PHILADELPHIA | The Development Thread VIII

[PhiLaw]

Originally Posted by SkyscraperGuru

Anyone mind giving us some updates on Chestnut street? I would run by but i'm not entirely sure I can make it this weekend.

Summersm just posted a few pics two nights ago on its respective thread. I believe it shows about three stories or so above ground-level. Check it out.

[bryson662001]

How can Inga review the Barnes and have no opinion or comment on the building's most offensive feature, the light box/ shipping container parked on the roof? Is she blind?

[bucks native]

source: http://philadelphia.foobooz.com/





Fergie Part of Group Bringing Bar/Restaurant/Theater to Delaware River
Posted by Foobooz on May 4th, 2012

Fergus “Fergie” Carey (Fergie’s, Monk’s Cafe, Belgian Cafe, Grace Tavern and Nodding Head Brewery) is listed as one of the officers on the liquor license application at old High Pressure Fire Service Building at Columbus Boulevard and Race Street. The building was purchased last year by the Live Arts Festival/Philly Fringe festival management and a bright orange liquor license placard is now displayed on the former fire hydrant pumping station. The building will be the permanent home of Philadelphia Live Arts and will include:

•A 225-seat theater with flexible seating
•Two rehearsal studios to elevate artistic development
•A 2,000-square-foot restaurant/bar with a commercial kitchen
•A permanent Festival hub for audiences including a box office
•An outdoor plaza for performance and audience interaction
•Professional office and meeting space for administrative functions

[bucks native]

source; shows plan: http://planphilly.com/drwc-continues...l-will-connect

May 1, 2012
By Kellie Patrick Gates
For PlanPhilly

The Penn Street Trail – a section of the Central Delaware waterfront trail that will connect Spring Garden Street with SugarHouse Casino's portion of the trail – is expected to open next spring.

The recommendation is to have as much room for pedestrians as possible. Preliminary plans also call for a 12-foot, two-directional bicycle portion, to be separated from vehicular traffic by rain gardens and other plantings.

SugarHouse will spend about $300,000 to build the portion of the trail that will run through their parking lot, and connect with the finished section that already runs behind the casino.

DRWC President Tom Corcoran: “This will be the full monty of trails. It will be the Cadillac.”

The trail is set to eventually stretch the entire length of the Central Delaware waterfront, from Oregon to Allegheny avenues.

South of Washington Avenue and north of Penn Street, the design is 50-feet wide.

Between Washington Avenue and Spring Garden, where conditions are less uniform and more constrained, RBA is doing two sets of plans – one for the long-term, one that can be completed more quickly. Long term, this section is to be 38-feet wide.

The Central Delaware Master Plan calls for the trail to link a set of parks and green space, and for those spaces to complement – and prompt – development.

One of those parks is Washington Avenue Green, at the foot of Washington Avenue. A one-acre upland park already exists, and DRWC is now determining improvements for the pier itself, including a self-supporting boardwalk, a rubble reef, floating wetlands and living shoreline for improved fish habitat, and a kayak launch.

[bucks native]

source: http://planphilly.com/neighborhood-w...moving-forward

April 30, 2012
By Kellie Patrick Gates
For PlanPhilly

Progress continues on three street improvement projects designed to better link Philadelphia neighborhoods with the Central Delaware Riverfront through improved pedestrian and bicycle access, lighting, landscaping and signage.

Race Street is the project that's farthest along, with the south side portion of the project already completed. NOW PennDOT and the city's transportation and utilities department have agreed that a multi-purpose sidewalk/bikepath can, in fact, cross right over the I-95 on-ramp.

Design work for the underpass section of the Columbia Avenue Connector, which will link Fishtown to the waterfront, has been completed. PennDOT is redoing the Columbia Avenue underpass as part of its I-95 improvement project.

The newest of DRWC's connector street projects is also the largest and the most complicated: Spring Garden Street, which links Northern Liberties to the waterfront. The underpass is wide, as I-95 above has five lanes of traffic in each direction and a Frankford-Market El stop.

There has been much discussion without, yet, consensus on where a bikelane would go on an improved Spring Garden Street.

Improvements to the subway station – or more specifically, the stairs and escalators leading to and from it – are crucial not only to the success of the connector itself, but to nearby future development, including plans to attract mixed-use development to the Festival Pier site at the foot of Spring Garden.

SEPTA has recently re-done the actual station, but redoing the access to it is not on the top of the capital plan list without federal and state funding, Cutler said.

The SEPTA stop and underpass work has implications for waterfront projects, too. DRWC wants to build transit-oriented development at Festival Pier, but that stop is just not transit friendly now.

