GroJLartitorial-- Screw Party Walls, Let's Pretty-up Our Parking Garages

Blechh

               Everyone hates parking garages... but where the hell else are you gonna put all those cars? I hate them like a vegan hates a Brauhaus Schmitz's Schweinshaxen, but I get why they exist, even when they're above ground. So if they have to exist, can we at least make them look nice?
              Back when I was doing Parking Garage of the Week, I highlighted the Lift at Sansom/Juniper/Drury because at least someone had a little forethought to see that maybe people don't want to look at a big pile of concrete holding cars up and instead would like to see something that looks at least a little bit like it belongs. 

See what I mean?

                However, just making the garage blend in is just one way to make these ugly fuckers better. How about making them look good-- making them another piece of art to add to the built environment or whatever the fuck the intellectuals call it? Even murals would help.
                Think about it-- the Mural Arts Program gets its ass kissed from here to Kalamazoo for prettying-up ugly party walls, yet I can only think of a few instances when they painted a mural on a parking garage. The airport one being the most obvious-- there's a whole damn website about it for fuck's sake. In my opinion, big-ass parking garages are worse to have around than empty party walls, yet only a handful of muraled-up parking garages exist.
                But again, there's an even better solution. New facades. I write this, of course, knowing that the PPA is already making over the facade of the shitbird garage at 8th and Filbert/Arch with a badass design by WRT, who knows what the fuck they're doing. They also plan to get on the shitty 10th Street/Chestnut garage.

YESSSSS!!

               Now THIS is how parking garages can look better. New modern facades that act as art pieces. You could even make facades that would be waaay too impractical for a regular building work well for a parking garage. One of the things people love about Philadelphia is how we have those goddamn murals everywhere. Love them or hate them, they do help spur appreciation of our city's massively over-saturated arts scene. Well here's the new Mural Arts Program. The Make Parking Garages Look Less Like a Pile of Fucking Dogshit Program, or the MPGLLLPFDP!
              Of course, I must now honor the garage that inspired me to write this GroJLartitorial, Parkway Corp's 12th & Walnut garage, as seen at the top of this post. This garage is such a mindfuck. Its a 50+ year old, 35,000 square foot, 616-car garage with a whole shitload of storefronts facing every direction that are usually filled and don't stay empty very long when they're not. This is the home of Jake's Sandwich Board, Eat-a-Pita, Rice & Mix, and Marabella Meatball Company, all small local businesses that make kick-ass nom noms. The location for it is perfect because there's a lot of shit to do in the immediate area but barely anywhere to park. The place is also high-tech as shit. Back when the Philaphiliamobile was stolen, the security dude at this garage was able to check in five seconds whether or not my car had ever been in that garage. The fucking garage can read your license plate!

SO WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE SO FUCKING UGLY!?!?!??!?! 
            It really is a mindfuck-- great garage, shitty looking. It even fucks your mind when viewed from blocks away... the slanted nature of the decks cause an optical illusion that makes 12th Street look like its going downhill or something. 

See what I mean? You don't? Well fuck you then.

                   THIS is my primary candidate for a parking garage facade makeover. Almost anything would be better.

Here's a whacky concept I came up with for the 12th/Walnut garage. Don't like it? Good. Make a better one and get it done!!

                Other candidates for makeovers include the Pigeonhole Parking shitgarage on Broad Street, Five Star's 7th and Market garage (which already has murals on it), and the super-gigantic Wood Street Garage. Now make it happen, you fucks!!! You'll thank me later.

Fill This Front: The Witherspoon Building

1319-1323 Walnut Street

           
               This is a goddamn disgrace. After spending well over a decade as a totally unavailable ground-floor office, this spot finally gets re-born into retail availability, only to sit there empty for another 2 years! What a shame. This, of course, is the ground floor retail of the iconic Witherspoon Building at the northwest corner of Walnut and Juniper Streets. Ok, so the same bum has been standing in front of this place for over a decade-- who cares? If it was filled, things would be different. Its not like retail is foreign to this corner, block, or even building... this particular spot was once filled with retail for 80 straight years! 
              To list all the crap that has been in this front over that time would be foolhardy, but I'll try to break it down as succinctly as possible. The first retail tenant in the building, built, owned, and operated by the Presbyterian Church, was the Presbyterian Book Store. It opened on the ground floor in 1898.

