PHILADELPHIA | Lowrise/General Developments Thread

[hammersklavier]

Originally Posted by domodeez

More on PennDesign's upgrades to Meyerson Hall:

Ooooh.

This is fantastic! Meyerson Hall was one of Penn's shittiest buildings. I don't think anybody who's spent more than five minutes inside of it doubts it needed work done on it, and bad.

[Philly Fan]

Originally Posted by hammersklavier

Ooooh.

This is fantastic! Meyerson Hall was one of Penn's shittiest buildings. I don't think anybody who's spent more than five minutes inside of it doubts it needed work done on it, and bad.

And it's especially ironic given that it's the home of Penn's School of Design, including its historically eminent architecture program.

[Cro Burnham]

Originally Posted by Philly Fan

And it's especially ironic given that it's the home of Penn's School of Design, including its historically eminent architecture program.

. . . true of most eminent architecture school buildings (and academic buildings in general) built in the 1950s - 1970s. The slick architects selected tried so hard to be cutting edge they were bound to fail.

[summersm343]

[SJBadger]

What a great shot....Thanks Summersm!!!!

[joemustardo]

Originally Posted by sjbadger

what a great shot....thanks summersm!!!!

made in america!!!!!!!

[EastSideHBG]

Interesting article:


Center City is losing its position as a corporate metropolis

Joseph N. DiStefano
Posted: Sunday, September 6, 2015, 3:01 AM

After all this time, Center City Philadelphia is still losing steam as a corporate center. Is that a bad thing?

In the last two years, publicly traded Cigna, Sunoco, Arkema, Dow Chemical's advanced materials division (formerly Rohm and Haas), and Destination Maternity all moved their headquarters to the suburbs or out of state, following the vanished banks, insurance companies, railroads and manufacturers.

A few public companies have moved downtown - DuPont spin-off Axalta Coating Systems from Wilmington, and construction-project manager Hill International moved in from South Jersey.

But mostly, since 2000 Philadelphia "has witnessed a long, slow march to branch office-ville," says Howard Trauger, boss at Schuylkill Capital Management and a student of the local corporate scene since his days managing family fortunes at the former Girard Trust Co. Pittsburgh, less than one-fifth Philadelphia's size, can brag of bigger banks, manufacturers and energy companies, Trauger says.

It's not that jobs are leaving Philadelphia. To the contrary: The city has reversed years of suburban employment drain, and its job growth leads the region.

About 680,000 people worked in Philadelphia as of June 30, the most in 15 years and 19,000 more than worked here in mid-2007, before the Great Recession. By contrast, employment in the suburbs is still down 4,000 from where it was eight years ago, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Still, there are fewer financial, government and information-based jobs in the city than there were a decade ago. Factory jobs continue going away: The recent Mondelez (Nabisco), Hostess, Perfecseal, Atkore, and Amoroso shutdown plans will eliminate hundreds of well-paid jobs.

The new jobs are in jobs related to health care, colleges, hotels, restaurants and tourism. Comcast is building a second tower (with two more expansion sites nearby) next to the once-mighty Pennsylvania Railroad's old home base. The former Centre Square financial complex now boasts Penn Health as its main tenant.

"We still have a dearth of corporate headquarters," acknowledges Paul Levy, head of the Center City District. "Except for Comcast, they are not setting the pace." But "the trends are positive," he says. "We'd be doing a whole lot better with a more competitive tax policy."

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/busines...i5wHYjgQTRy.99

[BenKatzPhillytoParis]

Originally Posted by EastSideHBG

Interesting article:


Center City is losing its position as a corporate metropolis


Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/busines...i5wHYjgQTRy.99

Ya—we really haven't been one in a while. The headline really didn't have to be that negative. The article overall is more positive. We're gaining jobs and we're growing in key industries like tech, port trade, energy, even though the shift to more service jobs compared to the past is not great for average real income.

