PHILADELPHIA | Penn New College House West | 185 FT | 13 FLOORS
 

Title: New College House West
Project: Dormitory
Architect: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
Developer: University of Pennsylvania
Location: 40th & Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA
Neighborhood: University City
District: West Philadelphia
Floors: 13 floors
Height: 185 FT

Penn Building Yet Another New College House

http://www.ocfrealty.com/wp-content/...NCHW-Model.jpg

http://www.ocfrealty.com/wp-content/...North-1200.jpg

http://www.ocfrealty.com/wp-content/...NCHW-two_0.jpg

http://www.ocfrealty.com/wp-content/...HW-three_0.jpg

Read more here:
http://www.ocfrealty.com/naked-phill...-college-house

Just out of curiosity, what's the minimum height for a building to be have its own thread on the forums?

It'll have good architecture and it fills in part of that godawful superblock, but please please please have the good sense to put in ground floor retail and hopefully an expansion of the really cramped Walnut West library?

12 floors

Yes, agree. This is the biggest problem with College House at Hill Square - no ground floor retail fronting Chestnut. Such a missed opportunity.

This project absolutely needs ground floor retail fronting both Walnut and 40th Streets.

I'll be shocked if they include retail in this. Just look at the rendering...

A couple more renderings:

http://www.pennconnects.upenn.edu/al...st_large_5.jpg

http://www.pennconnects.upenn.edu/al...st_large_4.jpg

http://www.pennconnects.upenn.edu/fi...est_images.php

From the additional drawings, I think it is safe to say that no retail will be part of the project.

If you meant to say NO retail, I agree. This will be similar to New College House--and all college houses at Penn except Stouffer--in that regard. And that's as it should be. Generally, you don't find ground floor retail in core academic and residential buildings on the campuses of other top urban universities that are Penn's peers, such as Harvard, Yale, Brown, Chicago, or even Columbia in Manhattan.

Both the College House at Hill Square, and this project however, SHOULD include retail. Most Ivy League's aren't located in as central of a location as Penn is, so this is a little bit of a unique situation.

Makes no sense why they couldn't have retail along Chestnut Street for the Hill Square College House.

Makes no sense why this project wouldn't include retail along both Walnut AND 40th Streets, with the entrance to the dorm located on Locust Walk... but I digress. This is a big upgrade over the essentially empty grass field that is there now. I'm glad this is somewhat taller too, sitting at 13 floors. MOAR DENSITY!

The lack of retail makes sense from the University's perspective. For student housing, security is probably their biggest concern, and introducing outside users to the space is a risk that I guess Penn isn't willing to take. As a student, though, I'm a little sad to see this green space go. There aren't many fields on campus, and this space is well used by students.

On this one, we'll have to agree to disagree. :cheers: Not all rules and principles of urban density and atmosphere need apply equally to every neighborhood in and around Center City. That variety is what makes for truly attractive, interesting cities! :yes: There's something unique and special about such a verdant, traditional, and historic Ivy League campus so close to the urban core, and in close proximity to such a dynamic and interesting area as University City. I think that most folks affiliated with Penn wouldn't want to lose that specialness to more conventional urban retail along its main campus corridors and in some of its core residential and academic buildings. And I think it would be a loss to the city as a whole to make this unique area more like other neighborhoods in and around Center City in that regard.

As a Penn grad, I rather see the new college house without retail. Rather, I would like to see a classroom or two as part of the building.

Agreed (as another Penn grad). And that's the plan (similar to New College House east):

http://www.pennconnects.upenn.edu/fi...t_overview.php

If Penn wanted retail I'm sure there could be a way to design the building so the retail faced Walnut St and the housing component had it's entrance on the 'back' side facing the campus. Isn't that the arrangement at Stover (?) at 38th & Spruce.

Not many folks like Stouffer College House at Penn....

There should absolutely be retail on the Walnut Street side, and maybe even along 40th Street too. There are plenty of quiet, Ivy League spaces elsewhere on campus. Penn needs to continue reactivating its borders with the city around it, instead of building any more dead all-institutional streetscapes.

I am sure there is a way to put retail facing out, and a fully separated dorm behind and above with entrances off of Locust.

(Penn grad here as well, if we're all flashing credentials :cool:)

All they need to do is look at what Drexel did with their new dorm Chestnut.

Fortunately, there's a great diversity of backgrounds, opinions, and beliefs among Penn grads in general. :tup: And I understand your position. But since the Rodin/Fry administration of the 1990s, Penn has successfully been activating its borders with the city without turning the ground floors of core undergraduate academic or residential buildings over to retail. And again, please correct me if I'm wrong about this, but I don't believe that any of Penn's top urban peers (the other urban Ivies, Chicago, Georgetown, etc.) have any significant retail presence in the ground floors of core undergraduate academic or residential buildings. But as I said to summers, this is something on which we can agree to disagree. :cheers:

Who cares? The "But Jenny and Julie Did It" Defense is arguably the worst of all time...what's right is right. Penn chose to be part of the urban fabric - and it should accept it - not sure why a college dorm has to be sanctimoniously preserved as some holy institution as if having a Fro-Yo and a drycleaner in your building is going to send these impressionable freshmen off on a wayward path.

