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  #81  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2016, 1:05 AM
mPhilly mPhilly is offline
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Originally Posted by allovertown View Post
It's a shame that one of Philadelphia's leading developers and someone who owns so many prime development parcels in this city is seemingly incapable of understanding even the most basic tenants of urbanism.

The whole palazzo on roof idea is terrible. Beyond terrible really. It's god damn idiotic. Someone close to Blatstein needs to grab him by the collar and repeatedly smack him across the face until he wakes up and understands how moronic this idea is. It's for his own good.
Why is the roof top idea so bad? There are enough residences here alone to keep a restaurant or two a night in business. I would personally love to have a destination like this two stops down on the Broad Street line.

And as Londonee has pointed out, this will be the most urban thing around if it gets built. How can you knock it for lack of urbanism?

I totally agree in CC proper this would be terrible, but at Broad and Washington, this seems perfect.

These residences will fill in the current climate. I think we all know that. The south side of the Broad Street line is convenient and underutilized and this location is excellent for city dwellers wishing to keep a car or with a reverse commute.
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  #82  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2016, 3:20 AM
RonnieStevens RonnieStevens is offline
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I also don't think the rooftop is such a bad idea. I think people enjoy the views and its something different. At this point Broad and Washington isn't a quaint Queen Village corner where a nice cafe with tables on the side walk will be a big hit. This would be the pioneer in that area that would link South and Broad to Washington and Broad. If anything we should encourage this development the same way we encourage Devine Lorraine. Both are on the outskirts of where the CC crowds will be comfortable walking and just the same way I hope the stretch between Spring garden will fill in North towards Devine Lorraine, South Broad will get built up towards this potential development.
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  #83  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2016, 4:22 AM
allovertown allovertown is offline
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Originally Posted by mPhilly View Post
Why is the roof top idea so bad? There are enough residences here alone to keep a restaurant or two a night in business. I would personally love to have a destination like this two stops down on the Broad Street line.

And as Londonee has pointed out, this will be the most urban thing around if it gets built. How can you knock it for lack of urbanism?

I totally agree in CC proper this would be terrible, but at Broad and Washington, this seems perfect.

These residences will fill in the current climate. I think we all know that. The south side of the Broad Street line is convenient and underutilized and this location is excellent for city dwellers wishing to keep a car or with a reverse commute.
First off. You should rework your math on those restaurants. Even if I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assume that there are 2 small restaurants on roof that only seat 40 people each and each residential unit is packed with 3 people, for these restaurants to be successful every resident in the building would have to eat at one of the restaurants about once every 2 weeks. Most people don't eat out that often, and those that do, don't tend to go to the same restaurant every time they eat out.

So no, while 1,000 residential units would certainly help fill demand, these restaurants could not be sustained by the residents alone. And judging by the proposal, Blatstein is expecting more than 2 small restaurants up there. Any restaurant on this roof is absolutely going to need to bring in people from elsewhere in neighborhood and the city if they are going to survive. And honestly the restaurants on the roof are the least of my concern. A restaurant on the 4th floor of this building with a big balcony where people can sit outside is a really cool idea. It's certainly a gamble, but it's at least a sound gamble, if done right, I could definitely see something like that becoming a destination.

The issue is there aren't just restaurants on the roof, Blatstein wants a whole damn Village up there. And while a destination restaurant or two with unique amenities and views could survive without a street presence and foot traffic, small retail boutiques absolutely will not. The idea that they could is so absurd it's hard to even contemplate what Blatstein is thinking. Retail is such a tough competitive business and foot traffic is key. Even on established retail corridors like N 3rd Street in Old City that see a ton of residential and tourist foot traffic, businesses struggle to survive. The idea that Blatstein thinks he's going to bring even half of that foot traffic to his rooftop Village on a beautiful summer day is unlikely. In the winter? Are you fucking kidding me?

I don't knock it for a lack of urbanism in the sense that it isn't large or urban enough. I appreciate the scale and ambition of this project and this corner right here is perfect for a huge large scale project like this to take advantage of subway access and energize these neighborhoods. What I'm talking about here is really more about poorly executed urbanism, ignoring basic principles of urban design.

It's not just that the rooftop village is a bad idea. It's also not a very productive idea. Let's say the village is more successful than it has any right to be. What does that even do for the vibrancy of the area? With everyone on a roof? Instead of bringing people and activity to street level to energize the area, this project actually sucks people off the street and replaces a barren parking lot with a nearly equally as barren blank walls of a big box store.

Too often I feel Philadelphia projects lack ambition, that isn't the problem here. But it's even more frustrating for a design with so much ambition to get so much wrong.

