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wyliepoon

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I know how sensitive some people get when discussing other cities' skyscraper boom, but here goes...

From Architectural Record:

Link to article

Philadelphia Growing Up with a Slew of High-Rise Projects

November 28, 2005

Until the 1987 opening of Murphy/Jahn's 945-foot One Liberty Place, Philadelphians passionately defended an unwritten agreement limiting city building heights to below the hat topping the statue of William Penn atop City Hall. By 1991, four years after One Liberty Place opened, seven other office towers transgressed the agreement, with fairly pedestrian designs, even for conservative Philadelphia. In the 15 years since, not one new building has risen above William Penn. This situation is now ending. Big time.

Ten new towers, mostly high-end offices and luxury condos, are now under construction. Most not only push this primarily low-lying city skyward, but reimagine its predominately aristocratic architecture and brick structural aesthetic with transparent and dynamic forms. Cesar Pelli, FAIA's nearly completed, 435-foot Cira Centre, a 28-story, blue-glass-prism office building near 30th Street train station, already alters the city's skyline and mirrors the cloudscape. Once it is completed in 2007, Robert Stern, FAIA's 57-story, 975-foot, crystal-like obelisk, the Comcast Center, will be the tallest building between New York and Chicago. (Stern is also designing a high-rise condo on Center City's Rittenhouse Square.) Solomon Cordwell Buenz's 43-story, tubelike glass condo complex, The Murano, will be one of the area's tallest-ever residences, and Wallace Roberts & Todd's five-tower Waterfront Square complex will be the first of many residential projects slated for the city's once-all-industrial Delaware River waterfront.

Twenty other towers are planned, including Handel Architect's 485-foot, 44-story condo building dubbed the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton, and Richard Meier, FAIA's 41-story, 608-foot Mandeville Place, a lithe, glass condo tower that will rise along the recently completed Schuylkill River Pathway.

Driving this downtown makeover, explains AIA Philadelphia Executive Director John Claypool, are two key forces: companies wanting iconic headquarters, and residents wanting previously unavailable high-end housing options. While low interest rates (which are now rising) and a local real estate tax abatement have encouraged development, the condo market is mainly thriving because of increased migration into Center City from the local suburbs, and even from New York (1.5 hours away by train). Recently, 1,350 apartment and condo units opened citywide; 3,574 will open by 2008. Another 7,205 are proposed for completion by 2010.

City leaders hope that such accommodations will lure new businesses and residents to a city that has seen its population steadily decline since the 1950s.

There are no sure things, especially here, but if the current trends continue, Philadelphia, positioned between New York and Washington, and more affordable than both, could emerge as America's next boom town.

LEMO-CiraCentre.GIF

Cira Centre

viewriver.jpg

Comcast Center

mandevile.jpg

Mandeville Place

murano.jpg

The Murano (Philly version)

waterfront-square.jpg

Waterfront Square
 
I for one am interested in seeing what is happening in other cities. These are some good-looking buildings. It's nice to see that downtown areas in some of the big American cities which were disaster areas 10 - 20 years ago are rejuvenating as people discover the benefits of living downtown.

BTW that is an interesting place to put a swimming pool at Waterfront Square. (I assume that's what it is.)
 
Murano looks cool. Waterfront Square looks like NYCC or MCC by the lake. Nothing special.
 
I know how sensitive some people get when discussing other cities' skyscraper boom

Pfft.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Americans do skylines better than anyone else.
 
Recently, 1,350 apartment and condo units opened citywide; 3,574 will open by 2008. Another 7,205 are proposed for completion by 2010.

Sure puts things in perspective when these numbers constitute a boom. We're basically getting these kind of numbers in one year versus five years for them.
 
I wonder if this has something to do with the prices in New York?
 
Phila is definitely seeing some spillover of artist types (and bobos) from NY.

It's also seeing a bubble like many other cities, and Wild West zoning conditions.

www.philly.com/mld/philly...a_saffron/

Posted on Fri, May. 20, 2005
Changing Skyline | As high-rises spring up, is it a boom or a boomerang?

