PHILADELPHIA | Lowrise/General Developments Thread - Page 9

philadelphiathrives · #**161** Posted **Jul 27, 2009, 5:03 AM**

My guess is that they'll eventually have special sections for tailgating, since it's so important for some people. That would be safer and more convenient for the tailgaters and those who simply want to park. These sections could have modern conveniences and more room, too.

I was at the Planning Commission meeting. The project sounds interesting. It will be more than a mall. About 60% is reserved for entertainment and the rest for retail. The developers said that they don't want typical retail, like GAP or Old Navy, but less common retail, and some of it will be upscale.

hammersklavier · #**162** Posted **Jul 27, 2009, 5:07 AM**

Looks like either a small parking garage or a storage warehouse to me.

sciguy0504 · #**163** Posted **Jul 27, 2009, 4:54 PM**

The High Line is an amazing piece of property and has tons of traffic and interest. I would love to see such an idea in Philly on this viaduct. The fact that the cost to build a park is significantly cheaper than dismantling the entire structure is icing on top.

It just has to be closed at night like the High Line is.

Lincolndrive · #**164** Posted **Jul 27, 2009, 6:16 PM**

I am a HUGE fan of the high line park and potential for the redding viaduct but keep in mind, NYC paid $150 to turn the park into what it is today. Our $5Million will only go so far but at least it would be a start. Hopefully we can get Nutter and various city groups to take a trip up to NYC to see how amazing it is. Check http://www.thehighline.org/ for pics. Job well done NY. Job well done.

1SharpeMan · #**165** Posted **Jul 28, 2009, 4:37 AM**

I have been to over 20 NFL Stadiums, and dozens of Baseball and College Football Stadiums and I have never seen a stadium side parking garage besides something puny for employees, so if you can let me know of a few since "every other city" has them, that would be great, maybe I was too busy tailgating to notice?
OK, for the sake of argument, what would you do with the ample space created?
More office space when we are having trouble getting tennants for ACC and Cira South? More residential space when the Murano, WFS, and numerous others are having trouble filling occupancy? Or just oversaturate this the retail and restaurants down there making it difficult for a business in there to survive? What would you propose? It is tooo easy to say just build stuff.

DIESELPOLO · #**166** Posted **Jul 28, 2009, 11:00 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1SharpeMan

More office space when we are having trouble getting tennants for ACC and Cira South? More residential space when the Murano, WFS, and numerous others are having trouble filling occupancy? Or just oversaturate this the retail and restaurants down there making it difficult for a business in there to survive? What would you propose? It is tooo easy to say just build stuff.

As far as a housing component, I think the case for TOD is pretty compelling for this location. I'm not sure how close the pattison ave. shopping centers are to the stadiums for one's basic needs (grocery, dry cleaners, etc.), but its connection to center city is fantastic.

Filling up WFS & the Murano are difficult in that those were both luxury properties. Working in real estate, I know that Philadelphia (despite what you may think) is a very desirable place to live and if there is attractive, economical housing options, they will get sold, or in this case rented, fairly quickly. The barriers of creating housing that is actually affordable to a lot of people (read: "affordable" not "low-income") is difficult in that building materials and labor are expensive along with land costs. Using a mix of housing types, volumes, and utilizing modular construction could yield a fantastic housing component for the stadium district. There is a captive audience out there that would love to live amongst the sports-ness of it all.

And it is a Stadium District, right? I don't know if housing is allowed there. Might be something the Planning Commission needs to address for future opportunities...

theWatusi · #**167** Posted **Jul 28, 2009, 12:36 PM**

How about revitalizing North Philly with new housing first before creating what is essentially sprawl around the stadiums.

hammersklavier · #**168** Posted **Jul 29, 2009, 12:52 AM**

All for that. Make renovations easier, kill the excessive regulation at the License Bureau (sorry, can't think up the acronym off the top of my head).

philatonian · #**169** Posted **Jul 29, 2009, 7:41 PM**

I think it's some sort of loading ramp. From the street level, the ceilings seem too high to be a parking garage but the floors are ramped like a garage.