[1487]

Originally Posted by BenKatzPhillytoParis

Ya—we really haven't been one in a while. The headline really didn't have to be that negative. The article overall is more positive. We're gaining jobs and we're growing in key industries like tech, port trade, energy, even though the shift to more service jobs compared to the past is not great for average real income.

The most interesting piece of info buried in that article is how Philadelphia is outperforming its suburbs since the recession in job recovery. This isn't a fact that is really getting much press. I think that some fear if too much good news leaks out it may derail or slow the plans for the tax shift policy that so many are supporting. I think its interesting that there are estimates that Philly will only add 25k jobs or so in the next decade if there is no change in the tax policy when its almost added more than that in last 5 years or so.

[tsarstruck]

Originally Posted by 1487

The most interesting piece of info buried in that article is how Philadelphia is outperforming its suburbs since the recession in job recovery. This isn't a fact that is really getting much press. I think that some fear if too much good news leaks out it may derail or slow the plans for the tax shift policy that so many are supporting. I think its interesting that there are estimates that Philly will only add 25k jobs or so in the next decade if there is no change in the tax policy when its almost added more than that in last 5 years or so.

Not that interesting when you think about the five years in question, aka, the recovery from the greatest job loss since the 1930s.

[EastSideHBG]

Originally Posted by 1487

The most interesting piece of info buried in that article is how Philadelphia is outperforming its suburbs since the recession in job recovery. This isn't a fact that is really getting much press. I think that some fear if too much good news leaks out it may derail or slow the plans for the tax shift policy that so many are supporting. I think its interesting that there are estimates that Philly will only add 25k jobs or so in the next decade if there is no change in the tax policy when its almost added more than that in last 5 years or so.

Interesting theory and this was just in the news also:

Report: Philly could gain jobs with tax restructuring

Harold Brubaker, Inquirer Staff Writer
Posted: Monday, September 7, 2015, 1:06 AM

A group of Philadelphia civic and business leaders on Labor Day released a report projecting 79,000 new jobs in the city over the next decade if politicians agree to a major revamp of the city's tax structure.

The study, commissioned by the Philadelphia Growth Coalition, is the latest volley in an effort to build support for a change to the Pennsylvania Constitution that would allow the city to tax commercial real estate at a higher rate than residential property. The current tax rate of 1.4 percent applies to all real estate.

Under the proposal, spearheaded by Center City District CEO Paul Levy and Brandywine Realty Trust CEO Gerard Sweeney, the additional money raised from commercial real estate taxes would be used to cut wage and business taxes.

The city wage tax is 3.91 percent for residents and 3.48 percent for nonresidents. The business net income tax targeted by the coalition is 6.41 percent.

"We're overly dependent on a wage and business tax and, frankly, under-relying on a real estate tax," Levy said last week.

The Growth Coalition, which includes major landlords, chambers of commerce, and labor unions, argues that shifting some of the city's tax burden from what can easily leave (jobs and businesses) to what can't move (land and buildings) would make Philadelphia more competitive with the suburbs.

There were 555,695 private-sector jobs in Philadelphia at the end of last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' census of employers.

The Growth Coalition's report, by Econsult Solutions Inc. in Philadelphia, projected that under the status quo, including continued gradual wage-tax reductions, the city would add 18,000 jobs through 2026.

Philadelphia's tax mix has long been out of line with those in many other rival cities, a fact highlighted by city tax commissions in 2003 and 2009.

Philadelphia officials this year are counting real estate taxes for just 14 percent of overall revenue. In Boston, by contrast, real estate taxes are expected to contribute 68 percent of total revenue this year.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/busines...ObJWZG0U9AV.99

[Insoluble]

Originally Posted by tsarstruck

Not that interesting when you think about the five years in question, aka, the recovery from the greatest job loss since the 1930s.

What does that have to do with the city outperforming the suburbs?