[SkyscraperGuru]

Originally Posted by PhiLaw

Summersm just posted a few pics two nights ago on its respective thread. I believe it shows about three stories or so above ground-level. Check it out.

Oh thanks, missed it!

[SkyscraperGuru]

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...147514&page=86

This project actually went on hold, it's approved and they're waiting for funding. I'll have to dig up the article, but trust me on this one, after all... http://www.acctower.com is still a purchased and used domain, the website is just down (you can tell if you slow your internet and you get a response from the website).

Meaning, Liberity who currently owns it could be planning to carry out with it. Hopes up, guys.

http://www.emporis.com/building/amer...delphia-pa-usa. - Emporis is listing it as "planned" untill it's completely gone, AKA January 2013 when everything that was put in place goes null. As unlikely as you may think, they could be waiting for the "supposed" business tax drop before they prepose another building, or could be using the same preposal.

[josef]

Originally Posted by bucks native

SEPTA has recently re-done the actual station, but redoing the access to it is not on the top of the capital plan list without federal and state funding, Cutler said.

How recently do they mean? Wikipedia says the station was built in 1977, but nothing about any recent work.

[Jonboy1983]

Originally Posted by josef

How recently do they mean? Wikipedia says the station was built in 1977, but nothing about any recent work.

It's Wikipedia. Not all of the vital information about some of the things in there is readily available on that site. I'd list examples of this but I'd be here all week.

Regarding how recent, I'd have to guess within the last few years. I remember doing my internship with the city in 2008 and seeing its presence in the orthographic photos, yet according to SEPTA's maps, there was no station there. I guess that meant it was out of service during the revamp work...

[Nightman]

Blatstein's proposal for N. Broad Street. Crazy and pie in the sky but I like it. I would love another Piazza type development within center city.

http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_phill...n-north-broad/

[Ninjawho]

Originally Posted by Nightman

Blatstein's proposal for N. Broad Street. Crazy and pie in the sky but I like it. I would love another Piazza type development within center city.

http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_phill...n-north-broad/

I wanna say this is awesome. But a retractable glass roof? Where the hell is he going to get money for this? While reading I had to keep reminding myself he was talking about a development in Philadelphia 2012 and not Dubai 2006.

[StatenIslander237]

Originally Posted by Ninjawho

I wanna say this is awesome. But a retractable glass roof? Where the hell is he going to get money for this? While reading I had to keep reminding myself he was talking about a development in Philadelphia 2012 and not Dubai 2006.

I agree with you here, I loved EVERYTHING about this idea until he mentioned a retractable roof. Strangely, the whole idea sounded very cutting edge speaking of a village in the sky, but the roof separates it physically from the city. Without a giant glass ceiling over it, it has potential to become a unique part of the fabric of the city, but now it just sounds like a domed EPCOT in the middle of Philadelphia, trying far too hard to be an "attraction." Awkward much?

Further considering has me pondering the trend of lifestyle centers supplanting enclosed shopping malls as the retail development of choice. If you were to dome over a simulated "village" or Main Street...well I suppose that is what spawned enclosed malls in the first place. Rip off the roof and I'm on board.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by Niteman

Blatstein's proposal for N. Broad Street. Crazy and pie in the sky but I like it. I would love another Piazza type development within center city.

http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_phill...n-north-broad/

Only, it's not another Piazza type development...the Piazza is struggling to find retailers on the ground. You really think he'd get critical mass 14 floors up?

This entire proposal is just a waste of breathe, not to mention he has not executed (well) recently on anything. Almost all of his developments start out with a bang, then muster into obscurity.

I won't even mention the idiocy of putting retail and restaurants 14 floors up when Market East and Chestnut East are struggling to put people in storefronts on the ground in the core of our city.

Let's focus on doing the basic stuff well before we start wasting our time on this crap, the outcome of which is so predictable it's not even worth mentioning. I won't even mention that Bart has exactly 1 quality retail/restaurant tenant in his spaces in Northern Liberties. His track record in attracting quality establishments is zero...which leads me to believe that his ability to turn this into anything other than another south jersey frat boy destination (which would be best case scenario) is also zero.

BTW. The retractable roof idea is a shameless grab from the recent opening of the downtown Salt Lake City retail and entertainment complex. There is a great thread on here somewhere. That complex is integrated into the grid of the city and has major anchor tenants including Nordstrom and Bloomingdales, I believe, among many others. These are all things Bart will not have.

