PHILADELPHIA | The Harper | 272 FT | 24 FLOORS - Page 42

Brandywine Rocks · #**821** Posted **Dec 4, 2017, 4:12 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1487

You folks are out of touch with reality when it comes to the actual power of the Planning Commission. The city cannot stop a developer from negotiating with neighbors- this can happen in any American city. The initial rendering was nothing more than a preliminary design exercise shown 5-6 years ago. We have no idea how far it would have gone and the fact that we are on the 4th design suggests there was very little chance the final product was ever going to match that image.

Everything you need to research regarding this tower is in this thread.

Do your homework and come back and see me.

I have no time for your frivolous speculation.

Philadelphia cant afford to keep throwing up these generic glass rectangles all over the city. This is a block from Rittenhouse - Have to do better much better.

PHL10 · #**822** Posted **Dec 4, 2017, 4:21 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin7

Source that this was killed by NIMBYs? I thought this was essentially a bait and switch once the Boyd was trashed. I could very well be wrong, but would like to know for sure.

If I recall this correctly, at the time of the initial proposal, Pearl did not own the Boyd poperty. Because the first tower height exceeded FAR, the neighbors fought it and the City didn’t provide a zoning relief. So then they bought the Boyd and with the extra area, could build by right. So if you want to look at this from the harshest perspective, we potentially could have gotten a taller, better deigned tower sited at the corner with the Boyd intact. Instead we had the Boyd demo’d and an have inferior designed tower sited on Sansom all because the City and neighbors didn’t want to play ball with Pearl.

1487 · #**823** Posted **Dec 4, 2017, 4:30 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brandywine Rocks

Everything you need to research regarding this tower is in this thread.

Do your homework and come back and see me.

I have no time for your frivolous speculation.

Philadelphia cant afford to keep throwing up these generic glass rectangles all over the city. This is a block from Rittenhouse - Have to do better much better.

PHILADELPHIA isn't building the tower- Pearl Properties is doing so. Casting blame in an illogical fashion is easy- not the same as making a realistic proposal for something different. How in the hell would the city prevent a developer from negotiating or accommodating the desires of neighbors in an effort to make a project happen? Are you seriously suggesting such things don't happen in other major cities?

1487 · #**824** Posted **Dec 4, 2017, 4:33 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin7

Source that this was killed by NIMBYs? I thought this was essentially a bait and switch once the Boyd was trashed. I could very well be wrong, but would like to know for sure.

A design was proposed after this which got a lot of negative feedback. The community pushed Pearl to work with Cecil Baker to develop a "better" building and a substantially different 32 story tower emerged and was submitted to the CDR committee. The current iteration is different from that proposal in height and in the details. The art deco rendering has been off the table for years. It never made it beyond the proposal stage.

City Wide · #**825** Posted **Dec 4, 2017, 6:40 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1487

A design was proposed after this which got a lot of negative feedback. The community pushed Pearl to work with Cecil Baker to develop a "better" building and a substantially different 32 story tower emerged and was submitted to the CDR committee. The current iteration is different from that proposal in height and in the details. The art deco rendering has been off the table for years. It never made it beyond the proposal stage.

I'm not sure what you mean by the 'proposal stage', but that projected development went through the zoning and a request for a variance and got turned down. I agree with the above post #552.

What bothered and disappointed me was after Pearl bought the Boyd property I believe they could have built this art deco tower 'by-right', but choose to go in a different direction and now we're getting another 1919 Market St. but one big difference is that this is one block from one of the toniest living areas in the City.

hammersklavier · #**826** Posted **Dec 4, 2017, 6:49 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by City Wide

I'm not sure what you mean by the 'proposal stage', but that projected development went through the zoning and a request for a variance and got turned down. I agree with the above post #552.

What bothered and disappointed me was after Pearl bought the Boyd property I believe they could have built this art deco tower 'by-right', but choose to go in a different direction and now we're getting another 1919 Market St. but one big difference is that this is one block from one of the toniest living areas in the City.

Problem is, they couldn't. Not even close. The 1900 block of Chestnut is CMX-4, and their initial proposal basically required upzoning the block to CMX-5. Which frankly needs to happen anyway, but it ain't happening in this development cycle ... at least until it becomes impossible to further intensify the block without upzoning it. Fortunately the Harper takes care of a large chunk of that.

jsbrook · #**827** Posted **Dec 4, 2017, 6:58 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by hammersklavier

Problem is, they couldn't. Not even close. The 1800 block of Chestnut is CMX-4, and their initial proposal basically required upzoning the block to CMX-5. Which frankly needs to happen anyway, but it ain't happening in this development cycle ... at least until it becomes impossible to further intensify the block without upzoning it. Fortunately the Harper takes care of a large chunk of that.

This is the 1900 block, but I believe the zoning is the same. The 1800 block has the big Big Boyd’s parking lot that I hope is developed sooner rather than later.

hammersklavier · #**828** Posted **Dec 4, 2017, 7:22 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsbrook

This is the 1900 block, but I believe the zoning is the same. The 1800 block has the big Big Boyd’s parking lot that I hope is developed sooner rather than later.

Fixed.

And yes, that Boyd's parking lot is a travesty a block away from Rittenhouse Square.

1487 · #**829** Posted **Dec 4, 2017, 8:57 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by City Wide

I'm not sure what you mean by the 'proposal stage', but that projected development went through the zoning and a request for a variance and got turned down. I agree with the above post #552.

What bothered and disappointed me was after Pearl bought the Boyd property I believe they could have built this art deco tower 'by-right', but choose to go in a different direction and now we're getting another 1919 Market St. but one big difference is that this is one block from one of the toniest living areas in the City.

The 1900 and 2000 blocks of Chestnut have needed some help for a while. A taller, better building would be nice for sure, but let's not act like this prime location has been booming over the last decade or so. Between this and the PHA site there has been a lot of room for improvement on this stretch. No matter how you spin it, the Target, Boyd restaurant and apt tower are a big time improvement over what was there.