The Starchitect Sell-out

With Foster + Partner's Comcast Technology Center taking shape and Frank Gehry futzing around the Museum of Art, it's time to take a look at the way some of the world's most revered architects interact with Philadelphia when invited. For all our progress and growth over the last two decades, Philadelphia's reputation still sulks in the shadows of New York City's size and Washington, D.C.'s power, and it's evident in the quality of design world class architects bring to the drafting table when they're employed here. 

Frank Gehry's largest ambition for the Philadelphia Museum of Art - carving out the center of its Great Steps - has been nothing short of contentious. The stuffiest in the museum's art community have long wanted to rid the Great Steps of the droves of tourists who commemorate Rocky Balboa's many fictional runs, while fans of the many movies cite the tourism it drives and respect for the cinematic work of art that brings them there. But as architecture, surprisingly few mention the historic nature of the Great Steps themselves and what a precedent it sets to allow a modern architect to upset and reconfigure the work of the renowned and local architect, Horace Trumbauer. 

This speaks twofold. With Philadelphia's preservation crisis in full bloom and its task force already proven ineffectual not one year in the making, one of the nation's most historic cities doesn't seem to have a firm grasp on what's historic and how to protect it. Meanwhile, City Hall and those in charge of managing storied institutions like the Philadelphia Museum of Art are resigned to the notion that any movement is progress. To the powers that be, the fact that Frank Gehry is willing to work in Philadelphia, even with his astronomical tab, is a gift that we clearly don't think we deserve. 

Nearby cities aren't to solely blame for our reputation, unless you consider how we Philadelphians react to them. It's primarily on us, and the ingrained inferiority complex we can't seem to shake. Gehry has worked around the world in cities of varying size and prowess. Most of us have seen a few major American cities in our lifetimes, and I'd wager anyone who's traveled west would be willing to point out that there's nothing inherently better about downtown Los Angeles or Seattle. Quite the contrary. These are sprawling cities buried in cars with terrible public transportation. Yet in both, Frank Gehry delivered urban panache without damaging any historic institutions like the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

This inferiority is even more striking in Foster + Partner's Comcast Technology Center. Comcast isn't a company known for innovation (perhaps that's why the word was removed from the skyscraper's name), but it's one of the largest hometown companies and currently dominates the city's skyline. Yet its newest addition is dull at best, especially considering what the company that owns 30 Rockefeller Center should be capable of producing. 

To be fair, I suppose, the Comcast Technology Center isn't bad. It wouldn't look out of place in more architecturally savvy cities like London or Frankfurt. But compared to what's being built by companies of Comcast's stature around the world, it's far from unique, even among those designed by Norman Foster's firm. 

Its greatest offense is its relationship with the skyline. Technically the tallest, it doesn't relate at all with its surroundings. Its spire or "smokestack" pulls away from Center City instead of rising within it. It spans nearly the width of its block, uncharacteristic of Philadelphia's other skyscrapers occupying no more than a quarter of their block's footprint. These are likely logistical decisions given the building's entrance, but ones that demonstrate Foster + Partner's lack of consideration for their environment. 

Foster + Partner's job was to design a work of art that dynamically belongs in a gallery of its peers. Instead, he essentially hired Lady Gaga to sing in the Natural History Museum. It doesn't work...for anyone. 

And that says nothing of the materials. I guess we have the automotive industry to blame for our now-inability to distinguish between plastic and chrome. 

It's fine as a stand-alone skyscraper (even if it looks like a cubist vacuum cleaner), but it reads more geographically like a canned response to Comcast's business solicitation. A big company wanted a big name, little more. If anyone knows the masses will ignore the status quo when its forced upon them, it's Big Cable. And that's what its second tower is. 

Given its similarity to Foster's other skyscrapers and comparatively dated appearance, it wouldn't be surprising if it was a design study or an unused project Foster + Partners had lying around to divvy out to whatever nameless city "wanted a Foster." And that's a shame, because Philadelphia has numerous firms of our own doing even wilder things, if not on the same scale. Hometown companies and institutions like Comcast and the Philadelphia Museum of Art shouldn't be reaching around the globe for architects with no personal interest in our own city, but giving more motivated, and sometimes more astounding, firms a boost towards their potential. 

Imagine what Erdy-McHenry or Qb3 could have with the Comcast Technology Center. Instead of building something that looks like it could blend in Manhattan, Comcast could have given a local partner the opportunity to offer other cities like New York and San Francisco something they themselves don't yet have. That's the exact mentality that drove Philadelphia's 19th Century banks to offer the world the designs of America's first Starchitects: Frank Furness, Willis G. Hale, and Wilson Eyre. 