Full page ad announcing the opening of the store in the Red & Blue, UPenn's periodical of the day.

             Meanwhile, the mezzanine of the building was a huge auditorium that was built to hold lectures and events. It didn't do very well, so by 1900, it got rented out as a retail space. The Book-Lover's Library Company, a private lending library that had offices in the Witherspoon Building, made it their Library Centre, starting a chain that would reach across the country and Canada over the next several years. The Witherspoon Building has been internally altered so many times that its difficult to determine how the mezzanine was accessed, but I believe it may have been from the 1321 Walnut door, the one that looks like its the front door, but isn't. The Juniper Street side of the building once and has always been the intended front the building. The I.C & Brothers Typewriter Company held down the western storefront at 1323 Walnut during this time.

The storefronts in 1898. Image from the PAB.

             By the mid 1910s, the Book-Lover's Library was done for. The Presbyterian Book Store then moved up into the mezzanine and the two ground-floor storefronts became the Rittenhouse Trust Company and the International Merchant Marine Freight Office. 
             Over the next few decades, the ground floor shit switched out numerous times but the mezzanine stayed the Presbyterian Book Store  (except when briefly re-made into an auditorium in the 1920s and 1930s). In the 1940s, Westminster Press, a publisher of Christian-themed/Christian-friendly books that had offices in the Witherspoon Building, opened a bookstore as well. They would stick around for almost three decades, moving to different parts of the building at different times, finally settling into the 1323 Walnut space in 1955.

1956. Check out that awesome Mid-Century signage. At this point the other storefront had an un-named housewares store. Image from PhillyHistory.org.

                   In 1963, the hall on the mezzanine was given up yet again and converted into the offices it is today. On July 31, 1972, the Westminster Book Store closed, right before the Presbyterian Church sold the building. There is a store with the same name and theme today at Westminster Theological Seminary in Glenside, PA. That Seminary was founded and once entirely existed within the Witherspoon Building. In the 1980s, a chain print shop and a small book store inhabited the ground floor. At some point in time after that, the whole first floor frontage was made into offices.
               Fast forward to the start of the 21st Century. After years of neglect, the immediate area was re-born with regard to retail. Then came Tony Goldman's Midtown Village revolution. Suddenly, nearby storefronts that had either been empty or drastically under-utilized for years were now coming into play. Even suburban chains, like the IHOP catercorner to this space, made their way in. Now was the time for retail to return to the Witherspoon Building!
              In 2010, the choice was made to put the space up on the market, along with the whole rest of the building, which has emptied out due to Wells Fargo, who has a lease on the place until 2020, adjusting some shit. In 2012, the ground floor retail space was separated out as a different kind of listing, pushing for a restaurant space.

The space on the right. The other two spaces would only ever be accessible from the lobby. Image by FameCo via Naked Philly.

                    It appears that in its office conversion, the 1319, 1321, and 1323 spaces were all combined into one 7,767 square foot space. Therefore, any retail put here would be accessed by the big decorated door out front. So how the fuck has this thing stayed empty? Let me help.

                 This is the Walnut Street-facing retail space at 1319-1323 Walnut Street. As stated above, this space in 7,767 square feet. It gets a full 75 feet of street frontage at the heavily-trafficked corner of Walnut and South Juniper Streets. This location has full retail at every other corner but this one, sharing it with a Dunkin Donuts, Potito's Bakery, and IHOP. Going further from the corner, everything from eyeglasses to porn to mixed nuts is available! Don't be discerned by the empty retail across the street. Almost all of it has big plans!
                This location is extremely close to the Broad Street Line subway and is walkable from the Market-Frankford Line, the PATCO, and all the Subway-Surface trolleys. So many buses pass this location that it would take 200 years to read a list of them all. Countless pedestrians pass this spot each day. Thousands of people work nearby, stay in the nearby hotels, and make residence in this area. YOU CAN'T FUCKING LOSE!
                 Its hard to tell who exactly is in charge of leasing this space, so even if you want it, good luck figuring it all out. CBRE/Fameco once listed the space in 2012 when it was first separated out, but that listing is now gone. Newmark Grubb Knight Frank seems to be currently handling the leasing of everything in the building that isn't this particular retail space. I don't get, probably due to being a dumbass. Either way, this storefront is the shit... in the time that its been available, a whole mess of new restaurants and retail have come and gone through the surrounding blocks. One storefront, further down Walnut Street, was an empty shell for well over a decade and re-made into a restaurant during that time. Obviously, the potential for greatness is here.
                Contact both NGFK and CBRE and try to find out how to lease this space-- its been empty so long that you could probably offer like 75 cents a year and you'll get in. FILL THIS FUCKING FRONT!!

