PHILADELPHIA-CAMDEN-WILMINGTON-ATLANTIC CITY-READING | Metro Development Thread

[Jim B]

As a 30-year resident of Upper Merion township (who worked in center city Philadedlphia for 20 years) please let me shed some light on its desireability for both residents and businesses, which can help answer Radio 5s query.

For residents, the township-of which King of Prussia is a large part-has excellent schools, extremly low taxes, a wide variety of housing stock and more shopping and restaurant options than pretty much any other municipality of its size anywhere. And as someone who has now walked 10,000+ steps 1,109 days in a row, I can assure that we have sidewalks, not to mention the Schuylkill Valley Trail, Chester Valley Trail and Crow Creek Trail all going through the township, and people use them.

For businesses, KoP is located at the confluence of four major highways, has low business taxes and has a potential employee base of several million within a 30 minute drive making it much easier to attract talent than most anyplace else in the region.

I so often see these forum conversations devolve into "Town centers are souless because... I dislike malls because... There is no walkability because..." Well, not everyone wants to live in the city, just like not everyone like to live in the burbs. People who live and work in Upper Merion seem to like it just fine, and the businesses that have set up shop here, like Lockheed Martin, often look to expand rather than leave. Is KoP for everyone? Of course not, but neither is any other community or city neighborhood you can name. But when you add up the plusses and minuses, there is a reason this place gets a lot of love from residents, businesses and developers.

[jonesrmj]

I don't know about you guys, but the car-centric urban planning and mentality in the US has really started to anger me. Maybe it's because I've just been watching too many videos from channels like Not Just Bikes and Strong Towns.

I don't hate cars and driving, I actually sometimes like the feeling of driving. What I hate is being forced to drive everywhere all the time and not having quality options to walk/cycle/take public transit. It would be nice to have some things walking/cycling distance away and have the option of public transit to let someone else do the "driving" while you can relax and not deal with the stresses of bad drivers and traffic. Also the eyesores that come with car-centric urban planning like strip malls and stroads.

Also, places designed around walking/cycling/public transit are also just statistically superior places to live in in almost every way. There's a reason why the cost of living in places like this are higher because people actually enjoy them and live a healthier and higher quality of life there.

For as long as I can remember, I've always enjoyed visiting big cities but never really knew why. At first I thought it was how much I liked the architecture or just the fact that it was an escape from car-centric suburbia, but now I realize why.

I'm not saying that suburbs are all bad because I do see why people like them for the space and quiet, but why do they all have to be car-centric? Is it possible to build more suburbs that have the benefits while also having good walkability and access to transit?

[DeltaNerd]

Jim B you are still free to live in a car centric environment. They exist. What we are discussing is the prevention of building new dense towns. The nimby folks ruin these ideal towns. The funny part is these nimbys live far away from these dense town centers but still want to want to prevent development. KOP maybe "rich" but my generation and lower wants to live in walkable towns. So Jim B you can choose to live far away from these town centers, that's fine. You can drive to those walkable parks(can't walk to a park though).

We need don't need is the nimbys to stop dense development around transit stations.

[Jim B]

Deltanerd, I was answering Radio5's query on why King of Prussia gets a lot of attention, so my answer was on point for that. For the record, I can walk to two parks, our township-run community center, our our township-run swimming pool, and if I had school-age children, they could walk to their elementary school, middle school and high school. I also don't recall me saying that King of Prussia is "rich," not sure where that comment came from. People vote with their feet, and many--including thousands of millennials, and Gen Z'ers--have voted to live in the suburbs, including KoP...where you live is a personal choice based on a variety of factors no matter what generation you are born into.

I think it's great that people live in the city- I lived on Spruce Street for four years and in Manayunk for two years. It was fun. But life circumstances change, your focus on what is important changes. That's why suburbs, small towns, tiny houses in the mountains and cities of all sizes exist... because these enviornments match the needs of the people who live there.