Since the last building boom, developers - even massive investors - have been trebidatious about dabbling in more than the status quo. We're no longer getting proposals for towers designed by Winka Dubbeldam and Richard Meier, even wacky mid-rises brought to us by the defunct CREI. Couple our nefarious inferiority complex with transplants from the cities that generate such a complex, those who view Center City as little more than a bedroom community, and we seem to continue to demand less and less of our city builders every day. 

Just south of Cesar Pelli's Cira Centre, which will undoubtedly be immortalized in future architecture history books, FMC's Cira Centre South was erected as the tallest building in West Philadelphia with very little fanfare, despite being categorically better than anything currently taking shape across the river. Pelli, a Starchitect in his own right, continues to evolve, as any artist should.

But today, the world's most famous architects, Norman Foster and Frank Gehry have built upon a reputation for doing really great work, and then capitalized on companies and cities that are willing to pay for little more than their name. They're sellouts, blueprint mills. Both have done amazing things in the past, and done their parts to redefine modern architecture. But there's no reason every new building they touch - even in Philadelphia - shouldn't be even more amazing than the last. 

Amazon's Poaching Comcast's Talent

Philadelphians have a love-hate relationship with Comcast. Like most cable customers, we depend on our service as we do any utility. Whether it's our cell phone service, cable internet, or our electricity, when it does down, we bitch. It's the end of the world. 

But we're also obligated to love our homegrown Comcast because our economy relies on it. Frustrating as it may be at times, we want them to win. 

A lot has been said about Comcast's intentions for its new Comcast Innovation and Technology Center, its vertical information and technology campus allegedly intended to give a few behemoths in the Silicon Valley a run for their money. 

But despite speculation in the Wired-centric blogosphere, Comcast itself has been relatively quiet about its intentions. How does a telecom giant intend to enter the IT market? 

For now, no one seems to know. But it wouldn't be unheard-of for a massive company to expand into new markets. Google is branching out into Comcast's territory with Google Fiber, and is even tiptoeing into the automotive industry with its conceptual driverless car. 

But software companies are a bit of an anomaly in the world of Wall Street. Companies like Google, Apple, even Microsoft and IBM, don't exclusively think in terms of immediate profit. Companies reared from a geek mentality invest heavily in conceptual research and development never intended to go anywhere.

They take risks, sometimes misguided. Google was banking on Glass being more than a joke. While it's a groundbreaking piece of technology, they underestimated the vanity of a world beyond the Silicon Valley, one in which wearable technology simply can't be fashionable.

Apple took similar risks with its Watch. Although more successful than Google Glass, and seemingly more thought out, it appears to be finding a niche market nowhere near as robust as its iPhones and iPads. 

What is unheard-of in Comcast's realm - and thus Philadelphia's - is that a profit-driven corporate entity unversed in conceptual technologies - even geek-speak- is trying to nudge its way into that world. 

As it stands, Comcast's relationship with NBC-Universal is only vaguely integrated. NBC-Universal is a Comcast brand in stock-only, yet almost entirely autonomous. Comcast is parading NBC-Universal around in much the same way that AOL touted its TimeWarner acquisition. But in both case, a Wall Street alfa is touting a household brand to prove its worth. 

While NBC-Universal can't divorce itself in the same way that TimeWarner split from AOL, if Comcast flounders in the face if new technology, NBC-Universal will prove itself the alfa of the pair. 

For now, Comcast has proven that it can compete with innovative streaming companies on a very high level. Xfinity Stream was recently released as either a rival or companion to numerous streaming content providers. 

Whether this says anything about Comcast's abilities as an innovator, it at least shows that it recognizes an immediate market for those who've opted out of cable. 

But technology can change in the blink of an eye. And whether its mobile content provision of something we haven't seen yet, something else will come along. If Comcast doesn't get out in front of that, or innovate that technology themselves, they're reduced to being what they are with Xfinity Stream: a follower.

Whatever Comcast has in store, whether it has a plan for the IT market or it's still researching its options, others have taken note. And they've taken note from a prominent place: Seattle. Synonymous with technology and the ability to offer absolutely everything with the click of a button, Amazon will be at the Loews Hotel in Philadelphia for a three day event specifically designed to poach Comcast's tech-talent. 

If you ever thought Comcast wasn't paying attention, they'll be there doing exactly the same thing. 

If you think it's a bad sign for Philadelphia's information technology market, don't. In fact, it's just the opposite. In the past year, Tesla has been poaching Apple's talent. Why? Because Tesla is innovative, and wants a piece of Apple's equally innovative talent pool.

The fact that Amazon is targeting Comcast's talent - likely because they're both streaming content - says a lot about Comcast's relevance in the streaming content marketplace. Amazon Prime has grown in popularity on par with Netflix and Hulu. In fact, it's the third best way to watch television without a cable provider. Amazon - a tech savvy West Coast company - wouldn't be targeting Comcast if Philadelphia wasn't a threat. 