I hope the skin isn't the final material used for that part. The back side of this building is already ugly as sin without looking like a JCPenny distribution center.

philatonian · #**170** Posted **Jul 29, 2009, 8:12 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnland

QUICK POLL----does anyone else feel a sense of loss when they see the photo above? When I first saw a pic of the neighborhood torn down and obliterated to make way for the barren and lifeless Independence Mall, I was dismayed. Had the neighborhood remained, it would've doubled the size of Old City and the city would've been vastly better for it.

Not only were these three blocks razed for Independence Mall, but the demolition continued over the decades to neighboring Franklin Square and Chinatown, much lost to relocating the regional rail lines from Reading Terminal to Market East and the construction of the Vine Street Expressway. If you look at an aerial map of the area, you can see a series of parking lots that outline the underground rail lines.

Two issues that really annoy be about the engineering that too place in this part of the city: 1. What is the point of putting the rail lines underground if you never intend on replacing the land above it with anything but surface lots, and 2. Vine Street was already significantly wide, rather than knocking down the south side of Vine Street and replacing it with more surface lots, why not put the Vine Street Expressway UNDER Vine Street and create a grand avenue rather than a canyon through Center City?

Although a lot grittier than it is today, Center City essentially looked like Old City from Broad between Market and Vine all the way to the Delaware. What we're left with now, Old City and Chinatown, are urban islands surrounded by uninspired government buildings and parking lots. So many parking lots. What I believe was referred to as the Tenderloin or Furnished Room District has now been all but eradicated by the Convention Center and consisted of a number of very large scaled, urban buildings, some much larger than what remains of Old City, mixed amongst 17th century trinities and cobble alleys.

One could argue that this neighborhood was a blighted eyesore and at the time, developers could have never predicted the value of a vastly larger Old City, but one could say the same about Society Hill. In fact if we're not smart about future development, Chinatown could receive additional blows from a Market East renaissance. The way Philadelphia planners plan, it seems no matter how many parking lots we have, we still need more parking, and with the potential expansion of the Greyhound terminal and a casino at Strawbridges, I'm sure developers are eyeballing the SW corner of Chinatown.

Johnland · #**171** Posted **Jul 30, 2009, 12:09 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by philatonian

Although a lot grittier than it is today, Center City essentially looked like Old City from Broad between Market and Vine all the way to the Delaware. What we're left with now, Old City and Chinatown, (1)are urban islands surrounded by uninspired government buildings and parking lots. So many parking lots. What I believe was referred to as the Tenderloin or Furnished Room District has now been all but eradicated by the Convention Center and consisted of a number of very large scaled, urban buildings, some much larger than what remains of Old City, mixed amongst 17th century trinities and cobble alleys.

One could argue that this neighborhood was a blighted eyesore and at the time,(2) developers could have never predicted the value of a vastly larger Old City, but one could say the same about Society Hill. In fact if we're not smart about future development, Chinatown could receive additional blows from a Market East renaissance. The way Philadelphia planners plan, it seems no matter how many parking lots we have, we still need more parking, and with the potential expansion of the Greyhound terminal and a casino at Strawbridges, I'm sure developers are eyeballing the SW corner of Chinatown.

(1) I agree, those governmental buildings are awful and they do isolate Old City. It's amazing how desirable and successful Old City is given how cut off it is from large parts of Center City.

(2) You voiced my sentiment perfectly. Wholesale destruction of old neighborhoods forever stamps the city with dead holes in the urban fabric. There's countless ramifications of these dead holes. Economically, they under-contribute to the tax revenue stream. Just imagine if Old City was twice as large. There would be double the properties generating tax revenue. And to think the city self-inflicted this atrocity.

cwd22 · #**172** Posted **Jul 30, 2009, 3:48 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnland

(2) You voiced my sentiment perfectly. Wholesale destruction of old neighborhoods forever stamps the city with dead holes in the urban fabric. There's countless ramifications of these dead holes. Economically, they under-contribute to the tax revenue stream. Just imagine if Old City was twice as large. There would be double the properties generating tax revenue. And to think the city self-inflicted this atrocity.