[EastSideHBG]

Originally Posted by Jim B

Deltanerd, I was answering Radio5's query on why King of Prussia gets a lot of attention, so my answer was on point for that. For the record, I can walk to two parks, our township-run community center, our our township-run swimming pool, and if I had school-age children, they could walk to their elementary school, middle school and high school.

Welcome! I too shared this a few posts back but for some unless it looks like Main St. Manayunk, it doesn't count

[Porky]

Highways are ugly I would make 76 and 95 big tunnels and build Chester back up and I would make the new buildings they are building less ugly.

[PhillyRising]

Originally Posted by DeltaNerd

A walkable place like Norristown is so underdeveloped. Especially around the Norristown transportation center. Lack of apartments, so much parking, no seating at the bus station. It's wild how underdeveloped that area is.

Norristown has horrible taxes.

When I sold my house there in 2001...my taxes on a house then valued a 90K was the same amount people in Upper Merion were paying on houses that were valued well over 200K at the time. School taxes for Norristown Area School District are higher than what they pay for Upper Merion. If you want to buy a house in the suburbs with the lowest school taxes...you target Upper Merion (or West Chester). Houses never stayed on the market long in Upper Merion for this reason.

Norristown also had an income tax of over 2% at the time (it may have been lowered since) while there is no income tax in Upper Merion.

Where would you develop first and where do you think people are going to choose to live when going by their wallets and investments?

One can blame Montgomery County itself for taking so much property off the tax rolls in Norristown that the non county property owners must make up the deficit. Chester County put it's services center in West Goshen and not in West Chester. Delaware County doesn't have everything in Media. But Montco forces most of everything in Norristown and Norristown does not benefit from it at all. The tallest building in Norristown, the ten story One Montgomery Plaza, was purchased by the county in 2006 for 26 million. I assume that came off the property tax rolls for the borough. How do you make that up? Why didn't the county put county services in Plymouth or Upper Merion or East or West Norriton. Then it bought the closed Sacred Heart Hospital property on DeKalb St for County Services. Another big chunk of property taken off the borough tax rolls. Everyone dumps on Norristown for this and that but quite frankly the town has the county sitting on it and not letting it back up. Quite frankly...the county should be forced to pay property taxes in full to the borough. It also doesn't help that much of he private property in a large swath of town are owned and rented out by slum lords who don't care nor actually live in Norristown.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by PhillyRising

Norristown has horrible taxes.

When I sold my house there in 2001...my taxes on a house then valued a 90K was the same amount people in Upper Merion were paying on houses that were valued well over 200K at the time. School taxes for Norristown Area School District are higher than what they pay for Upper Merion. If you want to buy a house in the suburbs with the lowest school taxes...you target Upper Merion (or West Chester). Houses never stayed on the market long in Upper Merion for this reason.

Norristown also had an income tax of over 2% at the time (it may have been lowered since) while there is no income tax in Upper Merion.

Where would you develop first and where do you think people are going to choose to live when going by their wallets and investments?

One can blame Montgomery County itself for taking so much property off the tax rolls in Norristown that the non county property owners must make up the deficit. Chester County put it's services center in West Goshen and not in West Chester. Delaware County doesn't have everything in Media. But Montco forces most of everything in Norristown and Norristown does not benefit from it at all. The tallest building in Norristown, the ten story One Montgomery Plaza, was purchased by the county in 2006 for 26 million. I assume that came off the property tax rolls for the borough. How do you make that up? Why didn't the county put county services in Plymouth or Upper Merion or East or West Norriton. Then it bought the closed Sacred Heart Hospital property on DeKalb St for County Services. Another big chunk of property taken off the borough tax rolls. Everyone dumps on Norristown for this and that but quite frankly the town has the county sitting on it and not letting it back up. Quite frankly...the county should be forced to pay property taxes in full to the borough. It also doesn't help that much of he private property in a large swath of town are owned and rented out by slum lords who don't care nor actually live in Norristown.

