Philly Live!
1100 Pattison Avenue
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| Ah jeez, here it comes. |
I don't even know why I'm bothering to talk about this highly unnecessary pile of dogshit. Philly Live! is a huge entertainment complex planned to fill almost the entire space between the Wachovia Center and Citizen's Bank Park. The part they're building now is "Phase One", which in Philadelphia, usually means "Only Phase".
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| Still waiting for Phase II |
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| Stuck on Phase 1.5 |
Philly Live! grew out of the need for an entertainment venue that suburbanites who were too scared to walk around Center City could go to and spend money before and after games. Developers noticed that other cities who don't have whiny-ass civic associations up the ying-yang were able to build their stadiums downtown, causing local commercial establishments to reap the benefits of suburban visitors. The solution? Build a Downtown Simulator in the middle of that sea of surface parking that would serve as an attraction for before and after games.
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| The original plan from 2008. Notice they don't show a daytime scene. |
The original plan was pretty ambitious and seemed to be absolutely massive. Many who looked at this wondered who the fuck was going to go to this thing, and even more stymieing, plans called for it to be open on non-game days as well. What is this? Gallery South? Pier 70: Landlubber Edition? I don't fucking get it.
When the economy started to tank, the plan got smaller.
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| They didn't even need to knock down the Spectrum for this one! |
This is what we'll probably end up with if we're LUCKY and all the phases get built. The construction photo at the top of the article is for Phase One only, which is pretty pathetic-looking.
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| That's IT. There's no daytime rendering for a reason. |
Face it, this will be the only phase that is built. I can't understand why in a million years they would ever want to build this thing. So it's a suburban half-stripmall with bars and restaurants and shit next to the stadium and it's called Philly Live!?!? What's with the exclamation point? There's no need for punctuation in the name of a building. Live? Live what? This thing will be dead from day one. There's nothing "Philly" about this. It should be called Greenwich Island Live!, since that's technically where the Sports Complex is located. Fucking morons.
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| Blank wall facing Pattison Ave. sidewalk. Dead trees. |
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| No it won't. |
Understand your point but I think you might be a little overzealous in your rant. There are events taking place between the 3 venues 320 of the 365 days per year. The Navy Yard is ever expanding and this would give the folks that work there a place to go for lunch or a place to meet for a business meal. There are much bigger pieces to the puzzle. If this is done right, it can work. If there is minimal effort put behind it, then your article might be spot on. None of this is being funded with tax payer revenue so let the private investors do what they want with their money.
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DeleteYou're right... if there's no public money going into it, it's only the investors that are losing out. I just wonder what kind of impact this will make on Center City businesses.
ReplyDeleteI also hate Downtown Simulators. Building the new stadiums downtown would have created new challenges but would have benefited the city in the end.
Without allowing for new residential development--particularly facing FDR Park--the whole area is in danger of turning into something akin to Atlantic City's downtown--that is, a city put together by people who don't know how cities work.
ReplyDeleteThis blog is fucking amazing. Who are you, mysterious hilarious Philadelphian?!
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