What Comcast decides to do with this unofficial clout remains to be seen. But Amazon's career fair at the Loews Hotel will relay a message back to the West Coast that the job market is shifting, and that there are geeks Back East that mean business. 

30 Rock Rebranded

NBC's hit TV show, 30 Rock, called it years ago with a tongue in cheek joke, "how can a company from Philadelphia buy a company from New York? That would be like Vietnam defeating the United States in a ground war." 

Well, that happened, and today, 30 Rock's satirical joke became a reality set in stone (or LED lights). Manhattan's 30 Rockefeller Center has been officially branded the Comcast Building. 

It's really not that big of a deal. For decades, GE's neon signage has topped the building, even though many referred to it as the RCA building. Basically, it's had a a few notable tenants, but New Yorkers have still historically dubbed it "30 Rock." And that probably won't change. 

What is notable, at least for Philadelphia, is that one of our local powerhouses, perhaps the most powerful, will have a prominent place in the Manhattan skyline. So, you know, good for us. 

Philadelphia's Own Ralph Roberts

Say what you will about Comcast, with the passing of its founder, Philadelphia has lost a legend. At 95, Ralph Roberts was Philadelphia's Steve Jobs. Raised in Germantown, educated at Wharton, and stationed at the Navy Yard during World War II, Roberts' presence in Philadelphia wasn't incidental.

PhillyMag.com

Philadelphia was Roberts' home, and throughout the decades a major source of his philanthropy. But between all of his contributions to his city, none amount to his decision to keep Comcast headquartered in Center City. Comcast Center didn't just redefine our skyline, it redefined our city. Prior to its dominant presence, Center City Philadelphia wasn't a national name. Despite our humble collection of skyscrapers, few outside the tristate area really knew what Philadelphia was "about." Center City - our downtown - was a collection of office buildings promptly closing their doors at five on Friday. To those who worked in Old City or King of Prussia or Cherry Hill, Center City was essentially a vertically elevated, nondescript office park. 

Comcast Center changed that. With an arm reaching coast to coast and everywhere in between, 17th and JFK is full of the hustle and bustle synonymous with Midtown Manhattan. Harried consultants from Dallas and Chicago and Portland rush from full hotels, wheeled suitcases in hand, to play their part in the Philadelphia rat-race while New Yorkers flood Acela trains south to do the same. Many of them are relocating here, growing our population and changing our city.

Ralph Roberts' investment in Center City irreversibly changed our city, and for so much of the good press we've received in the past years, we have Comcast to thank. 

But does Roberts' passing signal a new era for the cable giant, one that has grown into a multimedia conglomerate with the transparent aspiration of being a power player in the information technologies game? With Ralph Roberts, Jr. still at the helm, Comcast remains a family owned company. 

This new era has seemingly been in the works for years. Ever since acquiring NBC-Universal and donning the Comcast logo with NBC's rainbow peacock, Comcast has been more than just a cable company. While the conglomerate has yet to fully integrate its parts, its ambition is evident. 

The Comcast Innovation and Technology Center promises to inject Comcast into the technologies arena. But to date, its mission is unclear. Will Comcast be bridging the gap between Philadelphia and the Silicone Valley? Will the Innovation and Technology Center be a vertical lab for software and hardware geeks to toil away on endlessly funded R&D? Will the driverless car come from 18th and Arch? Or will Comcast stick to its rigid profit-first analytical stance that resists the urge to invest in anything that can't be bundled into a sale? Will the Innovation and Technology Center simply innovate improvements and copies of the real tech coming off the west coast? 

As a geek, I hope for the former. But the latter will still be a boon for an already booming Center City. Still, to imagine Comcast bringing innovation back to the east coast, back to the Workshop of the World where American innovation began, fills me with binary-coded glee. And why shouldn't they take the risk? Unlike thriving startups throughout the Bay Area and the Cascade Valley, Comcast has more money than they know what to do with. They have the cash to do more than reinvent Netflix or offer us home security. 

They could be investing in truly effective mobile cable or wireless power. As effective and powerful as Comcast currently is, they successfully follow while they could be boldly leading us into the unknown. The Silicone Valley may be known for laptops, smartphones, and software, but their research has grown far beyond our screens and into artificial intelligence, bioengineering, and is redefining the once un-redefinable: the American auto industry. 

In Comcast's new era, the company that wants to fancy itself on par with Google should be looking at what Google is doing behind the scenes, and it should be grabbing a piece of that and taking it a step further. Comcast has plenty of well groomed suits to bring in heaps of profits, but that means nothing to a future that won't need cable internet. It's time to start spending money on the hoodie wearing nerds who are building our future from suburban San Francisco and Seattle, and bringing them to Center City.

Charter Cable to Buy TimeWarner

When Comcast shelved its attempted merger with TimeWarner Cable, it would have been reckless to assume it was over. These companies swap namesakes so often it's difficult to remember who owns who.  