I hear what you are saying but its not fair to compare any towns taxes to Upper Merion's. It has perhaps the lowest taxes of any suburban jurisdiction in the region, because its commercial tax base is so high. I mean, relative to the size of the township, there aren't even that many residents because I'd argue most of the land use is devoted to businesses.

[EastSideHBG]

Originally Posted by PhillyRising

Norristown has horrible taxes.

When I sold my house there in 2001...my taxes on a house then valued a 90K was the same amount people in Upper Merion were paying on houses that were valued well over 200K at the time. School taxes for Norristown Area School District are higher than what they pay for Upper Merion. If you want to buy a house in the suburbs with the lowest school taxes...you target Upper Merion (or West Chester). Houses never stayed on the market long in Upper Merion for this reason.

Norristown also had an income tax of over 2% at the time (it may have been lowered since) while there is no income tax in Upper Merion.

Where would you develop first and where do you think people are going to choose to live when going by their wallets and investments?

One can blame Montgomery County itself for taking so much property off the tax rolls in Norristown that the non county property owners must make up the deficit. Chester County put it's services center in West Goshen and not in West Chester. Delaware County doesn't have everything in Media. But Montco forces most of everything in Norristown and Norristown does not benefit from it at all. The tallest building in Norristown, the ten story One Montgomery Plaza, was purchased by the county in 2006 for 26 million. I assume that came off the property tax rolls for the borough. How do you make that up? Why didn't the county put county services in Plymouth or Upper Merion or East or West Norriton. Then it bought the closed Sacred Heart Hospital property on DeKalb St for County Services. Another big chunk of property taken off the borough tax rolls. Everyone dumps on Norristown for this and that but quite frankly the town has the county sitting on it and not letting it back up. Quite frankly...the county should be forced to pay property taxes in full to the borough. It also doesn't help that much of he private property in a large swath of town are owned and rented out by slum lords who don't care nor actually live in Norristown.

Yep, it's still 2.1% and highest in the area along with some of the highest property taxes in the Philly metro. They also send you a separate per capita/occupation assessment tax bill once per year that is in addition to everything else you are paying.

Your other points are good ones but I do believe that the county contributes money towards at least the local services e.g. police and fire but I would need to look into that more.

It's a shame because Norristown is a neat place and it's still one of my favorite areas in the county, especially the topography and having so many different styles of architecture. And fun fact: it is a municipality with home rule and when you look at more recent maps it says "Municipality of Norristown" vs other boroughs and places like Ambler that say "Ambler Borough".

[Urbanthusiat]

Decided to take a look at labor force data to see where Philly stacks up nationally. Apologies ahead of time, it's a bit of a mess, but I think how the MSAs stack up on the side can be a helpful visual. The labor market seems to be pretty strong nationwide with low unemployment rates, but a lot of that seems to come from changes to the labor force since the pandemic. So for example, some places have a lower unemployment rate but the labor force has shrunk significantly. The latest data is for November '22 so I used November '19 as a base to represent a "normal" pre-COVID economy and to account for seasonal factors (at least for the latest data). Anyway, we see that Philly is pretty middle of the road looking across these somewhat randomly selected MSAs, and just barely below it's pre-COVID labor force size (99.5% of Nov. 2019). It does however do the best in the northeast, outperforming DC, Baltimore, NYC, Boston, Pittsburgh, Hartford, Buffalo, and Providence. So that's good! It seems there's a trend of larger, more expensive markets not doing so well in these metrics. NYC, DC, LA, SF, & Boston all perform poorly here. So this tells me that Philly has closed the gap somewhat on those places in the last three years. In any case, I really like where we're sitting, our labor market is looking pretty resilient. These days we're closer to likes of Seattle, Miami, San Diego, and Las Vegas than the likes of NYC, DC, Boston, Baltimore and Pittsburgh, which is a nice change of pace.