The Richard Allen Homes have done the same thing to Poplar. While Northern Liberties and Fairmount have once again become thriving urban neighborhoods, Poplar remains stagnant and crime-ridden (relative to the aforementioned neighborhoods). Imagine North Broad Street between Center City and Temple if it was flanked by solid neighborhoods...
Instead we have two neighborhoods that generate a lot of tax revenue, one that sucks it back up, and a desolate street that should be one of the city's main commercial corridors.

Swinefeld · #**173** Posted **Jul 30, 2009, 1:00 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by theWatusi

How about revitalizing North Philly with new housing first before creating what is essentially sprawl around the stadiums.

What exactly does one have to do with the other?

theWatusi · #**174** Posted **Jul 30, 2009, 2:47 PM**

Someone had mentioned that the planning commission should rework zoning around the stadiums and my thought is that effort could be better spent elsewhere.

philatonian · #**175** Posted **Jul 30, 2009, 3:30 PM**

I love the idea of a few super parking garages and using the land for something a little more three dimensional. The hardcore tailgaters will find a way to tailgate, as for the rest of them, they don't need to if you give them a venue to barhop. I hope this "mall" sparks more development. It's a shame the casinos can't be put in this area. Add an amusement park and a theater and we'd have a hot entertainment district and more incentive to continue developing the surrounding areas.

Swinefeld · #**176** Posted **Jul 30, 2009, 6:11 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by theWatusi

Someone had mentioned that the planning commission should rework zoning around the stadiums and my thought is that effort could be better spent elsewhere.

It's too bad that they can't walk and chew gum at the same time but that doesn't mean that this shouldn't get done. I see this as a major plus for the Philadelphia economy and that adds to the public coffers.

theWatusi · #**177** Posted **Jul 30, 2009, 6:19 PM**

I think I didn't state my position clearly enough.

1. I'm for Philly Live! and the money it will capture from people attending sporting events.

2. I'm against the zoning board spending a lot of time reworking the "stadium district" to allow for residential/TOD when there are other parts of the city more in need or revitalization.

hammersklavier · #**178** Posted **Jul 31, 2009, 12:45 AM**

My position is 180 degrees away from the Watusi's. But stadium zoning reworking needs to be done along with the rest of the city's.

Note: When did the Watusi become a mod, anyway?

Johnland · #**179** Posted **Aug 1, 2009, 12:43 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by cwd22

The Richard Allen Homes have done the same thing to Poplar. While Northern Liberties and Fairmount have once again become thriving urban neighborhoods, Poplar remains stagnant and crime-ridden (relative to the aforementioned neighborhoods). Imagine North Broad Street between Center City and Temple if it was flanked by solid neighborhoods...
Instead we have two neighborhoods that generate a lot of tax revenue, one that sucks it back up, and a desolate street that should be one of the city's main commercial corridors.

What are the Richard Allen Homes? I'm not familiar with them. From your comment, they sound like lesser quality urban development, but I'm not sure.

hammersklavier · #**180** Posted **Aug 1, 2009, 1:16 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnland

What are the Richard Allen Homes? I'm not familiar with them. From your comment, they sound like lesser quality urban development, but I'm not sure.

The Richard Allen Homes were one of Philadelphia's first experiments with public housing. For a long time, they were the premier public housing locale in the city, with stringent acceptance requirements and a waiting list a mile long, until changes in public housing regulation in the late 60s and early 70s destroyed the project's ability to support itself and the decimation of public-housing funding in the 80s quite literally destroyed the homes' character. The net result of all this was that in the 20 years between 1965 and 1985 Richard Allen went from being a sublime success of public housing to one of its great jokes, and so in the late 90s and early 2000s the original project was demolished and suburban-style housing--what some of my drunken Temple friends wandering into the tract late at night call 'ghost burbs'--was built. The Richard Allen tract stretches across the Poplar neighborhood, from just south of Girard to just south of Fairmount, from just east of Broad all the way to the RR tracks: these homes are the last thing you see, almost, before entering the tunnel.