It didn't take long for one of the internet's earliest powerhouses, and a familiar badge in the TimeWarner lexicon, to make similar headlines. A couple weeks after Comcast's announcement, Verizon announced it would be purchasing AOL for more than $4B.

AOL, once "so easy to use" it was #1, failed to recognize the importance of its broadband internet provision and continued to invest in its interface, unique hardware, and proprietary access. They were the Rolls Royce of internet access right up to the time that were shopping for a Prius. When everyone went to cable, AOL fell on its face.

But over the last few years, AOL has been reinventing itself. Focusing on the advertisement industry and live mobile streaming, AOL has proven itself a unique entity once again. Couple that with Verizon's own mobile division, and the inevitable leap to competitive mobile data, the pairing makes sense. 

What doesn't make sense is Big Cable's continued commitment to solely delivering content via hardwire. Just as AOL ignored the impending leap to cable, fiber, and broadband, Big Cable is ignoring the next great leap to mobile wifi. It's shortsighted to look at the big screen in the family living room and assume there will always be a market for paid cable. There are kids in the basement watching CollegeHumor and YouTube on their T-Mobile data plans, kids that will continue to get their content from tablets when they go to college in lieu of purchasing their own cable bundles through the dorm.

AOL fixated on the large PC in the family study, ignoring the rapid growth of cable internet provisions and the then-emerging smartphones, and they learned their lesson the hard way. 

Big Cable seems bent on learning the same hard lessons. Today it was announced that Charter Cable will be purchasing TimeWarner Cable for $55B, an excess of more than $10B what Comcast was prepared to spend on a merger. Given Verizon's move to buy uniquely mobile content with AOL; Comcast, TimeWarner, and Charter seem committed to a Goliath complex, finding their fight through consolidation rather than innovation or unique and timely acquisitions.

For Philadelphia, Comcast still reigns supreme as the nation's largest cable provider. But as AOL once proved, telecommunications is not a stable and finite utility like electricity and water. Technologies evolve, and a telecom company's commitment to customers and current technology needs to be consistently paired with the inevitable emergence of new technologies, as well as customers' thirst for more and their ability to find it with or without a cable box.

Comcast, the CITC, and its place in Information Technology

In all the excitement surrounding Comcast's Innovation and Technology Center, it's easy to gloss over Comcast's original Center and regard it as old news. But the CITC's development, and what it means for Philadelphia, is more than just one tall tower that will outrank the likes of Atlanta and Los Angeles, it is also part of Comcast's sum total.

On its own, Comcast Center redefined Philadelphia's notion of Center City skyscrapers. With the exception of its northern neighbor, the Bell Atlantic or Verizon tower, Philadelphia's humble portfolio of true skyscrapers hug their sidewalks. On one block that could have easily housed Comcast's entire vertical campus, the cable giant decided to create a spectacle. Using a could-be footprint for another tower, Comcast opted for a grand plaza that breaks up the towering monotony of JFK Boulevard by creating a vantage point from which to admire Robert A. M. Stern's local masterpiece. 

In a lot of ways, the theory echoes Mies van der Rohe's Seagram Building in Midtown Manhattan. As height restrictions led New York developers to step their skyscrapers back from the sidewalk in an effort to maximize every square foot, Mies van der Rohe decided to make a statement by "wasting" land on a plaza and designing a completely vertical skyscraper. 

Likewise, Comcast's plaza makes its Center both humbling and intimidating, and in providing both, likely achieved the company's goal. It's easy to wonder why the CITC isn't a bit taller. Why is the roof shorter than Comcast Center? Why does the spire face west, and not the campus's core? They may seem irrelevant questions, but no one spends $1B on a building without analyzing every last detail.

Were the CITC taller, if its spire faced Comcast's plaza, its presence might overpower Comcast's corporate headquarters. Despite its academic rank as Pennsylvania's tallest building, the CITC is still second to Comcast Center and its plaza. 

As the sum total stands, Comcast's vertical campus will be Philadelphia's best planned corporate park, at least in the West Market vicinity. With the exception of Independence Hall, the University of Pennsylvania's historic core, and a handful of other 18th and 19th Century projects, Comcast has set a new bar for future development. 

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However, what works aesthetically may not prove so practical, and it all hinges on Comcast's true plan for the CITC. As it is, Comcast is a telecom corporation, with only a very new and relatively small investment in information technology. IT companies throughout the Silicone Valley, the Cascade Valley, and the Dulles Corridor are comprised of sprawling campuses that look like high-tech universities. 

While many of these corporations decided to set up shop in the suburbs for financial reasons, the reasons they've stayed are logistic. It's not as though Apple, Microsoft, and Intel can't afford to build their own vertical campuses in San Francisco, Seattle, or Portland, it's that they don't want to. And for good reason. 