Looking at just the last year we see Philly does above average (for this dataset) in terms of % and absolute growth too. You can see that some other northeast cities like DC, Boston, Baltimore, and Providence actually had a shrinking labor force in the last year - not exactly where you want to be if you're still behind where you were three years ago. But Philly charges ahead with a growing labor force. Again I think this bodes well for us going forward. While our unemployment rate is nominally higher than some other places, it's actually partially being driven by real growth in the labor force. That gives us an additional lever for growth to pull that Boston and DC can't right now. I think we've got a good combo of a solid percentage and absolute growth going for us right now and it's a nice spot to be in. The labor force composition isn't what it was three years ago, so even though we're at about the same nominal total, I don't necessarily think that means we're in a worse spot.



Also, on unemployment, "In November, 33 metropolitan divisions had over-the-year unemployment rate decreases, 3 had increases, and 2 had no change. The largest rate decline occurred in Philadelphia, PA (-2.0 percentage points). The largest over-the-year jobless rate increase occurred in Gary, IN (+0.8 percentage point)."

[EastSideHBG]

/\
Very cool, thanks for sharing!




PREIT loses appeal regarding apartments at the Plymouth Meeting Mall

PREIT, the owner of the Plymouth Meeting Mall, has lost an appeal before the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas involving its effort to construct a 503-unit apartment community on the mall property. In 2021, Plymouth Township’s zoning hearing board voted to not grant a special exception to PREIT that would have allowed the planned development to move forward.

In the order (view), Judge Steven C. Tolliver found that the zoning hearing board did not make an error when it decided to not grant the special excpetion to allow the apartments. From the order:

"Upon review of the record adduced throughout several hearings held before the Board, this Court determined that the Board’s findings of fact are supported by substatial evidence and the conclusions of law made by the Board do not reflect that the Board committed any error of law. Accordinly, this Court affirms the decision of the Board and denies the appeal of Appellant."

When seeking the special exception from the zoning hearing board, PREIT’s attorney argued that apartments are “of the same general character” as motel/motor court and elderly/assisted living facilities, which are allowed in the zoning district that encompasses the mall.

https://morethanthecurve.com/preit-l...8XnvNBUFhTUW2A

[PhillyRising]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

I hear what you are saying but its not fair to compare any towns taxes to Upper Merion's. It has perhaps the lowest taxes of any suburban jurisdiction in the region, because its commercial tax base is so high. I mean, relative to the size of the township, there aren't even that many residents because I'd argue most of the land use is devoted to businesses.

You have to compare them because they sit next to each other. Norristown cannot compete with Upper Merion. Norristown needs some kind of help to somewhat compete.

[PhillyRising]

Originally Posted by EastSideHBG

Yep, it's still 2.1% and highest in the area along with some of the highest property taxes in the Philly metro. They also send you a separate per capita/occupation assessment tax bill once per year that is in addition to everything else you are paying.

Your other points are good ones but I do believe that the county contributes money towards at least the local services e.g. police and fire but I would need to look into that more.

It's a shame because Norristown is a neat place and it's still one of my favorite areas in the county, especially the topography and having so many different styles of architecture. And fun fact: it is a municipality with home rule and when you look at more recent maps it says "Municipality of Norristown" vs other boroughs and places like Ambler that say "Ambler Borough".

Downtown Norristown could be a very good place to live if somebody...anybody took a chance on it. The apartments proposed for Main and DeKalb will be a good start.

It has an transportation center where you can get a lot of places.

You look at Conshohocken and wonder why can't that be Norristown too?

[PhillyRising]

Originally Posted by EastSideHBG

/\
Very cool, thanks for sharing!




PREIT loses appeal regarding apartments at the Plymouth Meeting Mall

PREIT, the owner of the Plymouth Meeting Mall, has lost an appeal before the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas involving its effort to construct a 503-unit apartment community on the mall property. In 2021, Plymouth Township’s zoning hearing board voted to not grant a special exception to PREIT that would have allowed the planned development to move forward.