Here it is in 1899, more filled than it is today. Image from the PAB

Butt-Fugly Building of the Week: 2400 Chestnut

2400 Chestnut Street

"I am Skyline Blocker! Destroyer of Worlds!!"

                 Talk about a White Elephant. This big white bastard has been standing like the 337 foot tombstone it is for the last 35 years, uglying-up what should otherwise be a kick-ass address. This monument to Guano stinks up the Schuylkill River trail, Chestnut Street, and history itself... especially when you consider what once stood here and what could have been in its place.
                 This motherfucker fails in a lot of ways. It meets the street with a big white wall and a driveway. It has a stairway down to 24th Street that's basically just a vertical bum bathroom. The office space is below street level. The numbers at the top are in Star Trek movie ship registry numbers font (officially called Final Frontier Shipside). Also, the building is named after its address, which is a huge pet peeve of mine.

These are cutting-edge stairs in that you will cut your head on the edges of if you stumble while going down.

              24th and Chestnut used to be one of the better looking corners in the whole city. Between 1888 and 1963, the Furness masterpiece Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Station stood in this very location.

In case you forgot

                         The year it came down, 1963, was a big planning year for Philadelphia. Almost every part of Center City had an ironclad master plan at the time, and this spot was slated for greatness. This butt-ass awesome building was cleared out so that something just as butt-ass awesome (for the 60s) could be built. Though its hard to conjure up a rendering from that time period, your old pal GroJLart went back in time 51 years just to find you this nice color image, depicting what the plans were for this once-mighty address:

Not bad, considering the year.

               Though this project went to total shit, I can't be that mad. There was such a high amount of construction in this city over the following few years that we wouldn't see again until the late 80s. However, what I can be mad about is how the space did get filled!

Pedestrian Friendly by 1970s standards.

             It goes like this: Way back in 1976, a new resurgence in highrise residency was taking place in Center City. The relatively successful Penn Center brought lots of workers into CC and many of them were sick of driving back and forth from the burbs to get there. Most of the existing residential in the city at the time was pretty crappy (by 20th Century standards) and very little of it that was available was modern enough to keep up with your average 1970s go-getter (which mostly meant not auto-centric enough). 1500 Locust and Center City One, some of the first to target this demographic, did so well that other similar apartment buildings started getting proposed left and right.
              Meanwhile, you had this big empty lot on 24th Street between Walnut and Chestnut, cleared for that 1960s shit that never happened. It was at this point that the Arthur A. Kober construction company teamed up with developer Morton Berman and formed 2400 Chestnut Associates, a concern that would aim to build a mixed use apartment/office/parking superplex that could bring this spot into the next decade. Armed with some Section 221(d)(4) mortgage insurance from HUD, they commissioned Thomas Mangan's firm out of Fort Washington to design this 1970s Ass Party of Concrete Lego Cloaca Cream.
             As with most construction in Philadelphia, the city gave them shit over every last design decision. Not enough handicapped access. Not fire safe enough. Parking garage no good. Even after construction began, the developer kept getting shit from the city over what they were doing. After several YEARS of back-and-forth with the Zoning Board of Adjustments, they were finally granted all their variances in February 1979 so that construction could FINALLY get overwith. They officially opened the building later that same year.

