suburbs)
• Proximity to beaches (Jersey Shore)
• Proximity to mountains (Poconos)
• Transit connections to D.C. (Northeast Regional train)
• Transit connections to New York (1h15m is really close!)
• Big arts scene (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rodin, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts)
• Large gay scene (Gayborhood)
• Major corporations like Comcast-NBC, Crown Holdings, Amerisource Bergen (to find a wealthy spouse)
• Famous university (I'm considering going back to get my 2nd Master's - an MBA, and you can't get more prestigious than Wharton at Penn)
• Lots of historic rowhomes
• Proximity to major international airport (PHL is borderline, but EWR isn't that far away)
• Safe (parts of Philly are pretty bad, but I'd be looking south of Center City and North of Wharton, which seems really safe)
• Huge fan of It's Always Sunny

The Acela is narrowing the PHL -> DC gap. It's about 1.5 hrs now; when the Acela II trainsets start in a few months they'll narrow it even further to about 1 hr.

[Mayormccheese]

Originally Posted by Manitopiaaa

That's good to hear! I'd never buy one of those new models. Philadelphia's small historic rowhomes are one of its best assets.

And yeah, work is considering a 1 or 2 day in office requirement. If they choose 1 day in office, I'm definitely tempted to just leave D.C. altogether and move closer to the "center of it all."

D.C. is too expensive for what you get, New York gets you a lot, but the prices are even more obscene, Baltimore is a fun visit - but too dangerous. Which leaves Philadelphia as checking all boxes:

• Cheap housing - even when factoring in local income tax (I think I can get a good rowhome for my budget of $500k. In D.C., I'm essentially confided to the far-off suburbs)
• Proximity to beaches (Jersey Shore)
• Proximity to mountains (Poconos)
• Transit connections to D.C. (Northeast Regional train)
• Transit connections to New York (1h15m is really close!)
• Big arts scene (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rodin, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts)
• Large gay scene (Gayborhood)
• Major corporations like Comcast-NBC, Crown Holdings, Amerisource Bergen (to find a wealthy spouse)
• Famous university (I'm considering going back to get my 2nd Master's - an MBA, and you can't get more prestigious than Wharton at Penn)
• Lots of historic rowhomes
• Proximity to major international airport (PHL is borderline, but EWR isn't that far away)
• Safe (parts of Philly are pretty bad, but I'd be looking south of Center City and North of Wharton, which seems really safe)
• Huge fan of It's Always Sunny

I think you’re placing Philadelphia’s rowhomes on a pedestal. Sure some are fine but a lot aren’t.

[Urbanthusiat]

Originally Posted by Mayormccheese

I think you’re placing Philadelphia’s rowhomes on a pedestal. Sure some are fine but a lot aren’t.

Plenty of rowhomes are bad, this is true, but I think the real benefit is their density and land-use being widespread in Philly - not just any particular rowhome which may or may not be nice. We can rehab and build a lot of rowhomes in Philadelphia, which can provide relatively affordable homeownership options for the foreseeable future. We can increase our population significantly without expanding our urban footprint in a way that few other America cities can, because their zoning and land-use doesn't really incentivize it. A higher homeownership % than the other cities in the Northeast is one of the better things about Philadelphia IMO, and something that "the rowhome" as a general concept really enables. (For reference, the homeownership rate in Philly 53.0%, while NYC = 32.7%, Boston = 35%, DC = 41.6%, Baltimore = 47.5%). is Not to mention the environmental benefits.