In the order (view), Judge Steven C. Tolliver found that the zoning hearing board did not make an error when it decided to not grant the special excpetion to allow the apartments. From the order:

"Upon review of the record adduced throughout several hearings held before the Board, this Court determined that the Board’s findings of fact are supported by substatial evidence and the conclusions of law made by the Board do not reflect that the Board committed any error of law. Accordinly, this Court affirms the decision of the Board and denies the appeal of Appellant."

When seeking the special exception from the zoning hearing board, PREIT’s attorney argued that apartments are “of the same general character” as motel/motor court and elderly/assisted living facilities, which are allowed in the zoning district that encompasses the mall.

https://morethanthecurve.com/preit-l...8XnvNBUFhTUW2A

They may just have to turn the mall itself into apartments. I hear it's pretty dead in there like most malls not named King Of Prussia these days.

[EastSideHBG]

Originally Posted by PhillyRising

Downtown Norristown could be a very good place to live if somebody...anybody took a chance on it. The apartments proposed for Main and DeKalb will be a good start.

It has an transportation center where you can get a lot of places.

You look at Conshohocken and wonder why can't that be Norristown too?

Yeah, so much potential.

Originally Posted by PhillyRising

They may just have to turn the mall itself into apartments. I hear it's pretty dead in there like most malls not named King Of Prussia these days.

I stopped in there the other day to see what it looks like now and it's sad, lots of big empty spaces. But oddly the mall itself was not totally dead and what is in there is drawing people but because of the locations of these places e.g. Dave & Buster's, Legoland, it's concentrated on the ends of the mall. They did turn one big empty store in the middle on the second floor into an event space and it was being rented out but yeah, its glory days seem to be gone. Unfortunate, as it's not a bad little mall and still in decent shape.

[PHLtoNYC]

Originally Posted by EastSideHBG

/\


PREIT loses appeal regarding apartments at the Plymouth Meeting Mall

PREIT, the owner of the Plymouth Meeting Mall, has lost an appeal before the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas involving its effort to construct a 503-unit apartment community on the mall property. In 2021, Plymouth Township’s zoning hearing board voted to not grant a special exception to PREIT that would have allowed the planned development to move forward.

In the order (view), Judge Steven C. Tolliver found that the zoning hearing board did not make an error when it decided to not grant the special excpetion to allow the apartments. From the order:

"Upon review of the record adduced throughout several hearings held before the Board, this Court determined that the Board’s findings of fact are supported by substatial evidence and the conclusions of law made by the Board do not reflect that the Board committed any error of law. Accordinly, this Court affirms the decision of the Board and denies the appeal of Appellant."

When seeking the special exception from the zoning hearing board, PREIT’s attorney argued that apartments are “of the same general character” as motel/motor court and elderly/assisted living facilities, which are allowed in the zoning district that encompasses the mall.

https://morethanthecurve.com/preit-l...8XnvNBUFhTUW2A

As someone who isn't familiar with zoning in that area. Is this a veiled way of saying "we don't want there here"?

[202_Cyclist]

Originally Posted by PHLtoNYC

As someone who isn't familiar with zoning in that area. Is this a veiled way of saying "we don't want there here"?

Is PREIT just circling the drain at this point? I made some money (and lost some money) on PREIT stock. As of this past Friday, it is at $1.17 per share and at very serious risk of going bankrupt a second time.

[EastSideHBG]

Originally Posted by PHLtoNYC

As someone who isn't familiar with zoning in that area. Is this a veiled way of saying "we don't want there here"?

There's a few issues at play here with one being PM is getting very congested so there's been some backlash towards these new massive "luxury" apartment development proposals. But while on the surface it may seem like NIMBY-ism that's really not always what this is about, as large senior/assisted living buildings do not receive the same amount of backlash (one was just built right down the road). And you can kind of see that going on here between the lines, as the zoning would allow for that.

I had mixed feelings about this proposal, as it's not very attractive and in an odd spot. And apartments are being proposed in a large empty building towards the back of the property so there's still a chance that residential will be occuring at the mall.

