Philadelphia's Future Skyline

Some Googling found a cool image of Philadelphia's potential skyine by Clem Cizewski & CC3D, a local architectural rendering firm. Using all of Philadelphia's approved proposals, including Mandeville Place, CC3D takes liberties with Comcast's proposed CITC (or perhaps the American Commerce Center), replacing it with a much more iconic city's tallest.

Clem Cizewski & CC3D

Despite my love affair with skyscrapers, one thing I never liked about Comcast Center is how it took some of the drama from Philadelphia's skyline by surpassing Liberty Place with a boring glass box. It's hard to say if Foster's new CITC spire will bring any of that excitment back to the panoramic views of the city.

If CC3D's skyline looks a litte New Yorky, keep in mind that the Freedom Tower looks a little familiar itself.

Comcast vs American Commerce Center

Curbed posed a fun question to its readers on Tuesday: "Which Skyscraper Proposed for 18th & Arch is Better For Philly?"

It's a fun conversation starter for architecture nerds, particularly since those are likely the only who remember the proposed American Commerce Center. Liberty Property Trust did a fine job showing off Kohn Penderson Fox's American Commerce Center to the city, but it was always just a building with a theoretical For Rent sign on it. Comcast's Innovation & Technology Center isn't just a building. If it's built, it comes with its own jobs and businesses. 

The answer is obvious: the building most likely to succeed.

American Commerce Center - Kohn Penderson Fox

Architecturally, American Commerce Center complemented the city's existing architecture. It was tall, but it wasn't bold. That's good, but it's not great.

The CITC is new, at least for Philadelphia's skyline. Foster combines his early industrial towers with his newer glass curtains, giving our city something you'd expect to see in London or Hong Kong. The CITC doesn't blend and that's bound to stir up controversy, but breaking convention challenges the status quo, and Philadelphians are no stranger to a rut.

Comcast Innovation & Technology Center - Norman Robert Foster

 

What's more interesting about the comparison between the ACC and the CITC isn't their designs, or even the likelihood that either would be built, but the city's overall reaction. Despite the fact that the ACC had a slim chance of being erected, it endured a storm of public protest from neighbors.

The CITC seems to have been approved before it left the drafting table. There is no neighboring outcry about shadows. Comcast doesn't even seem interested in releasing varying designs, whereas their original tower was redesigned at least ten times before being finalized.

It's curious how Comcast managed to evade the city's routine community intervention, neighborhood organizations that demand a lot more from much smaller projects. Comcast seems confident that construction of this building, and only this building, will begin this summer. Surprisingly, it seems like Comcast might be right.

Entitled Skyline

When someone moves to a city, particularly one of the biggest cities in the country, it comes with its demons. A city is a community, not just a community of people but a community of buildings, and with that community comes compromise. Accepting that compromise can drive new ideas leading to a beautifully dynamic skyline.

The problem with Philadelphia's communities, particularly those led by the more vocally oppressive community organizations, is that they primarily focus on protesting development without attempting to seek alternatives. These nagging naysayers are a nuisance to their own neighborhoods all over the city, and over the last decade their wild influence is most visible in its detriment to our potential skyline.

The city caused an uproar when it announced the new Family Court building would be taller than originally planned, yet it still won't be as tall at the Metropolitan apartment building directly across the street.

In many cities, community organizations, or NIMBYs, represent the plight of the little guy. But for some reason in Philadelphia, the little guy has managed to bully big business and developers out of town time and time again.

It's reasonable for residents of our West Philadelphia and South Philadelphia neighborhoods to be leery of high rises and Starbucks, particularly when they find their way into smaller communities. But what of Center City? Spot zoning runs rampant all over our urban core, and it's an illogical mind f*** that few developers bother to question.

I'd go as far as suggesting that this unfair process is - at least in part - responsible for our NIMBYs' mind boggling influence over big business and development. A precedent has been repeatedly set for hypocritical condo and property owners to complain about shadows and obstructed views.

Condo owners at the Kennedy House argued that an adjacent high rise would cast shadows and block views, yet this high rise cast shadows over and obstructed the views of its Logan Square neighbors when it was built.

Were visibility rights granted to the developers who built the Metropolitan in the 1920s? Given the reaction to the new Family Court building at 15th and Arch, one would think so. But there's no such thing. And for condo owners to complain about their views being potentially obstructed by a neighboring high rise proposal is entirely unjust when the residents of the Kennedy House live in a high rise of their own, one that obstructed views and cast shadows when it was built.

In the end, what is worse for our overall communities? Vacant lots or shadows? More importantly, in a community - of both people and buildings - how much influence should residents and rival developers have over adjacent development on property that they don't own? In capitalistic theory, little to none.

Whether I'm building a bar or a skyscraper, I can't rationally argue against someone building the same thing right across the street. But that's the problem with Philadelphia, and more specifically our unique system of spot zoning. It allows developers and property owners to muscle out the competition without being required to offer the razzle dazzle that a competitive environment is intended to produce. Spot zoning allows development to occur on a case by case basis, and it unfairly grants rights to developers who should instead be given an equal playing field to foster progress and growth.

Can We Get a Pulse?

A quick look at some great contributions to the Philadelphia skyline that may or may not make it.

Richard Meier's Mandeville Place at 2401 Walnut Street is dead in the water following the real estate crash. Out of all the residential developments proposed, this arguably would have been the most glowing addition to Philadelphia's architectural portfolio.

Agoos/Lovera Architects' Bridgeman's View would have added height adjacent to a neighborhood that a Northern Liberties NIMBY may not have wanted, but got stuck with it anyway in the form of five lesser towers with Waterfront Square. This could have been the catalyst to create a new city on the Delaware but died off with the real estate crash, leaving the north end of Penn's Landing with a cluster of five isolated high rises and the coming of Sugarhouse Casino.

H2L2's Stamper Square, a tasteful and scaled addition to Society Hill, replacing the hole in the ground formerly occupied by the NewCity shopping mall, was staved off by bitter residents long enough for it to be completely killed by the bubble burst, leaving residents with...a hole in the ground.

The Boyd Theater restoration and ARCWheeler's addition of a Kimpton Hotel isn't quite dead...yet...but hasn't seemed to evolve beyond this sketch.

The parking garage at Brandywine Realty Trust's Cira Center South is moving along. According to Penn, this project is going forward. Cira Centre South would significantly change our skyline shifting our eyes upward west of the Schuylkill and creating what I would like to name Crystal City had it not already been taken by an underwhelming suburb of Washington, DC.

A name like Intercontinental might be a slim possibility during this particular financial situation. One can still hope this Brennan Beer Gorman design someday rises above the Vine Street Expressway.

The same could be said for Cope Linder's Waldorf Astoria at 15th and Chestnut, rivaling the neighboring Residences at the Ritz in height, style, and opulance.

Winka Dubbeldam's obscurely fascinating Unknot Tower (GMH Hotels) at 12th and Chestnut would make a truley unique and risky addition to Philadelphia, unmatched since the days when our archiscape was Frank Furness's playground.

Of course, Philadelphia's attempt to play with the big boys, rising above anything currently standing in Manhattan and rivaling Chicago's biggest, Kohn Peterson Fox's American Commerce Center is still the dream of many. Battled by biddies in neighboring residences, the ACC has weathered much of its criticism by simply being tall. Like many of our tallest, it's not necessarily great architecture but from the ground, simetimes height is all a building needs to inspire awe.