1001 South Broad Street
Broad and Washington--what a shitty corner. The largest set of empty lots near the city core, this pitiful corner is the subject of more Dead-Ass Proposals than any other. Here, we're gonna talk about the one that came the closest to happening-- a gigantic super-out-of-scale monster of a project that's probably better off dead.
Read more at the Philadelphia Citypaper's Naked City Blog!!
"Under the new code, the lot is zoned CMX-5, the only one zoned as such for blocks and blocks around. Though neighbors would probably oppose it to death, something of incredible height can now be built here without a damn hitch."
ReplyDeleteBecause it's CMX-5, that means someone can build something pretty tall *by right*, correct? So like.. even if people opposed it, they couldn't actually stop it, because they wouldn't need a variance, right?
Ultimately (and unfortunately) preserving the blighted buildings in the 1990s would have been better than tearing them down. This particular site was a former Wanamaker's warehouse/garment plant, and the lot across the street probably the city's oldest surviving rail terminus structure at the time. (That latter honor today goes to the Union Transfer up on Spring Garden.)
ReplyDeleteHad they been preserved, both would likely have been rehabbed into condos like the old (armory?) across the street.