Is Center City our Region's Corporate Hub?

Center City Philadelphia is the architectural and transportation hub of a metropolitan region of more than six million people. Looking at West Market Street, University City, and our rapidly changing skyline, it's easy to assume that - like many cities with a thriving downtown - Center City is also the region's business hub. 

But scattered throughout the suburbs, in King of Prussia, Plymouth Meeting, and along Swedesford Road, are hundreds of unassuming office parks that dominate the region's corporate business market. 

"Philadelphia"

Comcast was smart to take advantage of Center City's centralized location, and with any hope, other tech companies will follow suit. It enables corporations a true cross section of the entire metropolitan area's talent pool. While many in South Jersey may be reluctant to search for jobs in suburbs west of the Delaware River and vice versa, all trains and highways point downtown. 

With construction on a second downtown skyscraper, Comcast has perhaps been thriving from the benefits of a Center City headquarters. Benefitting more than just its local employees, its location also allows business partners from D.C., New York, and Boston easy access to 30th Street Station, and a lively city to embrace when they arrive.

But Comcast may also be banking on the hope that Philadelphia will recognize what companies as successful as Comcast already know: that job candidates take a location under serious consideration.

The "other" Philadelphia

Center City may offer easy access, better restaurants, and a broader range of talent, but it also comes with financial constraints. Job candidates don't just consider commute time and where they'll lunch, they also consider the wage tax. And in Philadelphia, the wage tax is a big consideration. Not only does the city charge commuters an additional 3.7% tax on their income, it charges those who choose to live here almost 4%. 

Companies are in the business of making and saving money. Better employees equal higher profits. While many businesses would spend more money for a location that could easily cater to savvy resources, and more of them, Philadelphia is essentially telling our region's corporate powerhouses to keep their suburban office parks.

At best, the city seems to assume that location is enough. Like a worn billboard from 1999 that reads "if you lived here you'd be home by now," City Hall doesn't seem to understand that business needs are far more dynamic than a catchphrase. 

It's shortsighted and simplistically indicative of the city's decision makers. And with the city's residential base growing and becoming more affluent, Center City runs the risk of becoming a bedroom community for our sprawling suburbs, one synonymous with pricy condos, tax exempt hospitals and universities, and a few token companies asking for tax breaks to stay put.

Of course that isn't unique to Philadelphia. From Seattle to San Francisco to Washington, D.C., American cities are no stranger to suburban islands of e-commerce and technology companies that offer their central cities little more than high rent and new restaurants. 

What is unique to Philadelphia is that it hasn't happened yet. We don't have a Silicone Valley, a Reston or a Redmond, a quasi-independent city born from aging bureaucracy, corruption, and tax burdens. Our largest technology company has embraced Center City, and if the city is willing to embrace what that actually means, Philadelphia could be in a position to offer corporations a rare opportunity that few cities have: a level playing field financially on par with the suburbs, but logistically and geographically unmatched. 

The Bright Side of the Pennsylvania Convention Center

After two unions failed to meet a deadlined agreement with the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the massive exhibition space covering three full city blocks may finally have the opportunity to reinvent itself. Given the damage already done by more than two decades of costly union headaches, it will take time for the facility to recover from the reputation it's developed. 

But beneath that sullied reputation, complaints that would make Comcast blush, and the politics that plague its administration, stands a building that's hard to ignore but easy to forget. One that, perhaps aside from much of its architecture, really is great. Sure, scissor lifts and cranes loom over Race Street, lined with parking garages and windowless brick. Chinatown's 11th Street greets pedestrians with vacant store fronts too costly and shallow to find tenants. Even Arch Street, although the center's most used facade, is lined with three blocks of dated monotony. 

However, some buildings can be above architecture, but only if they manage to serve their intended purpose and serve it well. And the Pennsylvania Convention Center could be one of those places.

I was talking with a friend of mine who attended a volleyball convention in Philadelphia a few years ago. Not the biggest of conventions by any means, this year it was held in Washington, D.C. The reasons for moving it to D.C. are obvious and gripes about the Pennsylvania Convention Center have been discussed ad nauseam here, in the media, and message boards.

What was much more surprising was the praise that the Pennsylvania Convention Center received despite its cost. After a few minutes of sharing the usual complaints about its unions, our conversation segued to the uniqueness of the facility, namely its location. It truly is as good as it gets.

