East Market

With the first phase of East Market nearing completion, it's about time we starting hearing about the tenants who stand to redefine this long neglected thoroughfare. The massive project is no doubt exciting, and Iron Hill Brewery is slated to anchor part of the ground floor. 

But signage has already appeared on the prime corner location at 11th Street, and it's a SMDH moment that should make everyone scream "this is why we can't have nice things!"

Yes, that's an AT&T store. Bring on the glamour!

East Market Might Grow Before It's Even Finished

NREA's director, Daniel Killinger, said a decision will be made next month on whether to move forward with East Market's second residential tower. Considering the changes taking place on Market East and the nearby Gayborhood, the transformation Center City itself is undergoing, and the growing rental market in Philadelphia, it wouldn't be surprising for NREA to maximize its footprint. 

If you recall, one of the original renderings showed two residential towers, one on each retail podium. At an additional twenty stories, East Market is tall. Many have expressed concerns about its impact on the view of the iconic PSFS Building, but East Market isn't what most would consider a skyscraper, and its setback from the curb is likely a deliberate decision to avoid swallowing the historic building across the street. 

In every way, NREA's East Market is what's right with development. Its flashy signage, retail, and entertainment is positioned near the convention center and hotels where it's expected, while quaint Ludlow pays homage to the narrow streets of nearby Washington Square West. 

Many developers, particularly those from elsewhere like NREA, could have simply planted a towering glass curtain that detracts from the corridor's history, but it chose to break up the block. NREA could have incorporated a parking garage into its retail podium, but it put its parking underground. It salvaged and renovated the old Family Court Building instead of razing and starting from scratch. And while it could have just built one windowless podium for a Big Box chain or two, it is creatively interacting with the street and offering pedestrians an urban experience instead of something to simply walk around. 

It seems the planners and architects at NREA looked at the land and designed something they themselves would live in. 

I'm not an architect, but when I worked for what was then the largest and most successful dot com in the world, we had a saying, "If you wouldn't buy it, don't build it." This is exactly what is required of good planning and design, or any creative business. The second you start cheaply cashing in, and cashing out, is the moment you collapse.

It's a rewarding lesson local developers like Bart Blatstein would be smart to learn. With his monolithic apartment towers, massive parking podium, and windowless Big Box stores proposed for Broad and Washington, a near carbon copy of East Market would be a massive win for both his wallet, his reputation, and the neighborhoods that surround Broad and Washington. But as it is, it's a bit ironic that a local developer would lack any care in crafting a project that truly benefits his own town at the most granular level, while NREA, a company with no personal investment in Philadelphia has chosen to set our bar for us. Perhaps NREA is just a better planner than those we have in-house, and if so, we could use a few more like them.

Hidden Secrets on Market East

With the world's largest 80s-era McDonald's roof finally coming down on Market East, a little bit of history is seeing light for the first time in decades. 

Most residents probably don't even realize that the two story building on Market East between 11th and 12th wasn't built in the 1980s, but is actually a stump of a building built long, long ago. Once home to Snellenburg's Department Store, the top floors were chopped off a few decades ago and the remaining two floors wrapped in a "modern" skin.

Since then it's been an eyesore along Market East that can only be rivaled by 8th and Market's Disney Hole. 

What once was

With the building being demolished for NREA's mixed-use East Market project, the skin is being removed and architectural elements of the grand department store are slowly being exposed. If you look up along 12th Street you can see brick and concrete once hidden behind the facade. And if you look closely you can see at least one stone column and several carved friezes capping the building's bricked up windows. 

If you want to see it, look soon. Developers likely had no idea there'd be anything worth salvaging from this building so it probably won't last long.

A New Building Boom

Is it 2005 again? We haven't seen any proposal as whacky as Winka Dubbeldam's Unknot Tower, but corporations are reaching new heights, and developers are treading into new neighborhoods.

Three are sure bets: Comcast's Innovation and Technology Center, University City's FMC Tower, and 1919 Market Street are all under construction. 

Comcast Innovation and Technology Center

But there are even more that seem on the brink of becoming reality. It appears that prep work has begun on the W Hotel at 15th and Chestnut, a hotel likely wishing it had started a bit sooner considering the upcoming Papal visit in 2015 and the 2016 Democratic National Convention. With that said, we can probably expect some more hotel proposals on par with the Hilton Home2 (prefabricated and quickly constructed) cropping up around the city.

Nonetheless, ample construction in the background of international news coverage will make Philadelphia look alive and every bit as relevant as any major American city. 

SLS International Hotel and Residences

NREA's East Market on the Girard Trust Block has cleared all but the world's largest 80s-era McDonald's roof for its mixed use complex that stands to redefine Market East. 

Along the Vine Street Expressway, private developers are bridging the gap between Center City and neighborhoods north in ways that caps and parks never could: by building tall and monumental. Chinatown's Eastern Tower is rumored to be ready for prep work within two months. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has been working steadily on its Mormon Temple, begun work on its community center, and seems ready and able to begin their apartment tower at 1601 Vine Street any day. 