There goes that Final Frontier Shipside

          At first, the building was considered quite the modern location. Life sucked so much back then that a giant white concrete rectangle was some cutting-edge shit. The office space in the building saw some wicked tenants over the next few years, including a division of ABC News and Teddy Pendergrass's production company. Several of the old buildings nearby got re-invigorated as well. After the 80s rolled by, 2400 Chestnut fell into obscurity and became home to Penn grad students and shit like that.
         Fast forward 20 years, when the Schuylkill River Trail came into being. Suddenly, 2400 Chestnut was getting noticed again (besides that 1999 incident about that guy amassing a huge weapons stockpile inside). While before only Penn students and office workers in that part of Center City would even walk by this thing, it was now getting inundated with onlookers from the heavily-used trail below while still rocking its 1979-built street level presence. In 2009, Brett Webber architects designed for them a new lobby and changed some of the street level signage to a more modern look. The same firm has offices in the building. At the time, the mega-kickass Mandeville Place was about to begin construction next door, but never happened.

You're DRIVING me crazy, auto-centric building!!

             Nowadays, lots near the Schuylkill River Trail are hot as shit. Almost every empty space near it has a plan. 23rd/JFK is slated for a huge-ass complex of buildings, Dranoff plans One Riverside near the Locust Street entrance, and PMC Property Group plans to build on top of the Marketplace Design Center. This is 2400 Chestnut's only hope-- that these new buildings will be so ugly that no one will ever notice its blank white ass ever again. After seeing PMC's track record of decidedly ugly shit, that hope may just come to fruition.
         

24th Street side... It sucks!

            

99 Years Ago In Philadelphia-- Third Week of May, 1915

Big-Ass Fire on Chestnut East

         A huge-ass fire consumed 1016-1018 Chestnut, the former Blasius & Sons Piano Building. It was then leased to the Banks Business College, where it was apparently perfectly acceptable for students to smoke cigarettes during class in a low-ventilation room full of typewriters mounted to 200 wooden tables. A student flicked his cigarette in the wrong direction and a 3-Alarm fire was the result. The orange glow of the fire was visible from West Philly.
           At Jefferson Hospital, then located in a bunch of lost buildings (one of them still stands at 10th/Sansom), patients started freaking out when they saw and smelled the fire coming from the building whose back faced across the street. The ceiling and third floor of Banks Business College eventually collapsed, injuring a firefighter. The total damage to the building and businesses nearby totaled $130,000, about $18 million today. $75,000 of that damage was to Banks Business College alone. They had just re-done their classrooms in full mahogany, so it was a bummer.
          Despite all this, the building itself did fine. The exterior walls and metal skeleton of the place was completely undamaged. It survived all the way until the 1950's when it was demolished to make way for Jefferson Hospital's Gibbon Building.

The building right before going down. That's-a nice-a building. Photo from the Philadelphia Historical Commission via the PAB.

Demonic Street Art Pops Up in Kensington

           In the third week of May, 1915, mysterious green graffiti starting being sighted all around Kensington. If this happened today, we'd think it was some kind of wannabe Bansky or Resurrect Dead type. Back then, people thought it was Satan!!! Upon viewing of these green images, many early 20th Century Kenzos panicked and called the cops, claiming that they must be demonic in nature, and if not, a system of symbols used by revolutionaries trying to overthrow the government (from Kensington).
           The cops investigated the symbols, trying to crack the code. Some of the symbols appeared to be Asian-inspired in nature, others resembled Greek letters. An Officer Phillips, while investigating the grafitti, happened upon a gentleman named Johnny Coogan carrying around an open can of green paint. Phillips followed Coogan around until he started painting mysterious symbols on a fence. He was arrested and taken to the 26th Precinct Police Station.
           When faced with Magistrate McCleary's court, Mr. Coogan explained that he'd been recently hired as a sign painter and was practicing painting lettering in order to be better qualified for this job, which he obviously wasn't qualified for. Of course, Coogan was also getting wasted as shit right before he was would practice, causing the fucked up lettering being spotted around town. McCleary sentenced him to 5 days in the County lock-up, where there were several signs in need of re-painting.

The station where Coogan was booked. Photo from Naked Philly.