Apple's upcoming Concordia campus

Comcast, despite its apparent desire to delve into IT, is still every bit as corporate as JP Morgan. Although Big Software plays the corporate game on the same trading room floor, their philosophy, operations, and corporate demographics are at odds with Comcast's 52 year old model.

The free spirited software geeks tethered to their iPads and laptops aren't tethered to their cubicles. IT's endless string of meetings is less the end result of corporate bureaucracy, but a place for collaboration and productive innovation. The IT campus is very much a hive, not a hierarchy of elevator banks that reserve the uppermost floors for a select few. 

It will be interesting to see not only how Comcast fares in the unfamiliar world of information technology, but also how its vertical campus manages to support it. If it works, the CITC and Philadelphia will change the industry's game, proving that software and innovation can accommodate fixie saddled Millennials unwilling to commute or relocate to the Silicone Valley or King of Prussia. But Comcast's foray into innovation needs to be more than a building, a concept, and a vertical theory. First and foremost it needs to understand innovation, why software empires succeed, and why so many more come and go overnight. 

Information Technology is not an industry that survives on the status quo. It is the modern and global embodiment of the first 40 years of the automotive industry. It's a technological revolution that refuses to peak. Profitable Big Software doesn't succeed through mergers and acquisitions, those are simply the end results of successes and failures. Comcast can't buy its way into Information Technology, rather it needs to understand that companies like Apple and Google thrive by way of true innovation and a market that continues to crave the next best thing. 

Comcast, AOL, and the Future

A month ago, the Comcast-TimeWarner merger dominated the news. People screamed, "Monopoloy!" without really knowing what that meant. They jeered "Conflict of interest!" while ignoring Comcast's prior merger with NBC Universal, and the merger between NBC and Universal that preceded it. 

After walking away from the merger, Comcast quickly refocused. Responding to customer service complaints that have become a national spectacle, Comcast responded by telling the city they know how much we hate them.

That's a smart move, albeit reactionary and not immediately profitable. 

Comcast's Innovation and Technology Center

But one question remains, why did Comcast want TimeWarner in the first place? Why would a company that claims to want to get into new technology want more cable? Were they banking on the assumption that more customers meant more money? Did they want TimeWarner's content?

As moot as the point may be now, the potentially disastrous outcome of such a massive merger may have been the reason the FCC decided to sidestep the decision and send it to a hearing. Perhaps the FCC didn't want another economic collapse heaped on its shoulders, and that's exactly what would have happened if Big Cable fell. 

Comcast and TimeWarner were beasts, both with their own bureaucratic burdens and customer service nightmares. Seamless integration would have been a Herculean feat, one that would have taken years. Even the prospect of a moderately successful integration seemed questionable.

AOL learned about TimeWarner's dated telecom mentality the hard way, and look what happened to them. Once 2000's answer to what Google is still trying to accomplish today, AOL spent $160B on TimeWarner in 2001. That's four times what Comcast was prepared to spend on the same company fourteen years later. 

While you may be temped to say it was AOL's brazen disregard for money that led to their fall, don't underestimate the power of digital media. AOL had the money, but they lost it by diving headfirst into an industry they knew nothing about. In their blind ambition to grow, they lost focus, cockily assuming they could figure it out along the way.

But today something peculiar happened. Although it may not sound as exciting as the Comcast-TimeWarner merger, it asks a lot of the questions those in the industry have been wondering for a while now. Namely: What's next?

Today, Verizon announced that it will be purchasing AOL for $4.4B. While many consumers may have written off AOL, even wondering if they still exist, never suspend your disbelief in the world of technology. Technology companies are like comic book heroes and villains. Just when you think they're dead, they're resurrected, and in a few short pages they're ruling the world. Just ask Apple. 

AOL has shrunk substantially, yes, but they've managed to survive by investing smartly under the radar. They're probably one of the most undervalued technology companies solely because of their botched merger more than a decade ago. They own quite a bit of notable content like the Huffington Post, advertising technology, and a collection of profitable companies like MapQuest. 

AOL's CC2

They have a unique history, and perhaps more like IBM than Pets.com, they learned lessons taught from the Digital Revolution, the dot.com bubble, and surviving the Great Recession. 

In the early 2000s, AOL was developing new technology that would integrate its online content with content from its newly acquired network and cable providers. But they had it backwards. Assuming that users wanted TV first, and internet second, their conceptual products like AOL-TV brought the internet into your living room, not TV to your internet. Without smartphones in everyone's pockets, they focused on desktops and the big screen. And in a 1-2-3 punch: cable internet, Apple's iPhone, and streaming content rendered the world's greatest digital media provider a struggling legacy company.

Successful companies, like people, struggle through a period of perceived indestructibility, a corporate adolescence. Much more brutal than humanity, only a few survive with lessons learned in tact. And AOL is a survivor. 