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

I PREIT just circling the drain at this point? I made some money (and lost some money) on PREIT stock. As of this past Friday, it is at $1.17 per share and at very serious risk of going bankrupt a second time.

Unfortunately yes, it's not looking too good for them.

[SouthCentralPA]

Originally Posted by Urbanthusiat

Decided to take a look at labor force data to see where Philly stacks up nationally. Apologies ahead of time, it's a bit of a mess, but I think how the MSAs stack up on the side can be a helpful visual. The labor market seems to be pretty strong nationwide with low unemployment rates, but a lot of that seems to come from changes to the labor force since the pandemic. So for example, some places have a lower unemployment rate but the labor force has shrunk significantly. The latest data is for November '22 so I used November '19 as a base to represent a "normal" pre-COVID economy and to account for seasonal factors (at least for the latest data). Anyway, we see that Philly is pretty middle of the road looking across these somewhat randomly selected MSAs, and just barely below it's pre-COVID labor force size (99.5% of Nov. 2019). It does however do the best in the northeast, outperforming DC, Baltimore, NYC, Boston, Pittsburgh, Hartford, Buffalo, and Providence. So that's good! It seems there's a trend of larger, more expensive markets not doing so well in these metrics. NYC, DC, LA, SF, & Boston all perform poorly here. So this tells me that Philly has closed the gap somewhat on those places in the last three years. In any case, I really like where we're sitting, our labor market is looking pretty resilient. These days we're closer to likes of Seattle, Miami, San Diego, and Las Vegas than the likes of NYC, DC, Boston, Baltimore and Pittsburgh, which is a nice change of pace.


Looking at just the last year we see Philly does above average (for this dataset) in terms of % and absolute growth too. You can see that some other northeast cities like DC, Boston, Baltimore, and Providence actually had a shrinking labor force in the last year - not exactly where you want to be if you're still behind where you were three years ago. But Philly charges ahead with a growing labor force. Again I think this bodes well for us going forward. While our unemployment rate is nominally higher than some other places, it's actually partially being driven by real growth in the labor force. That gives us an additional lever for growth to pull that Boston and DC can't right now. I think we've got a good combo of a solid percentage and absolute growth going for us right now and it's a nice spot to be in. The labor force composition isn't what it was three years ago, so even though we're at about the same nominal total, I don't necessarily think that means we're in a worse spot.

Thanks for pulling together that data. Very interesting! Here's to hoping that PA as a whole continues to keep growing.

[PhillyRising]

Originally Posted by EastSideHBG

Yeah, so much potential.


I stopped in there the other day to see what it looks like now and it's sad, lots of big empty spaces. But oddly the mall itself was not totally dead and what is in there is drawing people but because of the locations of these places e.g. Dave & Buster's, Legoland, it's concentrated on the ends of the mall. They did turn one big empty store in the middle on the second floor into an event space and it was being rented out but yeah, its glory days seem to be gone. Unfortunate, as it's not a bad little mall and still in decent shape.

The Plymouth Meeting Mall was once THE place to be. My mom took me there every Friday night in the 70's and it was wall to wall people. It's apex was the mid 70.s

Then Lit Brothers closed in 1977 and that end of the mall never really recovered. It sat empty for a while then Hess's from Allentown took over that spot. When they went out of business than it became the current Boscov's.

Also in 1977, the Montgomery Mall opened...taking business away. The Court at King of Prussia opened in 1980 and that became THE place to go. Then Willow Grove Park opened in 1982 and it just took too much business away. So what that mall basically did to Main Street shopping in Norristown it had done to them. Friday Nights with my mom at Plymouth Meeting sometimes turned in Montgomery Mall then we just really wound up shopping more at The Court.

Plymouth Meeting has been limping along for years. Ikea opening there in 1985 saved it from a faster decline but it will never be 1975 in there again when people traveled there for miles and packed it. Friday nights there was quite the social event.