Italian-Americans Getting Blown Up In South Philly

          At 3:45 AM on May 17th, 1915, a bomb exploded on the steps of 1621 South Franklin Street.  Mr. Corso, a baker, wasn't home. However, his wife and four children were. The explosion was forceful enough to knock the family out of their beds and knock over everything at the Beckman family residence on the second floor.
         This was the second time someone tried to blow up 1621 South Franklin. Three months earlier, a mystery assailant drove a horse and carriage swiftly down the narrow street and threw an explosive device at the same spot. The device exploded but caused no damage. Neighbors say that there are racial tensions on the street between Jewish- and Italian-Americans. Back then, these ethnicities were considered a race. Three detectives from Police HQ at City Hall and one from the local station were sent to investigate.

1621 South Franklin as it appears in Google Streetview

No More Mashers in Fairmount Park!

              Oh, so you thought it would be fun to whistle at young women and girls in Fairmount Park, eh? Well, you're fucked now. Captain Hayes Duncan of the Fairmount Park guards has declared war on "Mashers", an old-timey term for cat-callers and/or street-harassers. Magistrate Boyle joined in on the cause, declaring anyone accused of "mashing" would face a swift trial at the Woodford Guard House.
               Anyone found guilty would then be faced with a HARSH punishment: a $5 fine. Don't have $5 but still aching to do some mashing? The alternative was 10 days in the County lock-up. This, of course, ended mashing in Philadelphia for all time. Oh wait, no it didn't. There's currently an ad campaign running in the city that discourages mashing today.

One of the ads.

                  After 99 Years, all that has been done to prevent street harassment are two City Council hearings that discussed the issue. Therefore, in an era when women couldn't even vote, there was a harsher punishment for street harassment than there is now.

Fill this Front: Broad & Spruce

260 South Broad Street, Suite 1

                     Talk about a cursed storefront-- not one as particularly chronically empty like some of the others I've talked about, but still sad. Even when it manages to get tenants, they still kinda suck. This, of course, is the space at the northwest corner of Broad and Spruce in the old Atlantic Building. Time after time, this place gets filled with crap after crap. The other storefront on the ground floor of this great building has managed to hold Ruth's Chris Steak House for nearly 30 years, but as for the other...its been empty for 3 years. However, it need not be. Let's talk about it.
            This storefront has been here for 90 years, but spent many of those decades doing mostly nothing. Records are spotty about things other than Atlantic-Richfield/Arco-related stuff that inhabited this space. In the late 1920s, it held the Hamburg-American Line Ticket Office. In the 1930s, two of the window bays had big wooden covers on them.

???? Pic from the James Dillon Collection at the PAB

                Other than that, no record of any other leasee of this space appears until December of 1997, when Italian Market native Joseph Tucker threw down $1 million on a super-fancy 82-seat Italian restaurant called Joseph's On the Avenue. The place had chef's tables, a cigar lounge, the works. The first week they opened, they offered free dinners for invited guests! Nonetheless, the place was gone less than a year later.
                 In May of 1998, it was given over into a French restaurant called Bonaparte. They moved from another location on Locust Street(where Fado is now) that got ruined by construction of the elevator down to the PATCO. The managers and staff moved themselves to the Broad and Spruce location to rebuild the disaster that was Joseph's on the Avenue. This time, they cleared out some shit so that they could seat 180, and added chef Michael Sheel. It didn't help. They were gone pretty quickly after that.
               The next year, the building itself was stuck in troubles. Ends up the Illinois-based developer that bought the place in 1994 didn't intend on ever paying for it. After a bunch of legal shit, the building was sold to new owners and with those new owners, the storefront went up for lease again.
                At the time, the Kimmel Center was under construction and hopes that a restaurant that could attract its many expected patrons would do well right across the street. In November of 2000, Neil Stein's Avenue B opened here, armed with chef Fransisco Martorella. Duck breast proscuitto, ox tail ragu, homemade gelato, this was the kind of shit you could get there. Besides being named after a street in fucking NYC, the place was pretty good.
              Of course, it WOULD HAVE been pretty good if anyone actually showed up to the Kimmel Center. Without the expected traffic, its amazing that Stein managed to get that $40,000/month lease paid for almost three years before calling it quits. By the end of 2003, the place went kaput.
              In 2004, when it went back up for lease, it was already being called a "cursed storefront". This didn't stop the then-new national chain, Ted's Montana Grill, from coming along and taking over the space. This was the kind of place that might be ok here, even if no one showed up, the financial advantage of being both a national chain and being connected to one of the richest motherfuckers anywhere could keep them here for awhile.

