Quote:
Originally Posted by Insoluble
As br323206 pointed out upthread, the strange positioning of the tower is probably a result of maximising the sun exposure and minimizing the shadows for the "French Village" on the roof. I have to agree with New2Fishtown on the "French Village" thing. It just doesn't make sense to hide that kind of use out of the way on the roof in an urban setting. It would make so much more sense to put the small retailers at ground level to add the the street level vibrancy and hide the big box stuff out of the way above that. People who are drawn to the big box stores will be drawn to them regardless of where they are, so putting them on the 2nd floor isn't really an issue and eliminates the blank wall they would otherwise have created.
In all seriousness, what do people think about the likelihood that Bart actually follows through with this. He hasn't exactly had a terrific record of seeing things through as of late and has a lot of projects in the air right now. This is also on a scale that is much larger than anything he's taken on that I know of. Misgivings over the "French village" aside, I'd like to see this project actually come to fruition, but I'm a bit skeptical.
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yes me this would need some engagement on the Broad/Wash corner. Maybe a few stores with a path to a escalator leading into the additional retail. Even said the amount of retail is very large there, is there truly this level of demand there.
Oddly I actually sat next to two real estate developers for Wegmans at a bar at Boston Logan back in December. We discussed this lot that they said they actually looked at but felt the location wasn't ready yet. they claimed the union issue or city was not the issue and after a lengthy (20 minutes) discussion and conversations around the other lot (West side of Broad) and rumors of toll development they said they were going to re-evaluate as Philly is on their list for city locations but not a must have according to them. Who knows on that front
though to me I feel like this would need better access and engagement to that corner to work and still seems like a lot of pads on the roof to me