(BTW, the following isn't directed at any poster in particular, but in general at the articles we seem to always get about how this or that tax reform will create x many jobs). We've added about 30k jobs since 2009. And yes, it is a recovery from a pretty hefty recession. But keep in mind that this is the first time in decades that the city has recovered all jobs lost in a recession. In fact, at this point, we've recovered all jobs lost since the last two recessions. There's no guarantee that the pace will keep up, but on the flip side we're given no good reason to believe the dour prediction of only 18k jobs added in the next decade either. And come on, you can't seriously believe that the prediction of 79K jobs (as opposed to 18K) from tax reform has any grounding in reality.

The fact of the matter is that no reliable methods exist to make predictions like this. Yes, all sorts of models exist for predicting economic growth, but the margins of error are usually rather large, and no meaningful predictions can be made for ten years out. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably trying to sell you something. This isn't to say anything about the potential merits or drawbacks of the tax reforms being proposed, they could be terrific for all I know. But I'm starting to tire of these fluff pieces promising so many jobs created by changing such and such aspect of the tax code. It makes me wonder why they can't find an honest way to promote such changes and have to resort to chicanery.

[1487]

Originally Posted by tsarstruck

Not that interesting when you think about the five years in question, aka, the recovery from the greatest job loss since the 1930s.

No its still interesting when the article states there are 4k fewer jobs in the suburbs vs pre-recession. The job growth wasn't guaranteed nor is it even across the delaware valley.

[1487]

Originally Posted by Insoluble

What does that have to do with the city outperforming the suburbs?

(BTW, the following isn't directed at any poster in particular, but in general at the articles we seem to always get about how this or that tax reform will create x many jobs). We've added about 30k jobs since 2009. And yes, it is a recovery from a pretty hefty recession. But keep in mind that this is the first time in decades that the city has recovered all jobs lost in a recession. In fact, at this point, we've recovered all jobs lost since the last two recessions. There's no guarantee that the pace will keep up, but on the flip side we're given no good reason to believe the dour prediction of only 18k jobs added in the next decade either. And come on, you can't seriously believe that the prediction of 79K jobs (as opposed to 18K) from tax reform has any grounding in reality.

The fact of the matter is that no reliable methods exist to make predictions like this. Yes, all sorts of models exist for predicting economic growth, but the margins of error are usually rather large, and no meaningful predictions can be made for ten years out. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably trying to sell you something. This isn't to say anything about the potential merits or drawbacks of the tax reforms being proposed, they could be terrific for all I know. But I'm starting to tire of these fluff pieces promising so many jobs created by changing such and such aspect of the tax code. It makes me wonder why they can't find an honest way to promote such changes and have to resort to chicanery.

You are correct and the thing is these projections don't take into account what has actually happened in the last 5-10 years. Instead they make comparisons to Philadelphia in 1970 or 1980 when the economy was totally different and there were still thousands of manufacturing jobs. The problem with this "one fix solution" proposals is that they ignore all the things that go into decision making for companies that are choosing where to operate and they pretend that without the prescribed changes NO businesses would locate in Philadelphia vs the suburbs. The data from the last decade or so doesn't really support that.

[tsarstruck]

Originally Posted by 1487

No its still interesting when the article states there are 4k fewer jobs in the suburbs vs pre-recession. The job growth wasn't guaranteed nor is it even across the delaware valley.

I wasn't saying it wasn't interesting that the city was outpacing the suburbs. I'm saying that it's not interesting that they're projecting a slower job growth rate over the next ten years than the past five.

[Insoluble]

Originally Posted by 1487

You are correct and the thing is these projections don't take into account what has actually happened in the last 5-10 years. Instead they make comparisons to Philadelphia in 1970 or 1980 when the economy was totally different and there were still thousands of manufacturing jobs. The problem with this "one fix solution" proposals is that they ignore all the things that go into decision making for companies that are choosing where to operate and they pretend that without the prescribed changes NO businesses would locate in Philadelphia vs the suburbs. The data from the last decade or so doesn't really support that.