Or even Temple with Morgan Hall.

Chestnut, Walnut, and 40th are major commercial streets that just so happen to run through Penn's campus. Make Locust Walk the quiet Ivy League streetscape.

NOT when you're competing with Jenny and Julie for the same select group of top students from around the nation and the world. And that's one of Penn's primary goals in designing new undergraduate residential buildings, as it should be.

You guys are viewing this in the local context--Drexel, Temple, etc. Penn is competing head-on with other urban Ivies and top universities around the country, and the appearance, feel, and ambience of their campuses and core undergraduate buildings is far more relevant to Penn.

I guess we disagree on what constitutes an awesome urban campus? Is your broader point that a dorm with ground-floor retail somehow debases the idea of what higher education stands for? Are parents saying to themselves, "Ya know what, Penn had groundfloor retail at their dorms, but Brown did not. Let's definitely send our kid to Brown." "But dad, Wharton is the best business school in the world and I want to go into finance, you know that." "Sorry, son, groundfloor retail."

My thoughts exactly. Even with a home, a front yard is mostly for show. Folks live in the back. Locust Walk is the back yard (and is fine as our version of Harvard Yard). If I lived in one of those dorms, I'd appreciate having some student-oriented retail downstairs, even if I had to walk around to get to it. It's an urban campus, so being a citified version of Princeton or Dartmouth isn't going to work.

It's not the parents, it's the kids. The kids are generally the ones who pick the campus vibe they like. Penn's had one of the largest increases in its applicant pool among all the top schools over the past 20 years, and its campus and neighborhood improvements during that time has been a huge factor in that.

Also, Wharton has fewer than 2,000 undergrads, while Penn's College of Arts and Sciences has something like 6,400, so competing against the other top urban schools is EXTREMELY important, Wharton notwithstanding.

It's not Princeton or Dartmouth we're talking about here, or to which I'm comparing Penn's campus and core undergraduate buildings. It's Columbia, Brown, Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, etc. It's every other top urban undergraduate school. And I think with record-high applicant numbers, record-low acceptance rates, and one of the highest accepted-applicant yield rates, Penn has a pretty good idea what its undergrad applicants want and appreciate in a university. ;)

The northern side of Walnut between 39th and 40th is almost all retail and much of it controlled by Penn. I certainly don't understand why Penn wouldn't/couldn't/won't accept a design that includes retail on the ground floor, but it can't be because they don't embrace retail. Penn rarely turns down a opportunity to make a buck.
In the main campus area, from Walnut to Spruce, from 32th out to 40th, I can't think of many or any retail stores, other then what's in Houston Hall. Maybe they have a policy against that practice, or some agreement with the City back from the days when the neighborhood was sold out for the super block development. But Penn only holds to agreements as long as the agreement benefits them, as soon as it doesn't, the agreement is toast.

The problem with this argument is that the student body is not Penn's only responsibility. The difference between Penn and Drexel comes out as quite egregious at 33rd & Chestnut, where Drexel has heavily invested in commercializing Chestnut and Penn ... not at all.

Someone made the argument that the dorm building at 38th & Spruce is unpopular because it's got ground-floor retail. That's a big fat crock of bull. Look at it! It's unpopular because it's obviously dated and (more importantly) undermaintained -- not because of the ground-floor retail.

Again, I think it's a question of core undergraduate academic and residential buildings versus other--e.g., business office--uses and "off-campus" private housing, e.g., the Radian. With the exception of Stouffer College House--a creature of the early '70s--Penn has never placed street-level retail in a core undergraduate academic or residential building. It just hasn't up til now, and I suspect it won't in the future. Penn does NOT want it's core undergraduate academic and residential buildings to simply melt into the urban landscape.

Do you think the record high applicant numbers has more to do with the fact that the Millenial generation is the largest generation in American history and has been flooding colleges for the past 15 years? Or, is it the lack of groundfloor retail at Penn's dorms catapulting it to the next level?

Seriously though, it almost sounds like you're saying, Penn is doing amazing: the data backs that up. So if it ain't broke why fix it.

But hasn't Penn's ascension also coincided with the university's overt rededication to the urbanization of the campus and wider embrace of the city at large? Meaning groundfloor retail and amenities from grocery stores, to pubs, to burger joints, to sushi joints, to movie theaters?

The student body is one of Penn's primary responsibilities, as it should be. And you know what, BY FAR, are the most popular college houses for incoming Penn freshmen--to the point that many are turned away to other college houses that are their 4th and 5th choices? The 3 college houses in the Quad. Again, Penn knows its students and its applicant pool over the decades, and it quite properly builds campus buildings that it believes will best attract and serve THEM.

^
The so-called "prestigious" education first and making connection to want to do big career things is the attraction for potential students. They don't lack applicants wanting to go there for that reason alone. Everything else should be a bonus.

Does anyone know how Columbia University would compare to UPenn in terms of this ongoing discussion about retail and urbanization of a campus, etc?

Mate, no one is disputing this.