By Inga Saffron

Inquirer Architecture Critic

I've been scanning the horizon lately, trying to get a fix on the state of Philadelphia's skyscraper design, but it hasn't been easy. Back in February, when I attempted a round-up of new residential high-rises, there were 15 projects in various states of dress. Now it's May, and my list - as of this minute - stands at 32 condo projects, with 36 separate towers.

These are skyscrapers in the full sense: proud, soaring things that will be true giants in the land of lilliputian Philadelphia rowhouses. Though not all will get off the ground, it's a fair bet Philadelphia will add 25 residential towers to its skyline over the next three years, most in the 20- to 40-story range.

The boom already promises to be the largest single burst of high-rise construction in the city's history. By my count, 12 new apartment projects are either completed or under construction, and another round of building is beginning. Perhaps because Philadelphia doesn't have a strong skyscraper tradition, like New York and Chicago, many designs have been timid efforts. Architects and developers have been blowing up classical temples to skyscraper size, or worse, pasting together ugly concrete or stucco panels into charmless boxes.

But several recent designs signal a welcome upgrade in style. Thanks to the invention of more energy-efficient glass, the new towers feature bigger windows and higher ceilings. As the ratio of windows to walls has increased, many towers have abandoned masonry facades in favor of sleek glass sheaths.

Three of the best and most ambitious recent designs feature ample expanses of glass: the 43-story Murano, by Chicago's Solomon Cordwell Buenz, at 21st and Market Streets; the 41-story Mandeville Place, by New York's Richard Meier & Partners, at 24th and Sansom; and the two 22-story Loft Towers by Philadelphia's DPK&A Architects, at 13th and Buttonwood. Still, there are plenty of lumbering oafs being assembled from pre-fab slabs, like Edgewater, a 12-story condo at 23d and Race Streets.

While it has been encouraging to see more style on the skyline, what happens at street level with these towers is more important. Philadelphia is a city of gentle, repetitive rhythms, set by the 16-foot width of a typical rowhouse. The skyscrapers can shake up those familiar patterns, often to dazzling effect. But they can also destroy historic streets unless the towers are carefully integrated with their smaller neighbors.

At their best, the new high-rises increase density, concentrating a lot of people in a little space. That's good for Philadelphia because density brings livelier, safer sidewalks, more businesses and restaurants, and more potential customers for SEPTA. But you can't expect to cram all those people and their cars in the same space without any preparation or planning.

Yet projects are whizzing through Philadelphia's zoning process with almost no review and no consciousness about how they fit into the greater whole. The zoning board still insists that towers be built with parking spaces for every unit. In most cases, developers take the easy way out and build stand-alone garages, either as bases under their towers or on sites next door. Both approaches run counter to planning wisdom. Cities like Seattle are working to limit garages or encourage underground parking.

Philadelphia's zoning practices are out of date in many other ways. Most neighborhood zoning doesn't permit skyscrapers or their garages. So instead developers seek - and usually receive - major variances for their high-rises, infuriating residents and provoking bitter lawsuits. Four major condo projects are tied up in litigation. They include projects that make sense, like the Cope Linder's slim 31-story luxury tower at 17th and Rittenhouse Streets and Agoos/Lovera's eight-story apartment house on the 1600 block of Locust Street.

On the flip side, there is Waterfront Square, five 30-story towers on the Delaware River at Fairmount Avenue. Although it is the biggest high-rise development in Philadelphia, it was never reviewed by city planners. Rather, it was approved by a special City Council vote. No one seemed bothered that the five towers will be gated, cutting off a large stretch of the Delaware from the public. "We never saw a presentation of the project," said Richard Lombardo, the Planning Commission's new executive director.

It's hard to believe, but skyscraper developers are not legally obliged to present their projects to city planners. They can go directly to the Zoning Board of Adjustment. City planners are so marginalized that it hardly matters; the zoning board frequently ignores their recommendations. That's one reason two huge towers proposed for a site across from City Hall are likely be built atop 10-story-high parking garages. As such monstrous designs make clear, that's no way for a big city to plan.