All that said, I'd take it over this parking lot in a second. Which brings me to the reason I hate it the most. It's not getting built. No way, no how. He had a CMX-5 zoning here and he built something that needs variances anyway and has its tallest parts of the building hovering over a high school and a residential neighborhood. He's in for a fight with neighbors, and his recent track record of accomplishing anything in this city is worse than the Sixers. Zero confidence he builds this. Color me shocked if a shovel breaks dirt here within 5 years. This embarrassing lot will continue to mar this city, likely until blatstain sells it because he's clueless and perhaps went insane drinking wine in a Village in Provence.

Last edited by allovertown; Feb 19, 2016 at 4:46 AM.
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  #84  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2016, 7:38 PM
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iheartphilly iheartphilly is offline
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He's not getting any credibility from us skyscraper geeks until something beside his mansion gets built.
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  #85  
Old Posted Feb 20, 2016, 7:20 AM
cafeguy cafeguy is offline
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Originally Posted by allovertown View Post
First off. You should rework your math on those restaurants. Even if I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assume that there are 2 small restaurants on roof that only seat 40 people each and each residential unit is packed with 3 people, for these restaurants to be successful every resident in the building would have to eat at one of the restaurants about once every 2 weeks. Most people don't eat out that often, and those that do, don't tend to go to the same restaurant every time they eat out.

So no, while 1,000 residential units would certainly help fill demand, these restaurants could not be sustained by the residents alone. And judging by the proposal, Blatstein is expecting more than 2 small restaurants up there. Any restaurant on this roof is absolutely going to need to bring in people from elsewhere in neighborhood and the city if they are going to survive. And honestly the restaurants on the roof are the least of my concern. A restaurant on the 4th floor of this building with a big balcony where people can sit outside is a really cool idea. It's certainly a gamble, but it's at least a sound gamble, if done right, I could definitely see something like that becoming a destination.

The issue is there aren't just restaurants on the roof, Blatstein wants a whole damn Village up there. And while a destination restaurant or two with unique amenities and views could survive without a street presence and foot traffic, small retail boutiques absolutely will not. The idea that they could is so absurd it's hard to even contemplate what Blatstein is thinking. Retail is such a tough competitive business and foot traffic is key. Even on established retail corridors like N 3rd Street in Old City that see a ton of residential and tourist foot traffic, businesses struggle to survive. The idea that Blatstein thinks he's going to bring even half of that foot traffic to his rooftop Village on a beautiful summer day is unlikely. In the winter? Are you fucking kidding me?

I don't knock it for a lack of urbanism in the sense that it isn't large or urban enough. I appreciate the scale and ambition of this project and this corner right here is perfect for a huge large scale project like this to take advantage of subway access and energize these neighborhoods. What I'm talking about here is really more about poorly executed urbanism, ignoring basic principles of urban design.

It's not just that the rooftop village is a bad idea. It's also not a very productive idea. Let's say the village is more successful than it has any right to be. What does that even do for the vibrancy of the area? With everyone on a roof? Instead of bringing people and activity to street level to energize the area, this project actually sucks people off the street and replaces a barren parking lot with a nearly equally as barren blank walls of a big box store.

Too often I feel Philadelphia projects lack ambition, that isn't the problem here. But it's even more frustrating for a design with so much ambition to get so much wrong.

All that said, I'd take it over this parking lot in a second. Which brings me to the reason I hate it the most. It's not getting built. No way, no how. He had a CMX-5 zoning here and he built something that needs variances anyway and has its tallest parts of the building hovering over a high school and a residential neighborhood. He's in for a fight with neighbors, and his recent track record of accomplishing anything in this city is worse than the Sixers. Zero confidence he builds this. Color me shocked if a shovel breaks dirt here within 5 years. This embarrassing lot will continue to mar this city, likely until blatstain sells it because he's clueless and perhaps went insane drinking wine in a Village in Provence.
wow. this rant is amazing.
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  #86  
Old Posted Feb 20, 2016, 5:06 PM
Frontst17 Frontst17 is offline
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Allovertown it sounds like your just assuming this will be built in a pedestrian desert as if no other developments will happen in the surrounding area... All of the surrounding neighborhoods have already started to pick up momentum with no signs of stopping. Who knows what the area will look like in 2-3 years time
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  #87  
Old Posted Feb 20, 2016, 6:07 PM
mmikeyphilly mmikeyphilly is offline
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1001 S. Broad St.

