Is this the W Hotel?

With all the construction buzz around town - the FMC tower and the Grove completing Cira Centre's original plan and carrying the skyline across the Schuylkill River, Dranoff's SLS International Hotel, talk of high rise or two at the Girard Trust Block - Inquirer Architecture Critic Inga Saffron might be faced with more subject matter than she's seen since 2005, and it's wonderful.


W Element Hotel? Maybe.

Still, little has been said of the still-vacant lot at 15th and Chestnut, once the proposed location for a Waldorf-Astoria and now a W Hotel. Rumors of talks and tax incentives have found their way online, but little has been officially released.

A cute and very preliminary rendering showed up on SkyscraperCity a few days ago showing a glass tower roughly the same height as City Hall. Dubbed the W Element Hotel, the rendering is very simple, but worth a look.