What's interesting about Verizon's acquisition of AOL isn't just the content it will acquire, but Verizon and AOL's plan for that content. While Comcast and TimeWarner continue to plug away on cable and the living room TV screen, Verizon owns access to the small screen in your pocket, and AOL is jumping at the opportunity to be a part of that. 

AOL's content already has a reputation for working well on mobile devices, despite the fact that you might not know it comes from AOL. As more and more people continue to access their devices - smart phones, tablets, even laptops - from mobile connections, Verizon's AOL acquisition stands to be more than just a savvy business move, but the first step in the next way we access digital media.

While Comcast continues to claim it will fill its new Innovation and Technology Center with the kinds of minds that built Google, Microsoft, and even AOL, we have yet to know what they intend to innovate. Replicating successful industry innovations isn't what built the Silicon Valley, delivering innovations that consumers didn't yet know they wanted did. 

For the sake of Comcast, and Philadelphia's local economy, the telecom giant needs to recognize cable's numbered days. TimeWarner wasn't the answer, and the failed merger is the region's veiled blessing. Change is coming in how we access digital content, and if Comcast intends to compete in the future, it doesn't need to be looking at what's available, what Google and Apple are doing. If they want to be innovators, they need to be looking at what's next, and inventing it.

The Future Is Coming

This summer, Philadelphia will join Shanghai, Sao Paulo, and Paris as the only North American city to host Saint-Gobain's Future Sensations, a traveling exposition celebrating the materials company's 350 year anniversary. With five pavilions, one designed exclusively for Philadelphia, Future Sensations focuses on science, storytelling, and art.

That's gonna look pretty sexy on Eakins Oval (image from Uwishunu.com).

Saint-Gobain's North American headquarters are located in Philadelphia, so the city was an obvious choice. But don't confuse the tour with an event on par with a traveling convention. Saint-Gobain is impressive. With Philadelphia quickly becoming a technologies hub, this event becomes even more significant. Industry leaders will be visiting for the pavilions on Eakins Oval, but will linger to consider the city's place in the field, Comcast's sweeping influence, and other innovative companies that have opted for Philadelphia over the Silicone and Cascade Valleys. 

So, yeah, we're kind of a big deal right now.

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. 

Another Comcast Tower?

With initial plans to lease part of the Comcast Innovation and Technology Center to other businesses, Comcast has decided to keep the entire building to itself. Meanwhile, nearby, Liberty Property Trust has been purchasing and consolidating a neighboring block for what some are speculating may become a third Comcast tower.

It's not hard to imagine. The cable giant is a force, and if its merger with Time Warner goes through may necessitate more hometown office space. It also has the disposable cash to pull it off. As a major American powerhouse, Comcast could have easily set up shop in Manhattan, but they didn't chose Philadelphia solely for our pretzels. Land is affordable and talent is cheap, at least by comparison. 

A Comcast spokesperson told BizJournals it has no current plans to build a third tower, but similar comments were made during Comcast Center's construction.

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On a related note, check out Comcast's slideshow of the new CITC. Notice anything unusual in the first rendering? The Mellon Building and Liberty Place aren't hiding behind Comcast, they've been edited out. Oh, Comcast. 

Philadelphia, The New New York

You only need to read BuzzFeed once a month to know that comparing cities is futile. You can compare the populations, GDPs, and apparent attractiveness of cities, but any comparison is as relative as it is irrelevant. The only way to define a city is to experience its individuality. And the only thing that matters is a city's potential. 

Right now, deliberate or not, Philadelphia is doing everything right. And forgive my rosy glasses, but Philadelphia is poised to take over the Northeast.

"You're crazy, Wes."

Am I? While cities like Las Vegas, Miami, and Phoenix struggle to fill skyscrapers that never should have been built, Philadelphia continues to rise. The Big Three - New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago - continue to brazenly build, but they always have. Meanwhile, other cities that survived the Great Recession - Dallas, Portland, and Seattle - have plateaued. 

The relaxed rules at the Pennsylvania Convention Center are already making headlines in the events planning industry and new hotels will undoubtedly follow. The center's downtown location has always been better than those in comparable cities like D.C. and Baltimore. Conventioneers love our center, the only thing they hated was the cost. That's over, and change is coming fast. 

New development along Market East is only going to make the center more desirable. Two decades after it opened, the center is about to become the game changer the state had always hoped.

But Philadelphia isn't only going to own the Northeast's exhibition industry. For decades Philadelphia has been disregarded as a failing city between the nation's political capitol and its financial capitol. Today, that's a huge asset. 

Companies don't need New York anymore. While New York may always be America's premier city and Philadelphia may not find eight million residents anytime soon, we're positioned to give New York - and other cities - a run for their money.