As Ted's Montana Grill in 2009 from Google Streetview

                 ... And it did. Despite mixed reviews, only one bell from Craig LaBan, and a stench that made Broad and Spruce smell like shit 24 hours a day, the bison meat-featuring chain did well enough to stay open until 2011. After they finally moved out (don't worry, Ted's fans, there's a location in Warrington), the word on the street was that the recently-ousted-from-their-space Italian Eatery was going to take over.
                Then something strange happened. The Post Brothers Company, who were in the middle of  getting bullied by a bunch of corrupt obsolete bastards over their residential conversion of the Goldtex Building, purchased the old Atlantic Building and proposed not only a residential conversion, but a major retail enterprise whereby the first seven floors of the building would be offered up with hopes to attract a big box retailer or a department store. I guess no one told them that every other attempt to attract such things in Center City has failed miserably. Oh well, it was worth a try.
                After that, the storefront stayed empty save for a big sign begging for someone out there to take a big risk and lease 110,000 square feet of retail space. The residential part of the project was to be designed by Rafael Vinoly, the same firm that did the Kimmel Center across the street. They called it 1401 Spruce, even thought the place's real address is 258-262 South Broad. About a year later, Post Brothers said "fuck that shit" and reduced it down to the corner ground floor, the mezzanine, and the basement. That's great and all, but they didn't bother taking down the big sign that's trying to sell the 7-floor retail space.

This the rendering on the loopnet listing for the spot.

               The Post Brothers were about to make a deal to sell the building a few months ago, but it fell through. They've told the media that they will now continue with plans to residentialize the building. While all of this was going on, the Kimmel Center managed to open their own restaurant across the street. If anything, the success of that restaurant (Volver) will make this storefront now more desirable than ever. So here's how it goes:

                The current offer for this space is the continuous 14,000 square feet that includes the first floor, mezzanine, and basement. It is also splittable into three spaces, the first floor being 6,000 square feet, the basement being 5,500, and the mezzanine being 2,500. The location is pretty fucking awesome, stuck between three major theater venues-- the Merriam Theater, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, and the Wilma Theater. The same building has housed a location of the Louisiana-based Ruth's Chris Steak House since 1988. The spot is located close to countless nodes of public transportation, too many to list here. Let's just say two subway lines and multiple buses pass by this area every day and through the night. It even has a bike lane running right next to it!
                The spot also boasts super-high ceilings and window coverage that dominates the entire corner. Three big-ass hotels are nearby, giving you a buttload of extra customers that don't know where they're going or what to do while in town. They should be coming to your store/restaurant! This space is located in the iconic Atlantic Refining Company Building, built in 1922, a kick-ass old building that was the first real highrise on this corner. What the fuck are you waiting for? Now that you know this, what other excuse do you have? The rent being offered is listed as "negotiable", so call up Post Brothers and make a fucking deal!!! FILL THIS FRONT!!!

Note to Post Brothers: Update your fucking sign!!!

Old-Ass Building of the Week: Beates Residence

1421 West Girard

Pic by Brad Maule

               Check this sexy motherfucker out. Despite how awesome it is, its construction date and architect are unknown as fuck. Could it be considered an honorary Willis G. Hale work? Find out at the Hidden City Daily!

Update!!! Lots and Lots of No-Longer-Empty Lots!

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

         Hello, this is Robert Stack, and you are now reading this in my voice. Philadelphia has gone through a lot of changes since GroJLart's shitty blog began, and now I'm here to give you all the updates on the many empty lots in this city that are no more (or about to be). Play the youtube embedded below to hear the appropriate background music.

Update!!

             Dranoff Properties has re-designed their plan for the Schuylkill River NIMBY Lot. The new design will have underground mechanized parking and be slightly taller. The sorely-needed cafe portion of the project is now gone, due to NIMBY concerns about "noise". Note: this location is next to an active freight line (noise) and across the river from the Schuylkill Expressway (NOISE). So apparently this cafe was going to be pretty fucking loud. Oh well, fuck 'em... its getting built!