[Jelly Roll]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

Let's focus on doing the basic stuff well before we start wasting our time on this crap, the outcome of which is so predictable it's not even worth mentioning. I won't even mention that Bart has exactly 1 quality retail/restaurant tenant in his spaces in Northern Liberties. His track record in attracting quality establishments is zero...which leads me to believe that his ability to turn this into anything other than another south jersey frat boy destination (which would be best case scenario) is also zero.

Xfinity Live is where all the SJ frat boys go now. If that is your target market you are screwed as they love Xfinity Live and will not be leaving.

[jrdizzy]

All 10 of them? There are not enough Colleges in SJ to support a large frat boy population. There are a lot more on the PA side.

[Jelly Roll]

Originally Posted by jrdizzy

All 10 of them? There are not enough Colleges in SJ to support a large frat boy population. There are a lot more on the PA side.

I was speaking to the 22-30 year old crowd that lives in SJ.

[Skyscraper.Phanatic]

Where Is Blatstein getting his money from if none of his places are rented out? I would agree that he is another in a line of questionable Philly dvelopers...Dranoff (ouch Symphony House), Grasso and the folks behind ACC. But where does this guy get his money from?

[mhays]

Originally Posted by summersm343

What you're forgetting however is that these proposals met their demise during a major economic meltdown. This lot is already approved and zoned for 58 floors at 670'. The developers do not need any approval, they can build anything that fits within those requirements... if you think Starwood (a major company who owns a ton of top hotel chains) is not going to get funding for a W Hotel in one of America's largest cities where there is a high demand for hotel rooms because of the Convention Center expansion, then IDK what else needs to happen to give you a little hope. Call me optimistic but I think the chances are better of this happening at this point. It may reach 58 floors as well since the plans are for a mixed-use building... who knows.

Speaking as a general contractor in another part of the country, not knowing anything about this project: He's right. Developers say "it's happening" all the time, that's their most important skill. But even if they're personally full speed ahead, they (a) don't know exactly what the project will cost, (b) don't have their financial backing figured out regardless of what you hear (even having 100% of the equity and debt financing "on board" is like having a letter from your mortgage company prequalifying you, not a promise at all, or an interest rate), (c) often don't have building permits yet (even if land use permits are in hand), (d) probably have a ton of design left to complete, and so on.

Whoever the contractor is, if the project is a couple months from starting, they might call it a 90% chance of at least being within a few months of the proposed date. That would have to be based on inside info....knowing that the target price is probably going to be met based on real-time data, understanding exactly where the building permits stand, understanding the clients' financials, etc. No contractor would say "definitely" ever.

[Cro Burnham]

Originally Posted by summersm343

What you're forgetting however is that these proposals met their demise during a major economic meltdown. This lot is already approved and zoned for 58 floors at 670'. The developers do not need any approval, they can build anything that fits within those requirements... if you think Starwood (a major company who owns a ton of top hotel chains) is not going to get funding for a W Hotel in one of America's largest cities where there is a high demand for hotel rooms because of the Convention Center expansion, then IDK what else needs to happen to give you a little hope.

I never said it wouldn't happen. Per above, I just never believe developers who say "it's definitely happening", whether in a meltdown economy or not. Whether the project happens or not has nothing to do with someone saying it's definitely happening. Those words are meaningless.

Having approvals in place is not nearly as important as having financing, and that's what will delay the project if it is delayed. We are not in the throes of the bubble collapse as in 2007 - 2008, but we are by no means out of the woods. There is still tons of uncertainty, particularly with respect to Europe. We are not in a stable, secure economy yet, so I do not believe banks are going to be throwing money at hotel projects without lots of extra security compared to pre-2007.

So I'll guess that there will have to be substantial equity in this deal. If Starwood replaces "it's definitely happening" with "we are committing to invest [e.g.] $35 million into this deal", then I'll believe in it a little more. But right now it's just talk from a Starwood PR person.

Is it telling that they pulled the project from their website? I wonder why they did that.

[josef]

Originally Posted by Jonboy1983

It's Wikipedia. Not all of the vital information about some of the things in there is readily available on that site. I'd list examples of this but I'd be here all week.

Regarding how recent, I'd have to guess within the last few years. I remember doing my internship with the city in 2008 and seeing its presence in the orthographic photos, yet according to SEPTA's maps, there was no station there. I guess that meant it was out of service during the revamp work...

If Wikipedia can be wrong, anyone can be wrong! I don't know what to believe anymore...

But seriously, I was working in Northern Liberties from 2005-2009, and I don't remember any work going on... who knows maybe I just missed it somehow. Anyway! It's too bad an external entrance isn't high on their list, the current entrance can definitely be whatever the opposite of cozy and safe is sometimes.