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Originally Posted by duffey
everybody's got their opinions, and this IS more a matter of opinion than fact. but mine is that aesthetically speaking, CITC is preferable over ACC in every way. ACC would have diminished the entire rest of the skyline. well, at least the part that you could see poking out from behind it. it was like a fat guy jumping into the front of a group photo with his arms stretched out.
In achieving "tallest in the city" status, while keeping the comcast 1 as the highest in terms of body, the CITC does a great job keeping balance in the skyline while pushing our limits upward. this way you will have (from a north or south view) liberties one and two grading up from the east, and this building along with mellon and bell atlantic grading up from the west towards the center of the skyline, comcast 1. if you built ACC, the skyline would be shaped more like the service bars on a cell phone. there would be no height to the west to balance the grade coming up from the east. philly's skyline is beautiful and doesn't need much in terms of height, as a building 500 feet taller than liberty would just make it and all the others look tiny. build up U City, a few others east of broad, and philly has the best skyline in the country.
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You know, the bad economy really stunted Phila's growth. Such projects, such as Mandeville Place and Cira Centre 2 were either cancelled or put on hold. Other projects like the SLS on Broad and Spruce and maybe even Market8 (sans the casino, which I believe belongs in the sports complex), but SLS I can see myself supporting because it's of higher quality, brings much needed density, enhances the skyline and the streetscape with retail, as well as much needed tax revenue for the city and the state.
The general public (this includes Skyscraperpage) really don't have any power to say what gets built and what doesn't, but if we need a signature tower, then there needs to be something worthy of great design and international renown and as much as CITC boosters will say that it's a better building than the ACC because of Comcast and it's citywide influence, and the ACC couldn't even find at least one major tenant, but I see the CITC as a major miss when it comes to design in a lot of ways.
For one, the CITC does mimic the Commerzbank Tower in Frankfurt, Germany with the spire on it's side. I don't see how it's cutting edge design. The developers wanted to pattern the design to commemorate Phila's industrial past, but I see this as a big mistake in a lot of ways as well as inappropriate. They might as well put the CITC in North Philly or Kensington or place a 1000' factory on 18th and Arch if you ask me if Norman Foster is going to commemorate our industrial past.
Another reason is that the CITC doesn't look as tall as the Comcast Center; they look practically equal in height with the exception on the CITC's spire, plus it doesn't have an observation deck, which the ACC promised to have. It's the tallest, but it's not impressive in that manner. When Liberty Place got built in 1987, it didn't really have a lot of supporters due to the gentleman's agreement and Center City was gradually losing ground to the suburbs in terms of office and retail space back in that time, and maybe it would've helped if Willard Rouse had tacked an extra 100' feet in both of the buildings, so we we wouldn't even have this conversation about breaking the 1K barrier, but LP did it's job by maintaining stability in the office market, offering retail space, and enhancing our skyline.
When Comcast Center got built, there was a lot of support, but I wouldn't say that it was an iconic building than the Liberty Place in terms of historical and cultural importance. Liberty Place dominated Phila's skyline from the late 80's to the mid-2000's and you saw this in a lot of movies and TV shows. Comcast Center is dominating only due to height; it doesn't do much in terms of cultural importance. It's a nice building, but I wouldn't classify it as a pretty building. The CITC adds but doesn't enhance the skyline in an ameliorating manner. The St James, Cira Center, the Evo, and Cira Center 2 adds to Philly's skyline in a non-dominating, but positive manner. The SLS, the Market8 (needs a revamp, but still a good concept), and the ACC are excellent proposals that should make it in this city.
So what am I saying: I'm saying that although Comcast is a very good company due to their cable services and innovative products, their CITC is really a bad attempt when it comes to design. It's also not a good representative of Philadelphia since it's really a copycat to the ACC in several ways (concourse, spire, retail, luxury hotel) and the industrial design isn't bad, but there can be much better than this. Philadelphia has an inferiority complex in that we can do good, but not good enough, pretty, but not pretty enough, tall, but not tall enough, not innovating enough, not groundbreaking enough. The CITC is just a visual representation of that!!!!!
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) might appreciate the significance of the 1,000-feet-plus measurements, residents, visitors, and tourists will be much more impressed with a fuller, more interesting skyline.
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