But this logic, if extended to every area of the city, would create self-centered, inward facing enclaves. It's the same reason we don't like gated communities like Naval Square or private garages fronting streets. Surely, it may be in the best interest of developers and homebuyers to have a private garage but it's not in the best interest of the neighborhood and the city at large. Is Penn no longer part of the city?

The 3 college houses in the quad are the most popular because it's an awesome, centuries old, irreplaceable experience. It has literally NOTHING to do with ground floor retail.

Philly Fan perhaps you should change your avatar to Penn Fan - b/c your point of view certainly isn't Philly centered.

I think a lot of Penn alums, students, and faculty who LIVE in the city--including me--would disagree. Not all of them, of course, but quite a few. As I said earlier, a great city doesn't have to have uniform streetscapes and commercial corridors in every neighborhood to be successful. In fact, virtually every great cultural and tourist destination city that I can think of in the world--Paris, London, Barcelona, NYC, New Orleans, San Francisco, even DC--has quite a variety of neighborhoods, many with very little retail on main streets. I just don't understand some of the sentiment on this forum that every main street in every neighborhood in the city should have similar amounts of street-level retail. We're talking about UNIVERSITY CITY here folks, whose identity and success is inextricably intertwined with academic and research institutions, and NOT busy retail corridors. :rolleyes:

Yes, the revitalization of the surrounding NEIGHBORHOOD has been essential to Penn's ascension. But so has the creation of a more cohesive campus for Penn's core academic and residential activities within that surrounding neighborhood. And there's been a fairly consistent effort by Penn not to mix the core activities with the commercial.

Remember that this ongoing effort to create a cohesive campus began with the closing of Woodland Avenue and Locust Street through campus in the 1960s, and I'm sure that there were similarly negative reactions from some folks back then: "How can you close off these busy city streets??? You'll NEVER be able to successfully create a Dartmouth or Princeton in the middle of the city! Either remain a 'city' school, or move out to Valley Forge (which was a plan actually under consideration back then)!" ;)

As to your first point, both Penn and I agree with you to a great extent, which is why more recent construction on Penn's campus has NOT turned its back on the through streets, e.g., Singh Center for Nanotechnology, Skirkanich Hall (Bioengineering), Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics, Perry World House, New College House, etc. But that doesn't mean there has to be RETAIL in those buildings. It just means that folks driving through the Penn campus should feel like they're ON the Penn campus, and not in some commercial retail corridor behind or removed from the campus proper.

And as to your second point--do you really believe that the "awesome, centuries old, irreplaceable experience" of living in the Quad would be the same if it had ground floor retail? :rolleyes:

I have to agree with the existence of ground floor retail being kind of irrelevant to Philly Fan's argument. Also the Quad isn't perfect -- actually, walking around it is so boring that I actively avoid it. It's a perfect example of an excessively inward-centric building to the detriment of all other uses. It's also telling how non-Penn alums seem agreed that the idea that ground-floor retail shouldn't go in academic buildings is atavistic.

Perhaps it's because non-Penn alums fail to appreciate the emotional appeal of a campus like Penn's to former, current, and potential students from around the country and the world who chose or will choose it over its peers. Just sayin'. ;)

Other then New College House, which of the other new Penn buildings could have readily included retail? The building they put up at 39th & Walnut includes 1st floor retail.
One area where I think Penn has dropped the ball, meaning turned their back on profit, is to not include retail in the hospital area. There's a huge number of workers and guests in that area, with few places to empty their wallets, other then at the 'gift' stores

39th and Walnut is a non-academic office building, and not a core undergraduate academic or residential building, which underscores my point. Also, I can see your point about the hospital area--again, not a core undergraduate academic or residential area of Penn's campus.

Retail or not, I hope this does not end up like New College House, which has ZERO interaction with Chestnut street.

Not exactly ZERO interaction, but I agree it could be better (and that's ME saying that ;) ):

https://prismpub.com/wp-content/uplo...2RT_10wide.jpg


But it DOES appear (as much as you can tell from these renderings) that NCHW will have some interaction (e.g., entryways, full-length ground-floor windows, etc.) with both Walnut and 40th Streets:

http://www.pennconnects.upenn.edu/al...st_large_5.jpg

http://www.pennconnects.upenn.edu/al...st_large_4.jpg

http://ucreview.com/penn-contingent-...ee-p7691-1.htm

Nothing too major, but there’s mention of a late 2018 construction start date.

Not surprising. I've seen equipment doing test drills a few times walking by. Penn isn't constrained to like other developers so they can pretty much move as fast as they want.

CDR Submission:

http://www.phila.gov/CityPlanning/pr...et_18_0220.pdf

Walnut Street gets the backside of the elevator stack / stairwells, green buffer in front of windows, and no door access. Such respect for the streetscape!

Passed CDR April 9, http://www.phila.gov/CityPlanning/pr...%20Reviews.pdf

The latest version of this tower look really good.

https://i.imgur.com/4HdrP7h.png

https://i.imgur.com/JXIQ6Ho.png

https://i.imgur.com/XoBCZo4.png

^^^^ what's different from what was presented in the past?