CHoP expansion

And those are just the buildings we know we'll probably see. There are a slew of others in various planning stages, some of them approved for construction. 

Carl Dranoff's SLS International Hotel and Residences would take South Broad Street to new heights and set a new bar for luxury living in Center City. Tom Scannapieco's luxury condo tower at 5th and Walnut would provide Independence Hall with an additional backdrop. Both have been approved.

Stantec's MIC Tower could be topping Lit Brother's new digital signage. CHoP has been clearing land along Schuylkill Avenue for its Grey's Ferry expansion next to the South Street Bridge.

1601 Vine Street

And all of that is roughly in and around Center City. University City itself is experiencing a renaissance it hasn't really seen since Penn and Drexel's westward expansion. This time they're building up and the result is starting to look a lot like Center City's twin. To a lesser extent the same can be said of North Broad and Temple University's vertical projects. Anchoring the opposite side of Broad Street, Bart Blatstein has some plans for Broad and Washington that could turn this long-vacant and should-be prominent intersection into a destination.

When I moved to Philadelphia more than ten years ago, it was the Philadelphia I remembered from my teens, one I hadn't seen since 1994. It was gritty, surreal, weird, and all those wonderful things that make the northeast a bizarrely epic place to live. It still is gritty, surreal, and weird. But coming from DC, watching the building boom of the early 21st Century was something I'd never seen before. DC is impressive, but stumpy. Philadelphia was visually exciting. And our recent boom seems like it's about to get even more exciting. 

FMC Tower

And luckily for us, new residents flocking to our city seem to be embracing Philadelphia for what it is, with or without shiny new skyscrapers. We haven't been terraformed as Brooklyn 2.0, we haven't been (completely) overrun with "Basics" sucking down bottomless mimosas on Sunday afternoon. Philadelphia is still weird, and not in the "Keep Portland Weird" campaign kind of weird. We're weird in the way Philadelphia was weird when a bunch of treasonous atheists declared independence from the most powerful nation in the western world 238 years ago. 

Eastern Tower

The 2015 building boom isn't the result of transplants transforming our city, it's the result of a city attracting transplants that are helping Philadelphia realize what it's always been: a Great City. And unlike the building boom a decade ago that aesthetically redefined the skylines of cities from Miami to Seattle, Philadelphia is doing it with purpose and homegrown spirit. 

Market East: Done With the Disney Hole

Ten years ago, Market East wasn't great. Strawbridge and Clothier, Gap, Guess, and a few mundane retailers managed to keep the Gallery afloat. The Disney Hole sat at 8th and Market reminding us of a more hopeful - albeit unrealistic - time. 

But things went from bad to worse. In 2005, the May Company consolidated with Federated Department Stores, resulting in two of its own stores competing for shoppers within a few blocks. May closed the historic Strawbridge and Clothier, sold its Lord & Taylor brand, and opened a Macy's at the Wanamaker Building.

The few reasons to visit the Gallery followed Strawbridge's. At best, it became an unofficial outlet mall, a bad one. What were once the worst of the Gallery's stores, low-end retailers expanded into vacant spaces while knock-offs and cell phone stores filled in the rest. 

For a few years it was unclear how the mall would ever survive. Worse, many wondered what would happen if it were forced to close. Would it be a vacant eyesore home to squatters atop a transportation hub? Would it become a playground for graffiti artists? Would it become a massive parking lot spitting distance from City Hall and some of the nation's greatest historic monuments? 

One thing's for sure, despite it's reputation, had the Gallery officially died Market East would have gone down with the ship.

Luckily, perhaps miraculously, the Gallery seems poised to rebound. Century 21, a company that has redefined the concept of the discount reseller, has sent thousands to Market East. New rules at the Pennsylvania Convention Center have attracted attention from the events industry, and it's filling nearby hotel rooms. Most exciting is the massive project under development on the Girard Trust Block.

In a few years, Philadelphia's once-hub of consumerism may look like the modern-day counterpart it should be. Dazzling lights now crown the Lit Brothers building echoing the neon and incandescent signage that once advertised shoe repairs and alterations. And more is coming to the Gallery and East Market.

These changes will likely increase the value of the remaining properties. While little has been said of the remaining blocks or the Barbarella-esque Robinson's Department Store, improvements underway will only challenge property owners to up their game.

Disney Hole: We're done with you!

There is, however, one unfortunate hole in the unheard of changes taking place on Market East: The Disney Hole. When themed restaurants were all the rage in the 1990s - think Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood, Rainforest Cafe - Disney decided to get in on the action. But Disney wanted more than a chain of restaurants, it wanted to bring its successful theme parks to America's inner cities. 

