PHILADELPHIA | 115 S. 19th Street | 611 FT | 54 FLOORS
 

About time Philly got some skinny 'scrapers

Title: 115 S 19th Street
Architect: DAS
Developer: Pearl
Location: 113-121 South 19th Street, Philadelphia, PA
District: Center City
Neighborhood: Rittenhouse Square
Floors: 54
Height: 611 FT

https://i.imgur.com/kZleW6Z.png?1

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

https://i.imgur.com/mEELmZ6h.png

CDR Submission

Great height and a nice tower. It's just a shame they decided to plop that attractive tower on that boring base. It's an overused formula where a contemporary tower is set back on a traditional, 3-4 story, red brick base in some sort of lame attempt to blend in and downplay the tower's presence.

If the base matched the tower and it wasn't set back, this building would be so much better. Even if zoning required the setback, why not extend the design and materials from the tower down to the base?

This is obviously 1000% better than what's there now and will be a great addition to the skyline. The overall design could be a bit more imaginative.

ANOTHER 500-foot+ residential tower for Philly?! This whole area is going gangbusters.

Those are existing buildings, not something the architect dreamed up. They are
keeping the fronts and demoing the rear portions.

You're always outing yourself as a suburbanite :haha:

Just kidding, but as GtownFriend mentioned, these buildings have been here forever. To be fair to you, in the rendering they look a bit different because they're all unpainted but currently most of these buildings are painted like an off white and the second one from the corner is the florist by rittenhouse square that has had a mural of flowers on the front for the past few years: https://goo.gl/maps/teNvtuqACBgfck517

Keeping them isn't even an architectural choice. They're historically protected or at least the 19th street facing part of them is.

I don't think this will win any design awards, but it is a nice looking building. And you're right, it is time Philly had some skinny skyscrapers. There are a number of buildings in the city that are twice as wide and half as tall as I think they should be, like the Kennedy House:
https://www.emporis.com/images/show/...9th-street.jpg
Such a waste of real estate, but most of them were built before 1Lib broke the City Hall height limit.
Also, retaining the houses at the base annoys me. I don't know whether they are historically significant or anything, but I think it separates the base from the tower. They are at two different scales, and they do not really talk to one another. It reminds me of the Hearst Tower in NYC, where they have the original historical building retained at the base then the Foster-designed tower built on top of it. A weird marriage.
https://i1.wp.com/ylo.wpengine.com/w...ts-tower-1.jpg

ffs. Have you ever been here?

This is a huge win.

Also: No parking!

This is awesome looking! Nice height too!

Interesting choice of cladding color combo. No blue glass...yay! Building will stand out.

Hell yeah! Build it. Looks awesome.

Yeah, to echo above, I'm not sure McBane has ever been to Philly. That corner in particular is one of the most photographed spots because you get great Victorian/Philly architecture (old, historically protected) with the modernity of One Liberty towering over it. This is the "best of both worlds" (RIP EVH) - these beautiful buildings are preserved, and a very tall, slender tower will rise above.

And I'm happy Pearl is not going blue-glass, also this tower has a more definite crown that the Harper is lacking. The bronze trim should give the tower a classy touch. I think this one resembles the slender RAMSA towers in NYC and Chicago of recent years (obv. porcelain tile here vs. limestone in NY/Chicago, but I'll take it).

I wonder if SLC/The Laurel people's heart skipped a beat seeing this, as it does partially block some views The Laurel will have looking towards Center City. Hell, this thing is only 32 feet shorter.

so what do you think Inga will hate about it?

Could there have been a worse first comment on this thread?

Also, as someone else noted, NO PARKING!!!!!!!

And catty-corner is Sophy Curson something of a mid-century, old money Rittenhouse Square landmark which is also highly photographed.

I’m assuming apartments since it’s Pearl? Would love to see them offer a few condos for sale.

Apartments are generally their MO but this is a great location and the entire upper half of building will have units with balconies looking out on Rittenhouse Square. Wouldn't be surprised if this project had some condos. Maybe apartments lower half, condos upper half?

https://aws1.discourse-cdn.com/busin...495222dcf.jpeg
https://aws1.discourse-cdn.com/busin...528dd23d41.png

Note that three of the buildings — 121 S. 19th St, 1822 and 1824 Chestnut St — are protected historic buildings on the Philadelphia Register and won't be substantially altered. In fact the Chestnut St buildings (minus non-historic later additions extending to Sansom St) were designated this year with no opposition from Pearl Properties.

1822 Chestnut St nomination: https://www.phila.gov/.../1822-Chest...nomination.pdf

1824 Chestnut St nomination:https://www.phila.gov/.../1824-Chest...nomination.pdf

This tower is nice; great height; slender build; very elegant. This tower really has an Art Deco feel in a way; in a way it looks almost International Style as well.

I wonder if this tower as any lighting scheme at night? What is the true impact of the tower on the scene in total?