[QUOTE=summersm343;6811945]Title: 1001 S. Broad
Project: luxury apartments, retail
Architect: Cope Linder
Developer: Tower investments
Location: 1001-29 S. Broad St., Philadelphia, PA
Neighborhood: Hawthorne
District: South Philadelphia
Floors: 34
Height: 426 feet






Quote:
Originally Posted by mmikeyphilly View Post
It would have been sweet if the 2 towers took that annex off each tower and plopped them on top to make even taller. But hey, this is Broad & Washington. Who are we kidding? I'm happy that this is getting built.

So will this interfere with TV reception??(LOL!)
That's what I said back then, but somehow I pictured it to be more slender, and maybe just a little taller.
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  #88  
Old Posted Feb 21, 2016, 1:39 AM
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Palms Palms is offline
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This project is hideous.


Here is a project that has clearance at 9th + Washington which is a much better fit for this area of the city. This should be the template for Broad + Washington, perhaps 9 stories instead of 5. I love driving up South Broad to Washington Ave, the row homes are uniform, orderly, and fairly well kept but it all turns to trash from Washington to say Christian. This intersection needs a low to mid level classy gateway to Center City not a mutant skyscraper village.Ugh!!!!.




Blatstein is talking about building a replica of a town n France Aix-en-Provence on the podium of this monstosity. If thats what you want to do then just build the replica village. Dont do the replica village on the podium of a 36 story tower.

Last edited by Palms; Feb 21, 2016 at 2:49 AM.
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  #89  
Old Posted Feb 21, 2016, 2:25 AM
mPhilly mPhilly is offline
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Originally Posted by allovertown View Post
First off. You should rework your math on those restaurants...
I'll make a spreadsheet next time. Seriously though, I think if you look at my point in context it is valid. This many people living in this location will bring foot traffic in and of itself. Add that to the fact that there is already foot traffic here and the area is likely to grow and I don't see any problems with a lack of foot traffic at this location.

True that the Village will "suck people off the street," but they will have to walk down the street to get there. It really isn't that much different than walking into a store that fronts the street from a foot traffic perspective and the rendering shows a large degree of interaction at street level. This looks more akin to a smaller Liberty Center than a Gallery in terms of street interaction IMO.
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  #90  
Old Posted Feb 21, 2016, 3:12 AM
eixample eixample is offline
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I am with allovertown. The "provençal village" is a tacky, exurban outlet mall type concept. Think about the kind of retailers it would need to work and whether they would ever conceive of taking a risk on this.
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  #91  
Old Posted Feb 21, 2016, 9:35 PM
techchallenger techchallenger is offline
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Originally Posted by eixample View Post
I am with allovertown. The "provençal village" is a tacky, exurban outlet mall type concept. Think about the kind of retailers it would need to work and whether they would ever conceive of taking a risk on this.
Permanent marker me into the same column with allovertown as well. The village in the sky idea is ludicrous.
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  #92  
Old Posted Feb 21, 2016, 10:19 PM
mmikeyphilly mmikeyphilly is offline
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Copied and pasted Quote from allovertown :

"The whole palazzo on roof idea is terrible. Beyond terrible really. It's god damn idiotic. Someone close to Blatstein needs to grab him by the collar and repeatedly smack him across the face until he wakes up and understands how moronic this idea is. It's for his own good."

Sorry, this just made me laugh so hard.
I know it's a serious topic, but the first thing I envisioned was (in the Movie "Moonstruck")
Cher slapping Nicolas Cage in the face,
and saying "snap out of it".
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  #93  
Old Posted Feb 22, 2016, 9:16 PM
Insoluble Insoluble is offline
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Yeah, I have to agree with most others that the rooftop "village" is a pretty dumb idea. This design is at least a but better than his previous one for the site. Maybe his next design will actually be good? Either way, here's hoping that someday a developer comes along and actually does something with this lot. All signs currently point to it not being Bart.
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  #94  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2016, 3:25 PM
Kidphilly Kidphilly is offline
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Did anyone go to the meeting last night on this?

I was going to and got held up with work stuff and am curious on what was discussed
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  #95  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2016, 8:27 PM
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summersm343 summersm343 is offline
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NIMBY Nation - Hawthorne Residents Blast Blatstein Proposal Again

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The neighbors don’t want any tall tower on the site, period. But they also said the plan doesn’t offer enough parking, and some also criticized its awkward walkability.

When the revised plans for Bart Blatstein’s mixed-use residential/retail development at the northeast corner of Broad and Washington were made public in a Civic Design Review submission, we predicted that the residents of Hawthorne would be no happier with one 32-story tower than they were with two.