The situation is likely to get even messier. Since Waterfront Square was approved, a half-dozen high-rise projects have gravitated to the city's two riverfronts. But there has been no planning to ensure that these projects provide sensible public linkages to waterfront paths. The Delaware River, in particular, has become a hot spot to build. One developer is proposing a massive 40-story tower at the former New Market site in historic Society Hill, and a Hoboken company is talking about two 40-story towers and hundreds of townhouses on a block of Delaware Avenue, between Fairmount Avenue and Poplar Street.

The Hoboken developers expect to bypass planners and go straight to City Council. Yet there are dozens of important issues to be resolved by trained planners: How will the massive development be connected to the river and other riverfront high-rises? What will be done to improve the walk between the project and the nearby entrance to the Market-Frankford line, which has all the atmosphere of a minimum-security prison?

It's not just skyscrapers. Philadelphia is experiencing an unprecedented housing boom. In March, the city issued more building permits than any other county in the state - 363. City neighborhoods are so concerned about the onslaught of new construction that some, like the Center City Residents Association, have hired planners at their own expense to sort out the logistics.

Many believe the building frenzy will eventually slow. But when the cranes are gone, it's anyone's guess what Philadelphia will look like.

Contact architecture critic Inga Saffron at 215-854-2213 or isaffron@phillynews.com.
 
" It's nice to see that downtown areas in some of the big American cities which were disaster areas 10 - 20 years ago are rejuvenating as people discover the benefits of living downtown."


More like 30-50 years ago.Big American cities have rejuvenated and surpased canadian cities.
 
If you are talking about NYC, Chicago, Boston, and San Fran then those cities never had the big decline downtown. NYC's decline was outside Manhattan. Detroit, Phila, KC, Washington, Cleveland, Buffalo, Cincinatti, etc haven't surpassed Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver based on my experiences. There was only a very small parts of Phila that people even wanted to go to such as the area around the Ritz, and South St and the Riverfront. Head inland from the waterfront and it isn't that great. I slept in 30 St Station once because I had to catch a train at 5am in the morning and the Septa wouldn't have started yet... the police warned me to be careful. In KC I lived in a townhouse on 29th that was redeveloped from a bad neighbourhood... but you could still hear the occasional gunshot from across the other side of the nearby cemetary. KC had a nice area uptown but downtown wasn't much of a draw. Detroit... well what needs to be said about Detroit. NYC outside Manhatten, for example in Queens on Flatbush I parked my car in a mall parking garage and looking down the row of cars mine was the ONLY car that didn't have "The Club" on the steering wheel.
 
More like 30-50 years ago.Big American cities have rejuvenated and surpased canadian cities.

How do you define rejuvenation exactly? Are you talking purely in terms of growth of the city as a whole, or specifically about more people moving back downtown? How do you define a successful city or downtown area? Is it one where you can live without a car and bike and take transit for most of your needs, or one where you still get to have your car and there is plenty of parking? What would you say are examples of cities that 30 - 50 years ago where once disaster areas but now represent places that surpass Canadian cities?
 
^ indeed it is! It takes some doing to make CityPlace look good in my books, but Waterfront Square does the trick.

That was an interesting article posted above.

...developers take the easy way out and build stand-alone garages, either as bases under their towers or on sites next door.

This was part of what got Sapphire in trouble with the TO planners - who, unlike planners in Philly - as the article points out - got listened to by council.
 
The waterfront square development truly is awful. I think one of the reassuring things about seeing projects in other cities is that

1) Toronto, like all other cities, has hit and miss developments.

2) A couple of badly thought out, ugly developments do not kill a city. They are in every city, everywhere, and things go on.

I'm not stating that they don't matter, but we needn't be hysterical about them.
 
Funny how most of the towers are NOT under construction, yet the article sure pushes the fact that they are and takes many liberties. I hate authors who don't do the proper research.
 
I'd love to have Richard Meier design a tower in this city. I'd be hysterical about that.

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