It makes me so angry that the city focuses more attention on putting up a casino then it does on recruiting and growing business here. Pathetic.

Short analysis - how many residents would be positively affected by a casino versus how many residents would be positively affected by new companies/new jobs. Sure, Philly's more fun when you sleep over; but Philly's better equip for the future when it's core is growing and prospering.

Werd.

Priorities are all screwed up. Put it to referendum at least.

Like I said, though, if we have to have it at least make it nice...

Oh my, where have you been? The city has long ago abandoned and sense of real responsibilty toward economics. Thus, the much crowed about casino deals. Why, eigth-grade civics class school kids could've come up with that. Welcome to the totally dumbed down world.

source: http://philadelphia.bizjournals.com/...ditorial2.html

Selling Philadelphia’s retail assets

Philadelphia Business Journal - by Bernard Dagenais

It takes a village of organizations to sell Philadelphia.

Select Greater Philadelphia exists to lure office and manufacturing jobs, with a particular eye to the regional strength in life sciences companies.

The Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp. tells Philadelphia’s tourism story.

Greater Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau goes after the associations that hold meetings here.

Until last year, no group focused primarily on marketing to retailers and restaurants.

Center City District, the property-owner-funded business improvement organization, has filled that gap by creating the Philadelphia Retail Marketing Alliance — an initiative that is staffed by CCD with help from GPTMC, the PCVB and city economic development entities.

When it launched in September, the alliance found that, for many decision-makers in the national retail and restaurant scene, Philadelphia simply wasn’t on the radar and often, perceptions of what exists here were outdated.

Center City’s revival over the past 20 years is a compelling tale. Fueled by a 10-year tax abatement on new construction, developers added 1,400 housing units every year from 1997 through 2006.

The region’s job losses through the recession have been lower than the nation’s losses. In the 12 months that ended in August 2009, as 65 food-related businesses closed in Center City, 92 new restaurants and food-related businesses opened. Since September, 17 restaurants and retailers started operating. Those include a new North Face store and Brooklyn Industries, a New York-born clothing and accessories store.

Center City has 159,325 residents, with annual overnight visitors of more than 1 million, some 700 food-related businesses and 2,298 stores, a number that has grown 23 percent since 2005. Adding up office workers, residents and visitors within a one-mile walk of City Hall, the group estimates there was nearly $500 million in retail demand in 2009.

Such data are essential to retailers making decisions about where to open shops. The alliance’s philadelphiaretail.com Web site contains such information, mixing testimonials from retailers with demographics, broker listings and a searchable database of available sites.

And making things easier for retailers that do decide to come here is essential to the mission. Other partners in the alliance are Philadelphia’s Commerce Department, which can help with licensing, and the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp., which can help arrange financing, and Office of the City Representative, which can speak for the mayor and produce him when needed.

While the city raised its sales tax to 8 percent last year, other cities have taxes too and clothing sales are exempt, said Michelle Shannon, director of marketing and communications at CCD and the alliance’s chief staff member.

Actually it seems the city is spending more energy on fighting the casinos than anything else. The casinos are a state deal, the city should just issue permits and let it happen--just like Chester, Bensalem, Bethlehem, Mt. Airy, et al

Then they can focus their energy and attention on creating an inviting environment to entice new business to the city.


Casinos and business can coexist.

^^^ Yes, but the casino proposals were designed without any city input whatsoever, and that's why we're railing against them. Notice how quickly the city's stance viz. SugarHouse changed as soon as they provided a more palatable buildout scheme.

If by "We're" you mean us on this thread than you are ok, but if you mean "We're" as in the general city populace, than you are mistaken. Residents of the river districts could care less about design. Just like we've seen with nearly ALL other projects that civic orgs oppose, they put all of their energy into fighting the entire proposal, instead of accepting the inevitable and working with the developer to improve the final product.

Hey all...

I've stumbled upon a new blog that may interest some of you:
http://philly.brownstoner.com/

They apparently were originally a Brooklyn blog, but have expanded to have a Philly version. They cover developments in the city; seems like mostly small neighborhood types, but then again, that's really all there is right now. They also profile different condo's and row homes for sale, so gives a good perspective on the city.


They've had a post on the whole Wynn shenanigans

And the new Curtis Construction

This is not an Ad... I just added it to my RSS a week or so ago and thought I'd share the word.

Condos on Delaware Ave?
 

I can't find the post by hammer concerning the possible rennovation of an old warehouse (with original signage!) on Delaware Ave across from Sugar House but I've noticed over the past few days there has been some activity. A dumpster is now tucked into the garage portion of the structure, and it looks like they're doing some demo work. Lot's of crap inside, bricks, garbage, concrete, etc. Definitely something is going on, not sure if it's prep for construction or simply to clean the site for sale?

