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The Philadelphia City Planning Commission's Design Review Committee echoed the mainstream media's opinion about CHoP's proposed research facility on Schuylkill Avenue near the South Street Bridge, asking the hospital to come back with a better design.
CHoP, likely expecting the request, plans to address the Commission's bullet points that can be addressed, but also noted the architectural constraints that the location presents, as well as the unconventional requirements within the facility itself.
While many of the Commission's requests are understandable, the hospital's predicament is equally understandable. Like many former developments along the Schuylkill River, the flood plain requires CHoP to elevate its property. Likewise, the density of the space requires parking. The solution to both is placing the tower atop a parking podium. While the Commission asked CHoP to be less "auto-centric," one can imagine the exact opposite request had CHoP provided less parking, urging its employees to take public transportation. Nothing fires up residents like workers taking up their street spaces, and if CHoP hadn't provided enough parking in its design, that's the fire we'd be feeling.
But CHoP isn't immune simply because of the difficulties the river presents. Despite the fact that this will be a research facility, not a care facility, it's being developed by an organization versed in hospital development. University City's hospital region looks like a modern, dense city from the expressway, but on the street it's what you'd expect of any densely packed group of hospitals. It isn't urban and completely detached from the residences that surround it. CHoP likely intended to carry that across the river to Schuylkill Avenue, and neighbors are understandably skeptical.
CHoP did try to appease neighbors by proposing removable panels along its façade for future retail, but how deep are those spaces, what actually exists behind the panels, and why hasn't CHoP attempted to field retail tenants itself? Well, the spaces are probably about as shallow as the undesirable retail spaces along the Convention Center, and like the PCC, hospitals aren't versed in dealing with retail tenants on the street. In other words, as is, don't expect picking up Chipotle along the east incline of the South Street Bridge.
Truthfully, better design isn't great design, but CHoP's isn't just better than what's there, it's better than anyone is willing to build now or in the future. Any developers would face the same obstacles posed by the flood plain, the bridge, and the CSX tracks, but CHoP can afford to tackle them in some way, perhaps the only way modern technology allows.
In the end, CHoP may provide an asset to several struggling neighborhoods. Toll Brothers' Naval Square has been a financial success to Toll Brothers' shareholders, but its residents still remain largely fortressed behind private gates. They've provided little foot traffic, foot traffic that CHoP can provide. CHoP's presence in University City may not provide its own ground floor retail or uan rban experience you'd want to find in a city, but its employees aid businesses surrounding the grid of hospitals.
CHoP may never open its sidewalks to retail, it may offer its employees a dining hall like most corporate facilities, but that won't change the fact that thousands of employees will sometimes look for a lunch that isn't provided by Aramark and stick around after five for happy hour. That will easily drive business south of South Street into the neighborhood surrounding Naval Square, incentivizing retail development in space that isn't owned by CHoP, and adding street life to a neighborhood that needs it.
In recent years the success of the Schuylkill Banks and plans for additional improvements have inadvertently called residential developers into action. The Banks is an urban Cinderella Story. Historically industrial railroad space, few ever thought the flood plain two stories below Center City would ever find itself as a role model for urban parks.
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But architecturally, the Banks poses a challenge. Through most of Center City, the Schuylkill River isn't graded with the city's built environment, it's recessed well below. Particularly between JFK and Walnut, it's recessed more like the Chicago River than a place ever meant for cyclists and joggers. In fact many early master plans for JFK, West Market Street, and 30th Street Station envisioned the river's east bank looking a lot more like its west. Rightly, developers are eager to offer residents a piece of the river, but it's not as simple as building condos on Miami Beach.
How do developers best ferry their elevated tenants to the park below without alienating recreationalists and hurting the peaceful setting the Banks provides?
Recently, three towering proposals have called this into question. In the heart of the city surrounded by skyscrapers, towering apartment buildings along the river won't diminish the park's experience in their own right. However being on a flood plain, these projects must be elevated to the streets above. Each of these proposals has remedied that obstacle by putting their tenants atop a parking podium. Unfortunately, that puts the least desirable element, a parking stump, face to face with the Schuylkill Banks.
Many have come out against these projects, namely due to the vast concrete walls that will face the river. Are foes of these projects simply echoing the the media, or should these developers be sent back to their drawing boards?
Is it possible to address the architectural need to elevate these towers without distracting from the pleasures of the park? Is there an alternative? If there is no alternative, is sending developers elsewhere for the sake of a park worth abandoning the benefits these projects offer the city above?
But really, are these parking garages that different than the built space that already faces the Banks? The park still sits on an industrial artery, beside and below railroad tracks. Anyone who's spent time on the river knows that the Central Banks often peer into the dark recesses of the city's underground.
2400 Chestnut and the PECO Tower already sidle up to the Banks, offering as much or less to the river than the recent proposals. Neither diminish the park's experience, but simply remind recreationalists that the Banks is a very urban park. Where were those agitated by the inevitable residential interest in the river when critics were gushing over the proposed Mandeville Place? The vistas offered along the Schuylkill River are directed at University City's growing crystalline skyline, but Center City's presence is incidental and always will be.
The Schuylkill Banks will not be abandoned because of a series of parking podiums, only find an increased demand by the tenants in the towers above. Perhaps more importantly, these projects will help bridge the cognitive divide between Center City and University City, creating a much greater urban core.
With several skyscraping proposals nearing approval along the Schuylkill Banks, University of the Sciences making itself seen along West Market Street near 36th, and CHoP reaching across the river to develop Schuylkill Avenue, the neighborhood doesn't appear to have much room to expand.
Drexel University and Brandwine Realty Trust want to tackle that by resurrecting a long proposed cap atop the tracks servicing 30th Street Station.
Capping the railroad tracks would add 7 million square feet of developable space to Drexel's existing plans to develop 6.5 million square feet at 33rd and Market.
At the other end of University City, Penn isn't slacking off. Penn has proposed "South Bank" just on the other side of the southern bend in Schuylkill River at DuPont's former paint factory. With what Penn calls its "Pennovation Center," the details sound like Penn is asking Comcast to bring their A-game with the Comcast Innovation and Technology Center.
It seems like city that once helped innovate America, served as the Workshop of the World for the best part of the Industrial Revolution, might be returning to the forefront of the world's most profitable industries.
I can't keep up with Philadelphia's potentially changing skyline. It's like 2003 again, and it's awesome. Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has outgrown University City and is expanding to the east side of the Schuylkill River. In what will be a phased development along Schuylkill Avenue consisting of four highrise and midrise towers, CHoP is prepared to break ground this summer on its 375 foot 700 Schuylkill Avenue.
The project will enhance the growing Schuylkill Banks providing a public park and waterfront promenade. Like Cira Centre, the complex is being designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli and Ballinger.