Comcast is about to adorn one of New York's most iconic buildings with a corporate logo synonymous with Philadelphia. That's huge. When Comcast purchased NBC Universal, 30 Rock's satirical character, Jack Donaghy said, "How could a company from Philadelphia buy a company from New York? That would be like Vietnam defeating the United States in a ground war."

Humor aside, satire is grounded in truth, and that's exactly what is happening. 

Comcast can afford Manhattan, but Comcast is building the communicative technology that proves companies leasing Manhattan office space are doing so solely for posterity. Most actors, artists, designers, and startups can't even afford Brooklyn, let alone Manhattan. And that long train ride to Queens gives them a lot of time to think about affordable apartments in more manageable cities. 

But those cities aren't just manageable, they provide a better quality of life. Manhattan has become an island for tourists and the rich. The Trumps of our world might not want to admit it, but good business thrives on the fresh ideas of economic diversity, the diversity that New York has priced out to the next best thing. 

Philadelphia is loving the leftovers. After all, a fresh pretzel still costs fifty cents here, so we have no problem dumpster diving for a fifty dollar Caesar salad. We have affordable talent, affordable apartments, and thanks to the fact that we lost the population of Atlanta in the 1900s, an endless supply of underutilized real estate. 

We can cheaply house New York refugees for another fifty years, and they're creating our own art, fashion, and theater industries rivaling those that New York once solely owned.

New York has no answers. Short of a complete economic collapse - which would be good for no one - New York will never find its way back to its roots. It can't afford to. New York's resources have been mined. Like Washington, D.C., it may soon be a one trick pony, an industry town known for Wall Street and legacy companies. The city sold its soul, but Philadelphia is what it was 238 years ago: an urban embodiment of individual ideas, revolution, and independence.

Manhattan has no where to go but down and Philadelphia is rising. In twenty years we will no longer be New York's scrappy little brother. If City Hall can get its act together and recognize our potential, we're primed to be the Big Apple's corporate and cultural equal. We're coming for you, New York.

House of Comcast

Philebrity was quick to point out the ripeness emanating from the latest pile of shit heaped on the internet from the House of Comcast. Netflix has entered into a multi-year agreement with the cable (now content) giant and "have established a more direct connection" between the content and the cable provider.

Can you smell that?

While Comcast is obviously trying to diffuse the controversy surrounding the death of Net Neutrality by appearing to play nice with its competitive content, this is exactly what the internet gatekeepers had hoped to accomplish by defeating Net Neutrality. The fair market is dead in the virtual world of the internet, and Comcast can now legally extort millions from its content competitors like Netflix. 

If this were truly a valiant effort on Comcast's part that was in any way intended to improve your viewing experience, Hulu would be included in this alleged improvement. But this is just a way for Comcast to grab a bit of your $7.99 Netflix bill, remember Comcast already owns 32% of Hulu.

Michael Nutter's Love Letter to Comcast

It's Valentine's Day and Mayor Michael Nutter celebrated by kissing the boots of those who apparently run City Hall. Gushing about Comcast's potential acquisition of TimeWarner Cable, Philebrity posted the mayor's entire letter here, so I'll just list the gems.

"This transaction will provide millions more consumers with increased content and viewing opportunities."

I don't know if you've been to Hulu Plus lately, but I noticed recently that you're now required to log into your cable television provider to watch a bulk of its premium content. I'm no lawyer, but there is something about requiring me to pay for content three times - subscribing to cable television, internet, and Hulu Plus - has to be illegal. It's not surprising that Comcast owns a large stake in Hulu, and that this restriction is applied to Comcast affiliated content owned through NBCUniversal. Acquiring TimeWarner will put the vast majority of television in Comcast's hands, requiring all of us who've cut the cable cord to pay for this triple-dip to watch anything online.

"They deserve our gratitude and the City’s appreciation for pushing this great corporate citizen farther into the areas of technology and communications..."

Now I know Nutter is a politician and not a software engineer, but what - aside from a creative knack for avoiding anti-trust suits - has Comcast actually innovated?

"I am enthusiastically supporting this acquisition as I believe this is the ultimate triple play – great for consumers, great for the company and great for our city."

How do you write a really loud kissing sound?

The View from the Death (of competition) Star

If the federal government agrees to the merger, Comcast will be buying TimeWarner Cable for $45 billion dollars, or roughly the GDP of Costa Rica. Prepare you Dr. Evil pinkie. If you were wondering how Comcast pushed it's proposed CITC through City Council unchecked, we have our answer. Perhaps now we can look forward to Comcast's next architectural contribution, a Death Star hovering above the Schuylkill.

Another Comcast Rant

So, what is up with the Comcast Innovation & Technology Center?

The question sounds absurd. I mean, this is Philadelphia. What Comcast says, happens, right? But it's Philadelphia, where three floors aren't erected without neighborhood meetings, protests, and a flyer in Philadelphia Magazine.

