The Beury Building

When it comes to development in Philadelphia, rarely does a plan come along that simply makes sense. When it does, it's reactionary and long overdue, like East Market on Market East. Others that seem to make sense are so far out they only make sense on paper, like numerous master plans proposed for the entirety of the Delaware Waterfront. 

But occasionally a gem comes along. One that both anticipates a current and inevitable progression while managing to get out in front of it before the legitimate concerns of longtime neighbors are replaced by the pseudo-intellectualized ideals of Whole Foods bound yuppies (cough, Northern Liberties).

With years of buzz surrounding the Divine Lorraine and her corner of North Broad Street, Shift Capital has begun looking a little further beyond the confines of Greater Center City, at North Broad's other Divine Lorraine and its vicinity. The Beury Building at Broad and Lehigh isn't where the connected want to be, or even near it. As PlanPhilly put it, it's not in "East Kensington, not South Kensington, and not Olde Kensington. Kensington." This is the real Kensington.

The Beury: North Broad's most important building

Kensington, home to many residents, but also home to urban mythology for those in Center City and South Philadelphia, is, in its current state, the kind of neighborhood where you'd find a masked vigilante's lair hidden neatly beneath a rusty training studio. And the Beury Building his beacon. 

With the exception of their respective architecture, the Beury Building may in fact be even more significant to North Broad's Renaissance than the Divine Lorraine itself. Although not nearly as astounding, it stands to bookend what may someday be a congruous Greater Center City. 

The building is urban, as is its intersection. Every bit as urban as any corner of Center City. Despite it being shrouded in more than fifty years of blighted patina, the Beury Building's corner was, and can again be, a relevant cog in Philadelphia's gridded narrative. If the city and its investors play their cards right.

Banking on Low Income Housing Tax Credits, Shift Capital hopes to house seniors on seven of the Beury Building's fourteen floors. While the idea was previously floated for the Divine Lorraine, it makes sense at the Beury. Kensington is an established community and the Beury Building is an ideal place to house its older residents. Perhaps learning from the mistakes of the suburbanized housing behind the Divine Lorraine, Shift Capital seems to understand the importantance of giving Broad and Erie a reason to retain its urbanity. That reason isn't simply in subsidized housing, but in the Beury Building's viable existence. 

With its proximity to Temple University and as part of North Broad's greater goals, it is imperative that the Beury Building not fall to the wrecking ball. Temple University's growth stands to provide a microcosm of what Penn, Drexel, and other colleges have done for University City. But dynamic development at and around the Divine Lorraine and the Beury Building could make North Broad a much more integrated success story. 

There is no question that the Divine Lorraine is a landmark, significant both architecturally and historically. But with redevelopment taking shape at Spring Garden and along Ridge Avenue, the intersection of Broad and Fairmount is on track with or without the Divine Lorraine. But without the Beury Building, North Broad's urban presence and should-be goal to expand that presence all the way to Erie would cease with its demolition.

The Other Divine Lorraine

At one point Shift Capital had hoped to renovate the beleaguered Beury Building on North Broad Street. If you don't know it, it's the other Divine Lorraine. 

At the corner of Broad and Erie, the Beury Building wasn't just abandoned glory, it is significant architecture at a key intersection of two major arteries desperate for life.

Unfortunately, as Philadelphia Magazine pointed out, it is up for sheriff's sale, meaning it will go to anyone with the funds to buy a derelict building in one of the worst parts of town. 

Meaning strip mall at best, surface lot at worst.

Abandoned buildings do very little for their neighbors. But the ones that scrape the sky are more than empty buildings. They're beacons of hope. They signal what their neighborhood once was and could be again.

Like the Divine Lorraine, the Beury Building is an important cog in North Broad's renaissance. The best hope for North Broad isn't blind profit, it's smart planning. Like Tower Place at Spring Garden, the Divine Lorraine may soon invigorate life at Girard, and the Beury Building could do the same.

These projects have and will show that success is not merely present in development but also preservation. Even in their current states, the Beury Building and the Divine Lorraine are sources of pride in struggling neighborhoods. Losing them to suburban grocery stores or worse will only make the rebirth of North Broad Street that much more difficult, solidifying their neighbors' dignity as being worth no more than a strip mall.