I do believe this tower will fill in a gap in the skyline when you look down Chestnut street between Liberty 2 and the FMC/Philly Stock Exchange Tower; this also moves the skyline west of 18 street from 500' to closer to 600' in comes cases the Blue Cross Building will be an average height now because we'll now see 2 other towers close to the same height.

Has anybody noticed something else awesome? On the application form (in wee tiny letters on some of the paperwork) it states this project is by right. I'm sure somebody's gonna sue once they realize this thing's getting going, but nobody can stop it for some stupid persnickety reason (mah pahking waaa), woo!

I remembered now why I stopped posting here.

I appreciated your point of view, McBane. mcgrath at times does sound like an online bully with his comments, even though I too appreciate most of his contributions. Let's all be friendly nerds now and celebrate building great things.

^^^^^
I was wondering about zoning-----it wasn't too long ago that a proposed 20 or 25 stories at 19th & Chestnut, in a very classy design, caused alot of people great pain and suffering. I'm glad to hear that won't be the case here.

Has Pearl ever proposed a project in CC that didn't get built? I wonder if it will turn into some kind of race to see who can get started first, this or the tower on Sansom St. that Southern has proposed to replace a parking garage and the much shorter tower built over the old Freeman's auction house between Chestnut & Sansom? (and there might be one other project I'm forgetting)

I know that a builder has to have plans approved before the end of the year to still use the 10 year tax abetment, but when does construction have to start or finish to take advantage of the same?

Something Tall and Skinny Will Soon Rise at 19th & Sansom

Current site:
http://www.ocfrealty.com/wp-content/...IMG_4950-3.jpg

Site plan:
http://www.ocfrealty.com/wp-content/...9.32.00-PM.png

Rendering 1:
http://www.ocfrealty.com/wp-content/...9.30.12-PM.png

Rendering 2:
http://www.ocfrealty.com/wp-content/...9.30.19-PM.png

Read more here:
http://www.ocfrealty.com/naked-phill...se-19th-sansom

567 Foot Tall, 183-Unit Tower Proposed in Rittenhouse

Read more here:
http://www.rising.realestate/567-foo...n-rittenhouse/

It fits in like a glass slipper . Build more just like it . So classy one of Americas greatest neighborhoods .

God, some of the comments on the linked Instagram post are just stupid.

Until a few years back, I remembered the storefronts being leased as a flower shop and as a restaurant/nightclub. 119 S 19th St is a good project for a growing part of Center City and I hope this happens. It's no Mandeville Place, but this helps Rittenhouse Sq a lot.

-snip-

Relax. You compared a bunch of excellent and very recognizable Victorian era historic buildings to the the cheap pre fabricated brick base of 2116 Chestnut. Is some ribbing not in order?

And honestly I don't really think how often you visit center city, should necessarily have an impact on whether or not you can have opinions on development here. A lot of your input is worthwhile.

+1

Nope, nope there couldn't. Me like the tower AND the preservation.

Yeah, and they have been vacant (and badly painted) for some time now. Looks like the paint will be stripped, and they will be put back into use as part of this project. Woohoo!

If this was being proposed by anybody else, i’d say pipe dream. Pearl gets stuff done, this has a great chance to come to fruition. Very excited.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...c54960c0_b.jpg115 S 19th Street 10-13-20



https://www.phila.gov/media/20201009...t-20201022.pdf

Could a mod tag this as Philadelphia?

PERMIT NUMBER: ZP-2020-002127
https://li.phila.gov/#details?entity...0S%2019TH%20ST

Boom! Build it. They're not effin' around with this one.

wow

I'm floored.
This is a great win.
and smart. Best lot left in Center City

It’s not a vacant lot per se- it will be an overbuild. There are still many lots in Center City that should be developed. The most prominent being the SE corner of Walnut/20th.

Well, the *most* prominent would probably be the Disney hole, but 20th & Walnut is a significant one too.

Still surprised the Disney hole has sat this long...Goldenberg is just sitting with it...

Honestly? Let them sit.

That corner deserves something > 600 ft. And if we have to wait 10 years to get it, it's fine by me.

Tax him into building something or selling.

how would one do that?

Dang they're wasting absolutely no time with this thing.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b0/9b...a2ce43f0b0.jpg

Never, ever doubt City Council's ability to come up with new and creative ways to use it's taxing authority.

How about this, tax the air rights on parking lots east of Broad St. between Race St. and Pine St. of more than 10K sq.ft. Or turn to a land based tax for that area as a trial basis. The City can't force him to build, but they can try to make continuing the status quo painful.

true enough that the city can be creative with its taxing abilities, but there are limits to what it can legally do. I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that you can't target one person or entity for a novel tax like what you're proposing. maybe I'm naive but it would seem pretty transparent that they would be trying to use this power as a pre-emptive and punitive social engineering weapon.