Update!!

             The Franklintown Shituation Lot is soon to meet its maker! Mega-developer Forest City was serious when they spoke of creating a second phase to Museum Towers, filling this 4-decade-old lot once and for all! The lot will get a very plain-looking 188 foot tower, a new parking garage, and a bunch of big-ass town homes that will hide it.

Yeah booooy!

  Update!

            Kieth's Sanslot is soon to be no more! The heroes at Brickstone Realty have come along to finally put this shitty lot out of its misery and give new life to Chestnut East! Their new development will add a shitload of apartments to the corridor, a bunch of new retail, and a rumored supermarket to the street. On top of that, a Butt-Fugly Building will finally get demolished! This is the kind of development dickheads like me have always dreamed would come to this location! Good Luck!

Latest rendering. Rumor has it that the development might even take more of the block than seen here!

Update!!

               The Penn's Landing Lot of Doom has (yet another) new plan for its removal. A new feasibility study by Hargreaves Associates has just been completed, with plans to reconnect the site of this lot with the rest of the city. There's really too much to talk about in one little blurb, so here's an extremely detailed report that explains everything.

Update!!!

           The South Street Dread Lot FINALLY has a plan! After years and years of nothingness, this piece of shit lot may finally come to an end. A developer called Silk Companies plans 21 condo units for the site, with a whacky-looking building designed by ISA Design Studios facing the South Street side. Read all about it here.

Update!!!

          The Franklintown and RDA Fail Lot is getting even more Mormoned than originally planned! Not only will a Mormon Temple be built on the site, but also a Mormon Meeting House and a 32-story residential building designed by Robert A.M. Stern!! Holy shit! Literally!

Update!!!

              Another long-term empty lot, NIMBY Memorial West, has plans to be eliminated. The heroic Carl Dranoff plans a gifuckinggantic Hotel/Condo that will stand here and on the sites of the Philly International Records Building and 311 South Broad. It will run under the SLS International brand and will be the tallest building east of Broad Street. Hopefully this isn't a pipe dream and will actually get built. Good fucking luck!! Here's every last rendering of the thing you can think of.

Excellent.

Update!!

               The First Regiment Armory Lot is also about to be eliminated. This 35-year-old empty lot will soon be covered by Hanover North Broad, a two-building development that will wipe out both this lot and its twin across the street. The Hanover Company, based out of Houston, is teaming up with Parkway Corp to get this done. Though its probably not the most ideal building for this lot, its much much better than a shitty surface lot.

Update!!!

             The Mercantile Liblotary is back up for sale. Have $1.69 Million to burn? You can now own this failure of architecture and urban planning that is more ass-kissed than anything but Guild House. Here's the listing!

Update!

            The Shitz Carlton Waldorf Awhoria Fail Lot will hopefully be dead soon. The Warrior-Poet Brook Lenfest released a new rendering to the nerds on Skyscraper Page showing a brand new design for his W Hotel/Element, which is scheduled to break ground sooner than you think. This definitely needs to happen.

Excellent, though blue doesn't have to be the color.

 Update!!!

             The Great NIMBY Memorial is now, finally, a construction site. Toll Brothers is now building 410 at Society Hill, putting an end to that shitbag lot. Hopefully, this fulfills all the hopes and dreams of all those NIMBYs who put an end to all the good developments that were proposed here.

Again, I didn't say it was pretty.

Update!!!

          A new proposal has come to the Schuylkill Sea. Coming on down from NP International is River Walk Philadelphia, a 650-unit condo complex with multiple buildings and perhaps a supermarket. Of course, keep in mind that this is probably the 20th project proposed for this lot in the last 6 decades. If NP pulls this off, they will have accomplished something no other developer could pull off before. Good fucking luck.

There are so many dead proposals for this space that I still haven't told you about all of them.

     
          For every  empty lot, effed-up building, or new development, there's someone, somewhere, who knows the truth. Perhaps that someone is reading this. Perhaps... it's you. If you have any new or extra information relating to articles posted at Philaphilia, write to us at rhaandarite@gmail.com. You need not give your name.

"Now get the fuck out of here."