So yeah, what's up with that?

The American Commerce Center was proposed without a tenant or a plan, and despite the fact that it was obvious it would never happen, the naysayers came out like an army. How did Comcast push 1121 feet through City Council, NIMBYs, and red tape as old as Ben Franklin with no objection?

Was Comcast working behind the scenes with City Council? It seems unlikely that someone wouldn't have blabbed. With at least ten various renderings of Comcast Center circulating before a final one was approved, a 2014 groundbreaking seems unlikely for an even taller building.

Did Comcast just assume it owns the skyline, that this design would go forward with no resistance? Where are the shadow nuts?

Was Comcast working with Foster for the past year on this specific design? After all, if they expect to break ground in 2014, more than just a few renderings must be complete. That would have been a pricy risk to assume those final plans would be approved. And if they aren't finalized, we have to wonder about the quality of a 1000 foot skyscraper that takes the next six months to engineer.

Maybe this was one of Foster's shelved designs, or a cleaned up version of something that never happened. Did Foster recycle something?

Questions to ponder. However the answers to all are likely "Comcast."

The truth is Comcast virtually owns Philadelphia, City Council, and our skyline. Perhaps neighbors know a fight would be futile. Still, it's disheartening to watch residents come out against casinos and shadows with such furor, rally against local developers like Carl Dranoff and Toll Brothers, even protest corner bars and three story row homes a few feet too high, but when it comes to Comcast, concerned citizens bow to our overlord.

Meanwhile Comcast is preparing to bundle electricity with its cable and telephone packages and is attempting to purchase TimeWarner Cable, which aside from Verizon is its last paralleled competitor.

New jobs are great, but at what cost? How many industries does Comcast plan to acquire before the corporation is synonymous with the United States government?

Comcast's new building, the Innovation & Technology Center is a new symbol of Comcast's innovation. But Comcast's never been known as a company that innovates. Comcast's creative abilities are (broadly speaking) limited to acquisitions and creatively evading anti-trust suits. What will be innovated at the CITC? Will they be leasing 20% of the skyscraper to potential future acquisitions?

All of this returns to what Comcast and Verizon will do to the internet. Net Neutrality was originally one of those rare ideals above partisan politics. It was embraced by the Republican party, supported by President Bush, and preserved laissez faire capitalism in perhaps the one and only place it worked: online.

Today's internet is a barely recognizable descendant of its clunky, dial up ancestors. Eons of generations evolved within a matter of twenty five years, aided by the fact that any virtual company was equally accessible to the world.

Dot coms had to be great to survive, and countless thriving companies came and went. Remember CompuServe, Pets.com, and Friendster? It was the Gilded Age of technology, a true revolution. The 1990s and early 2000s saw our generation's Vanderbilts rise and fall. New companies would emerge, crash, or get purchased by more successful competitors.

It was risky and challenging, but what kept technology evolving, moving forward, was a level playing field available to anyone with a laptop and an internet connection.

Until now ISPs were never really part of that game. They competed with each other offering faster speeds and connections, but Comcast and Verizon never competed with the content they provided until they started buying up that content.

Despite the insane conflict of interest in companies like Comcast owning NBCUniversal, politics allowed it. Comcast is playing Risk, running some of the nations most powerful television networks, offering access to that content, and spending just as much time in Washington making sure they can continue to get away with it.

Comcast

When Comcast's pledge to support Net Neutrality expires at the end of the decade, we're going to see a very different internet. One that squashes anyone who dares to register a URL. Lawmakers have allowed the internet to be socialized, turning it over to a few very powerful individuals. What was once a free world of 1s and 0s, tomorrow's internet will be a Soviet wasteland of rationed memory and oppressed ideas.

Queue the theme from Tron.

Comcast Quadruple Play

While Comcast plans it's new Innovative & Technology Center at 18th and Arch, they continue to innovate what they innovate best: new ways to suck money out of their customers, and force those who aren't customers to surrender their checking accounts.

Philebrity posited what the United States has been thinking for decades, "Comcast is somehow not a monopoly." Technically they aren't. Cable and internet are still, for some reason, not utilities.

They need to tread lightly into their next venture because they're venturing into just that.

What's left in your wallet?

Comcast plans to up their Triple Play to a Quadruple Play - in Philadelphia first, of course - by bundling electricity with phone, internet, and cable.

Will this be the straw that send's Comcast's camel plummeting into the sinkhole it deserves, or will offering electricity lower your electric bill as they claim? Sadly I'd pay PECO twice what Comcast offers just to avoid the sphincter quivering act of writing "Comcast" in my checkbook more than once a month.

Considering I have to routinely call Comcast to dispute my mysteriously fluctuating flat-rate internet bill, I can't imagine how Comcast's creative billing will take advantage of a fluctuating electric bill most users don't really understand.

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.