CC a Bedroom Community
 

This underscores the need for a pro-business tax structure in the city. Companies will (if not already are) eager to locate their offices here due to a rising pool of skilled workers. I don't see how residents will continue move and even stay here over the long-term if there's no jobs. Awful.

http://www.philly.com/philly/busines...community.html

...and let's follow that last post up with some good news ;)
 

This is an astounding figure and supports what I mentioned in the above post: Both sides of the street have access to the same labor pool, the same public transportation, the same infrastructure, he said. But there is 200,000 square feet of office space on the city side, versus 2.6 million on the Bala Cynwyd side.


... not like this comes as a surprise to anyone I'm sure

200,000 SF vs 2.6 million SF
 

Taxes!!!!!!

Anybody know what's going on next to CBP?

Hopefully it's not drunken fans puking on each other :)

Convention Center Progress
 

Good things in the paper today about the progress at the convention center. I'm still looking forward to the hotel expansion in center city. Very good signs!


http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20...cmpid=41144277

And the Inquirer also has a great video posted. I didn't get to watch it with sound, but it looks spectacular.
http://www.philly.com/philly/video/87228357.html

Sysco is putting up a new building. Believe this was announced sometime last year.

source: http://philadelphia.bizjournals.com/...5&ana=e_du_pub

April 15, 2010, 12:01am EDT

Center City District report calls for tax reduction, infrastructure improvements

Philadelphia Business Journal - by Natalie Kostelni Staff Writer

The Center City District unveiled its annual report Wednesday, the report’s key points included:

• Philadelphia government officials must recommit to and restart an effort to reduce taxes, as well as make significant investment in infrastructure around key job nodes.

• Committing to a tax-reduction initiative would help stimulate the development, retention and attraction of businesses.

• Center City home values have started to rebound after having dropped 7 percent from their peak value, outperforming all major cities except Dallas on that metric. Center City has seen strong residential growth over time with more than 12,000 new units added since 1997.

In general, the report gave a positive snapshot of a walkable — 55 percent of residents who work downtown walk to work — affordable, attractive city for visitors and residents that has managed to beat the odds and thrive in spite of the recession.

Education and health care — Philadelphia’s largest employment sector — actually added jobs, growing by 1.5 percent in 2009, according to CCD’s research. The National Institutes of Health last year gave Philadelphia health and educational institutions $83.8 million in research grants.

While jobs throughout the region have declined, jobs in Center City declined at a slower pace than either the nation or the region. Center City District CEO and President Paul Levy said that was a first coming out of a recession.

An increasing percentage of Center City residents are staying in Center City as their children reach school age rather than fleeing to the suburbs.

Higher education continues to increasingly attract applicants, with applications up 51 percent between 2002 and 2008, indicating that students desire to be in the city.

Putting the city back on a path toward cutting wage and business taxes would encourage businesses to open within its limits and take advantage of other competitive advantages, such as public transit and the restaurant scene.

Tourism continues to flourish, leisure room nights reached an all time high of 735,000 in 2009, growing for the third consecutive year, according to the report. Overseas visitation was also a bright spot, having risen dramatically since 2006, reaching 710,000 overseas visitors in 2008.

Events next year that will have a potential positive economic impact on the city include the opening of the addition at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the National Museum of American Jewish History, the President’s House Memorial and the new museum of the Barnes Foundation.

source: http://philadelphia.bizjournals.com/...19/story2.html

April 16, 2010

Franklin Institute hopes to score big

Philadelphia Business Journal - by Peter Van Allen Staff Writer

Philadelphia’s science museum is moving forward with a $62 million capital campaign — with much of it earmarked for a three-story addition, new exhibits and other upgrades.

To date, the museum has raised $37 million toward the goal. It hopes to break ground on the 53,000-square-foot addition next year, said Dennis M. Wint, president and CEO of the Franklin Institute.

The effort comes on the heels of an earlier, $60 million, 10-year campaign to restore, rebuild or replace exhibits in the building, Wint said. As part of that revamp, the Franklin last month opened the last two of those permanent exhibits, “Changing Earth” and “Electricity.”

On June 5, it will open a traveling exhibit, “Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt.” It will be the first showing of the exhibit in the world.

The 2007 King Tut exhibition drew 1.3 million people to the Franklin Institute. The show accounted for 100,000 hotel-room nights and had an estimated economic impact of $130 million.

This year, giving has started to pick up, with some gifts “in six figures,” said Larry Dubinkski, the Franklin Institute’s senior vice president of external affairs and general counsel.

The annual Franklin Institute Awards program, set for April 29, is sold out. Featured guests will include Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, who will receive the Bower Award for Business Leadership.

The expansion which will be on the south side and will have three floors. It will include an education-and-meeting complex on the first floor. The second floor will house a permanent exhibit on the human brain. The third floor will have special exhibition space. The space will be contiguous with the museum.

That's some nice news on the Franklin Institute. I was unaware of how serious they're upgrade plans were.

Great find, Bucks! I think this number is particularly important,

Although it's not an overwhelming increase, it is at least not a decrease which I'd imagine has been the trend since the 60's. Good stuff!