We called that accurately: at the February 25 Hawthorne Empowerment Coalition zoning meeting, just about every near and not-so-near neighbor beat up on Blatstein for insisting on a tall apartment tower still. But that wasn’t the only thing they didn’t like about the project. In fact, just about every aspect of the proposal came in for criticism, and the criticism also revealed areas in which the residents, many of whom have lived in the neighborhood for years, share the concerns of newer urban advocates regarding this site and areas where they part company.

The area where the new urbanists and the old residents agree most concerns walkability. Where Blatstein touted the fourth-floor rooftop shopping village as providing that walkability, HEC Zoning Committee Chair Ben Weber and several other residents questioned whether anyone would take an escalator or elevator up four floors in order to walk around on a rooftop. Weber specifically advocated for restoring the intrablock streets that had been removed when the site was cleared many years ago and bringing the retail village down to the street level.

Then there was that tower. Some residents argued that the project was simply too dense for the residential community surrounding it, but even those who weren't opposed to dense development wanted it at a lower height. "The committee is opposed to this monstrosity, and we're trying to see if we can get you to bring it down and stretch it out," said Zoning Committee member Haneef Nelson. Some residents asked him why the tower was oriented to the site's north edge, along Carpenter Street, rather than along Broad Street; Blatstein said that putting the tower there would cast shadows on the rooftop village and outdoor pool for most of the day.

The Zoning Board of Adjustment will hear Blatstein's variance request on March 25 at 2 p.m. in its hearing room at 1515 Arch Street. The public may attend and comment, and the Zoning Committee members urged residents to do so.
Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/property/20...Z1P8GX6ak0b.99
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  #96  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2016, 8:56 PM
Chubbs Peterson Chubbs Peterson is offline
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"too dense for the residential community surrounding it"

I don't get it. You live in the third most populated city in the US. And, why is the word density thrown around in these meetings like it is a bad thing? There are literally two city-block sized vacant lots that bums sit outside of all day long and you are complaining that this tower is too dense and not good for the neighborhood.

I live a block from this lot and I hate it. I think Bart's proposal is too short. Build a 1500 foot tower.
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  #97  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2016, 9:19 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chubbs Peterson View Post
"too dense for the residential community surrounding it"

I don't get it. You live in the third most populated city in the US. And, why is the word density thrown around in these meetings like it is a bad thing? There are literally two city-block sized vacant lots that bums sit outside of all day long and you are complaining that this tower is too dense and not good for the neighborhood.

I live a block from this lot and I hate it. I think Bart's proposal is too short. Build a 1500 foot tower.
NIMBY or not, we all seem to agree that Blatstein has no idea what he's doing. His tower design is driven by keeping shadows off a pool and his Las Vegas-style version of Laputa. As it is, he's got everything backwards by putting major retailers on the ground and smaller outfits in the sky. Can't the man design something that can be built by right in a CMX-5 area? Maybe we should just put Cecil Baker in charge of everything.
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  #98  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2016, 9:30 PM
Londonee Londonee is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chubbs Peterson View Post
"too dense for the residential community surrounding it"

I don't get it. You live in the third most populated city in the US. And, why is the word density thrown around in these meetings like it is a bad thing? There are literally two city-block sized vacant lots that bums sit outside of all day long and you are complaining that this tower is too dense and not good for the neighborhood.

I live a block from this lot and I hate it. I think Bart's proposal is too short. Build a 1500 foot tower.
It's not the height that's the issue - 432 Park is 1400ft tall but only has a few hundred residences. This is 1000 apartments, a 1000 car garage, and lots and lots of retail and the whole development, frankly, is anti-urban, car-centric hubris. On top of that, it's not even really nice looking... other than development for development's sake, what's really to like about this?
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  #99  
Old Posted Feb 27, 2016, 7:42 AM
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hammersklavier hammersklavier is offline
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The best word to describe this project might be hypertrophic.

I don't have sympathies for the Hawthorne NIMBYs here. The site is CMX-5, on the corner of the two widest streets in most of South Philly, and a block from a subway stop. It should be dense and urban.

This project's problems aren't related to that part. Instead, the problems stem from overwrought massing and bizarre design decisions (a rooftop shopping village? Really? Wasn't that the most-panned part of Blatstein's Provence proposal?) that create a patina of monolithic hugeness. The structure needs to be redesigned and re-massed. And for the love of God, get rid of that rooftop village!
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  #100  
Old Posted Feb 27, 2016, 6:30 PM
Kidphilly Kidphilly is offline
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not sure if this real but seems to get the massing much more appropriately at the same corner

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