D.C.'s Walter E. Washington Convention Center is located across from Mount Vernon Square near the newly gentrified Shaw neighborhood. It's surrounded by the suburban creature comforts we may soon find on Market East, within walking distance of hotels and the National Mall, but it's not near the heart of Washington D.C. which largely lies in its unique series of independent neighborhoods. What's worse, Dulles International Airport is not supported by Metro Rail requiring an expensive and often lengthy cab ride. 

This isn't unique to Washington, D.C. The Los Angeles Convention Center is located downtown, a moniker attributed solely to the city's skyline. Even closer to home, Pittsburgh's  David L. Lawrence Convention Center may run circles around Philadelphia's center both architecturally and environmentally, but it's removed from the city's heart, located on the Allegheny River downtown where life ceases at five on Friday.

The Pennsylvania Convention Center's uniqueness is largely due to the uniqueness of Center City itself. I've often said that the center should have been placed in the demolished Convention Hall and Civic Center west of the Schuylkill River, removed from the heart of Philadelphia "where conventioneers belong."

But its presence at Broad and Arch may be exactly where such a venue belongs. SEPTA carries conventioneers directly to its door from Philadelphia International Airport and 30th Street Station. The Philadelphia Marriott is connected to the center. It's two blocks from City Hall, Midtown Village, and Chinatown, and a short stroll to the Liberty Bell and Independence Mall. 

Soon, East Market and a revitalized Gallery at Market East will offer conventioneers those creature comforts they're accustomed to in their bedroom communities. And unlike those convention spaces isolated on corporate islands, in cities that compartmentalize everything from activities to lifestyles, Philadelphia's Center City offers guests the same activities, lifestyles, shopping, and entertainment conveniently situated in the short space between Vine Street and South Street. 

We don't call Center City the "city center" for a reason. It's not a neighborhood. It truly is a Center City, a city within a city at the Pennsylvania Convention Center's doorsteps. If the center's administrators can maximize their freedom from the confines of the Carpenters and Teamsters and recognize the space's unique location, the Pennsylvania Convention Center may finally be what many had dreamed it would be.

Discover Downtown Philadelphia

As a transplanted Philadelphian, I have a hard time uttering "Pashyunk" or "worter ice," and I expect crab on my Crab Fries. However, I try my best to call the Loft District, "Callowhill," and am pretty sure that Center City is between Vine and South, not Spring Garden and Washington.

One particular outsider expression I have managed to break myself of, one that seems to annoy natives of any neighborhood, is referring to Center City as "Downtown Philadelphia."

But where is Philadelphia's "downtown?" Every city has one. And while Center City's compact boundaries do encompass our city's central business, residential, and retail corridors, Center City is not necessarily synonymous with "downtown."

Center City can often be as diverse as the city itself. With Chinatown, the Gayborhood, Society Hill, Market East, Rittenhouse, and Old City, Center City tends to look less like a traditional downtown like those clearly defined in New York or Los Angeles and more demographically and economically like the entirety of a city.

The truth is, there is a very real, specific "Downtown Philadelphia." When you pass by the city on 95 or 76, or view it from Camden or University City, Philadelphia's downtown neighborhood is its most visible, yet once you get to the city, it's the last place you'd visit.

West of City Hall, roughly north of Chestnut and below Logan Square's quaint Colonial relics lie our cities most towering feats of modern engineering. Downtown Philadelphia is what makes our city look like a city, yet we never really bothered to give it a name.

Some call it West Market, which is more indicative of the street itself, while others refer to JFK Boulevard as Logan Square. However JFK's towering skyscrapers and apartment blocks conjure up images of Midtown Manhattan more than Logan Square's Swan Memorial Fountain and Franklin Institute.

In fact, according to Wikipedia the area around 18th and JFK is known as Philadelphia's "French Quarter." Did you know we had a French Quarter?  

If you're like most Philadelphians, you probably don't spend much time under our city's skyscrapers. Next time you're downtown, look up. Day or night, you'll find something to do.

Chima's Brazilian Steakhouse is an exercise in gluttony that would make a Montana beef farmer blush. Bet on a horse at the Turf Club. If you have a "society" friend, check out the view from the Pyramid Club. Catch a game at Commerce Square's massive outdoor television. Check out the Art Deco interior of Suburban Station. Grab a cocktail with a view at R2L. Or simply grab your camera and spend an afternoon or evening gawking upward like a tourist in your own town. Downtown Philadelphia is a remarkable place.

Happy Monday

Center City from the Philadelphia Museum of Art - Saturday Evening, November, 6th.