Quote:
Originally Posted by hammersklavier
1. Keep in mind that the Science Center has five parcels on the ex-Uni City High site available, as well as 3400 and 3800 Market (both of which are much further advanced in design).
2. Also keep in mind the Science Center doesn't seem to have a bigger pipeline than one building at a time, for whatever reason. They've built three buildings (3737 Market, 3601 Market, and 3675 Market) since I started following development news about 12 years ago, so we're talking about 48 months on average per building.
3. A 48 mo. cycle * 7 building sites = 336 mos. or (/12) a whopping 28 years until the current land bank is exhausted.
4. 2/3 of the projects you mentioned (i.e. the school and Drexel's nursing thing) are part of the noticeably-more-aggressive Drexel pipeline and separate from the Science Center's pipeline. In any event, Drexel controls that triangular site by 38th and Warren. |
I was thinking of just the 4 buildings that the sub-title of this section refers to, and just the general dynamic of the area. But when taking the larger picture into account, then yes you are certainly correct, and IMO it will be much longer then 10 years before the SC is any where to being 'built out'.
But in the last 6(?) years haven't there been at least 4 if not 5 buildings completed on Market St. between 36th and 38th (along with a new street), granted one of them is the apartment building. Even without the apartment tower that rate of building is much, much faster then any other time in its history. I think and hope, that this faster rate will continue.
One other factor that might further the idea of slower development of the SC is that Penn is in active renovation of more of the buildings at PennInovation complex on Gray's Ferry Ave. I am assuming that space there would be less expensive then new mid-rise towers in the SC. Once the SC partnered up their lease rates went up quite a lot and quite a few small operations moved out, meaning the SC is trying to market itself to a different market then they did 10 years ago.
In any case I would expect that in 10 years the empty land we're talking about, 36th to 38th, Warren St north to Powelton/Lancaster Ave will be around 50% filled, but mostly from non-SC projects and at least 1 new SC building. I'm not sure about whether that area can support a separate larger hotel as presently planned. I continue to believe that Penn's decisions and needs will have a large effect on what gets built here.