Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartphilly
The renovations and re-cladding of the bulletin building is not doing it for me. This low rise building doesn’t exactly scream we are the new and exciting SY and the fact that it is in front of the new park with high visibility and the price tag of the renovation boggles my mind why they couldn’t do more with it to make it stand out. Maybe it is the rendering or something but it looks cheesy and dated.
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I think anything that happens with Schuylkill Yards, the whole area needs to be taken in consideration. So far they renovated what was a walled off parking lot into an excellent park that now effectively serves as a world class welcome to West Philly to all the people who leave one of the busiest train stations in the nation. Then this renovation which while not tall, I think looks great in conjunction with the park and somewhat preserves the general form of an interesting historic building. This building is also 100% leased which enabled them to long ago already start working toward finding occupants for the next building, which is now apparently starting construction in a few months and they say there will be another not long after that.
They've earned my trust at this point. The park looks great, and I'm sure that whatever you think of the design of the bulletin building, the materials used will be better than what we normally see in Philadelphia and that it will at least be a great execution of the design. It's not a bad start for the first building in what should be an enormous project.
Just like with the efforts to build up the Delaware river front, there is a benefit to smaller projects, especially at the beginning. It's easier to sell people on coming to Schuylkill Yards if there is already a beautiful park surrounded by 3 buildings bustling with people. If the demand is there, Brandywine has already demonstrated with the Cira project that they are definitely willing to build tall. I think there will be some really tall buildings in the Schuylkill Yards but it makes sense to pick your spot, and the first building directly next to a park where there is already an existing building is not the spot.