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Brown Hill Development has commissioned some exciting architecture and preserved just as much. The Ayer, Old City 108, and the Porter House in Manhattan are part of a portfolio that blends restoration, adaptive reuse, and exciting architecture.
Unfortunately 205 Race Street, a project dating to 2006, went from exciting, to okay, to meh.
What happened? Were the nefarious tactics of Old City's uncompromising NIMBYs at play, casting assertions of shadows from buildings that cast shadows? At times, yes. At one point in the project's near decade long process, the Old City Civic Association criticized any zoning measures that would allow a mid rise at 2nd and Race. But the most poisonous thorn came from an unlikely source, one inexplicably accommodated: Keystone Outdoor Advertising.
Deputy Mayor Alan Greenberger even noted an excuse for the concession, stating last year, “It’s easy for anybody to take ZBA matters to court...especially for an owner of outdoor advertising, who spend a lot of money taking people to court and jamming up projects forever.”
The most recent iteration for 205 Race Street has been redesigned to accommodate the Zoning Code but also the grievances aired by Keystone, setting a precedent to accommodate billboard advertising in the approval process that builds our city.
In a city rigidly opposed to digital signage and billboards - a city that turned the corporate name "Bandit Signs" into household pejorative - it's disheartening to see the city and a developer bend to the threat of litigation despite what a move means for the future of unsightly advertising in Center City.
Will Philadelphia's next skyscraper be a poorly maintained billboard advertising low rate mortgages or hair removal? As absurd as it sounds, extending advertisers the same air rights as developers opens the topic for legitimate debate.
Redeveloping Old City's corner of 2nd and Race has been no stranger to resistance. For the past decade neighbors have opposed everything from scaled housing to skyscrapers at 205 Race Street and even at the height of the building boom, nothing happened.
While NIMBYs rarely employ logic, there's one party in their cause even the most zealous development-phobe could not have predicted: Advertisers.
The latest opposition to the redevelopment of 205 Race Street is Keystone Outdoor Advertising who runs billboards over the site at the Ben Franklin Bridge.
In a city that produces more lawyers than cockroaches, the project was put on hold after Keystone threatened to sue.
I have never heard of an advertising company with the audacity or the three pairs of balls required to try halting development over their own perceived visibility rights.
Does Keystone even own the land they advertise on? No. As if that should matter.
In a city that rejected thousands of free benches and trashcans from ClearChannel because they'd be used for advertising, I'm amazed Keystone would pull this stunt, or that the city would entertain them.
I thought it was crap when neighbors stopped a townhouse from being built because it would cover up a mural, but at least that was art.
Here's what Keystone is hoping: a frivolous lawsuit coupled with the NIMBY nonsense already created by neighbors screaming doomsday over a high rise next to a freeway will be enough to keep this lot vacant for another ten years.
Back in 2004, when funky little firms like CREI were using up and coming urban neighborhoods as their architectural playground for experimental and pricy designs, Brown-Hill proposed its own avant-garde condo development for a forlorn bucolic meadow at 2nd and Race.
It didn't happen, but the sign promising the redevelopment of this inexplicably vacant lot remained for years, reminding pedestrians that a small group of idiots with nothing but idle time and the arrogance to dictate their irrational opinions really can make a difference.
At a sensibly scaled 9 to 10 stories and respectful ground floor relationship, it was good design; and adjacent to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, a noisy interstate, and a high speed rail line, it was a good opportunity to develop an unlikely location for residences. But in the heyday of financial optimism, it wasn't good enough for the Old City Civic Association and they managed to keep their beloved vacant lot vacant for another eight years.
Well Brown-Hill is back and, in the wake of the financial crisis and a more realistic outlook on construction opportunities, hoping that the OCCA has a new outlook of their own.
Brown-Hill's new design keeps the same interaction with the sidewalk that it did in it's 2004 design, but proposes and additional six floors. At 198 feet tall it would be the tallest building in Old City. Not that height in any Center City neighborhood is a rational deterrent to development given precedents have been set in much more historically picturesque locations across the city, including Society Hill and Independence Mall. One could even argue that a high rise's presence next to a busy highway insulates the existing real estate from noisy traffic.
We'll find out the fate of the lot tomorrow at the Zoning Board of Adjustment's Hearing.