Yeah, that's the problem really with economic projections like this. Depending on what you use as your baseline data and what assumptions you make for your model you can get drastically different results. Should we assume that growth in the next ten years will follow the trend set by the past 50 or the trend set by the past 5? There's really no reason to assume either would be a better choice. Do their projections assume the U.S. economy will grow at exactly the same rate for the next 10 years? Slow down? Increase in growth rate? Depending on the answer to that you'd expect wildly different numbers for Philly's growth rate. The problem is that economists have a hard enough time even figuring out how much the U.S. economy grew (or shrank) by last year, to say nothing of predicting what will happen in the next 10. There's literally no reason to take their projections as anything more than a wild guess.

So to the business groups funding these studies and the journalists writing about them: if you're going to argue for a tax proposal, please explain why it will be of benefit and what concretely will it change for all parties involved. Don't blow numbers up my @$$ and hope that I'm to gullible to know any better. That's all.

[Arch+Eng]

What ever happened to those General Development photo updates someone was doing. I really enjoyed those.

Any new photos of Blatstein Super McManison?

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by Insoluble

What does that have to do with the city outperforming the suburbs?

(BTW, the following isn't directed at any poster in particular, but in general at the articles we seem to always get about how this or that tax reform will create x many jobs). We've added about 30k jobs since 2009. And yes, it is a recovery from a pretty hefty recession. But keep in mind that this is the first time in decades that the city has recovered all jobs lost in a recession. In fact, at this point, we've recovered all jobs lost since the last two recessions. There's no guarantee that the pace will keep up, but on the flip side we're given no good reason to believe the dour prediction of only 18k jobs added in the next decade either. And come on, you can't seriously believe that the prediction of 79K jobs (as opposed to 18K) from tax reform has any grounding in reality.

The fact of the matter is that no reliable methods exist to make predictions like this. Yes, all sorts of models exist for predicting economic growth, but the margins of error are usually rather large, and no meaningful predictions can be made for ten years out. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably trying to sell you something. This isn't to say anything about the potential merits or drawbacks of the tax reforms being proposed, they could be terrific for all I know. But I'm starting to tire of these fluff pieces promising so many jobs created by changing such and such aspect of the tax code. It makes me wonder why they can't find an honest way to promote such changes and have to resort to chicanery.

Even so, our tax mix is different than our peer cities and our job growth lags far behind them. Coincidence? I don't think so. Even with the recent growth, it probably would have been even more than what was experienced if we actually had sensible policies in place.

For these sorts of metrics, we need to stop comparing the city to King of Prussia and start comparing it to NYC, Boston, DC, etc.

That's the only way we going to grow the pie. Not by taking jobs from KOP, but by taking them from NYC.

[MikeNigh]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

That's the only way we going to grow the pie. Not by taking jobs from KOP, but by taking them from NYC.

Philly could grow for decades off of an influx from just NYC alone. I don't know why people can't understand that. The more philly improves itself even slightly the more it will take from nyc. Nyc is an effective endless resource.

[summersm343]

Axalta to build $85M research facility at Philadelphia Navy Yard

Axalta Coating Systems Inc. will bring an estimated $85 million global research-and-development facility to the Philadelphia Navy Yard and relocate 190 jobs to the site with the expectation it could double the number of its employees at the South Philly campus over the next five to seven years.

The Philadelphia-based maker of liquid and powder coatings signed a 20-year lease with Liberty Property Trust (NYSE:LPT) on what will be a two-story building totaling 175,000 square feet. It will serve as Axalta's “Global Innovation Center.”

Liberty expects to complete construction by late 2017 and the facility should be fully operational by 2018. Axalta (NYSE: AXTA) has the ability to extend its lease, as well as an option to expand the structure by one level if growth warrants it. Erdy McHenry Architecture designed the building.

The facility will house Axalta’s global research, product development and technology operations.

Employees now working in Glen Mills, Pa., and Exton, Pa., will relocate to the facility. Upwards of 400 people could eventually work from there. The jobs are high-paying with starting salaries of $100,000 or more.

http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelp...cility-at.html