In all fairness, it wasn't a bad idea. Although indoor amusement parks are a largely untested concept, DisneyQuest would have brought more entertainment to our inner cities than Dave and Busters or pop-culture restaurant museums. And Market East is a good location for entertainment, especially twenty years later. 

Unfortunately the concept flopped, at least in terms of the broad scope of the overall plan. We never got a DisneyQuest at 8th and Market, just a vacant lot where Gimbel's once stood. And today, multiple variables make the land a hostile ass ache for potential developers. For one, it's owned and managed by some of the city's most notorious land hoarders, property managers that understand just how profitable the city allows surface parking lots to be. 

It's also a massive lot. Of late, the most realistic proposal was for the Market8 Casino. Although it was always unlikely it would have ever been built, an entertainment venue on par with the scale of a casino complex (or DisneyQuest) is likely the lot's best hope. Sadly, in Philadelphia it seems more profitable to demolish and then build than to build on cleared land, apparent by NREA's choice to clear the Girard Trust Block themselves to make way for East Market, rather than drop it on the Disney Hole. 

So what will happen to the Disney Hole? Will Market East become so valuable that its owners and managers will have no choice but to cooperate just long enough to cash a bloated check? Or will they make so much money parking Market East's upcoming flock of shoppers that they'll never let it go? 

Interestingly, in all the hype surrounding Market East's improvements, little has been said of the street's oozing cold sore. 

For a while it was rumored that the Sixers might be moving to New Jersey. Granted, Camden could use the boost, but I would hate to lose the only sport I can stomach to another state. 

But relocating the Sixers (and everything that comes with the Wells Fargo Center) might not be such a bad idea. And here's why: 8th and Market is the perfect location. As much as I like the fact that our professional athletics have fostered a unique "Stadium District," the Wells Fargo Center isn't just a seasonal arena. It's also a concert venue. 

When someone wants to see Madonna in New York, they head to Midtown. And that's how it is in most cities. In Philadelphia, we have to hop on the train and head towards the edge of Mordor. I'm not much of a concert goer, evident in the fact that the last time I saw an arena concert it was at the MCI Center in DC. And had it been in that (much smaller) city's end-of-the-line, I never would have gone. I love venues like the Trocadero and the Electric Factory, but were the Wells Fargo Center downtown and around the corner, I'd be much more likely to check out a concert. 

But 8th and Market isn't just downtown, it's perhaps downtown's most underrated parcels. It's not just on Market Street, it's atop a transportation hub, the largest in the city: PATCo, and SEPTA's regional rails and subways, and it's right off the Vine Street Expressway. You literally can't find a better transportation accessible location in the city without running Amtrak all the way to Jefferson Station.

So why hasn't this been formally, or even informally proposed? Well, like all things in Philadelphia, development and ideas move slowly. What's unique about the changes taking place on Market East are also unique to Philadelphians, City Hall, and national developers who occasionally check in on their local investments to make sure we're still begging for the status quo. 

Well, things are starting to change a little more quickly whether we want them to or not. And with national developers finally investing in the last frontier of Center City, we better get used to it. 

Surface parking lots are disappearing, and so with them are the land hoarders and slumlords that have plagued Center City for too long. If we can get rid of the Disney Hole, we can be sure a new era has arrived. 

And while locals may be able to turn a blind eye to a massive parking lot along our soon-to-be Corridor of Commercialism, national retailers and investors will not. 

So bring it on. Let's enhance the exciting changes along Market East with something even more exciting, and let's drop it right on top of the Disney Hole.

Mom's Organic Market

It looks like Mom's Organic Market will be moving into the 11th Street component of the massive East Market project currently under development on the Girard Trust Block. While it's great that Philadelphia will finally have a supermarket on par with Whole Foods, or even SuperFresh, closer to the core of its residents, what's even more exciting is the facelift the former Family Court Building will receive.

Once a warehouse for Snellenberg's Department Store, the old Family Court Building is faded and its facade is cracked and worn. Rather than restore the building's exterior, developers will be refacing it to include modern elements and large windows.

The new skin could have been as dramatic as that at Goldtex Apartments, but given the sum of the parts of the overall project, it doesn't have to be. The high-rise that will be anchoring 11th and Market looks sexy enough to carry the entire block. By slicing the block bound by Market and Ludlow in half for a pedestrian promenade, East Market isn't afraid of sacrificing land for a quality experience. 

They're carrying that theme over to the old Family Court building by opening up a good amount of the building's square footage to the outdoors. Center City's most exciting project (sorry, CITC) keeps getting more exciting.

2014's Best Proposal

Welcome to the New Year, and a new Philadelphia. 2014 gave us marriage equality and decriminalized marijuana. And while our skyline was forever altered prior to the Great Recession, the city is poised for another architectural renaissance that won't just change the way we look at Philadelphia, but how we interact with it.

Sure, Comcast is building the tallest American building outside New York and Chicago. But the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and FMC are breaking convention by building tall north of Vine Street and west of the Schuylkill River. Whatever you think of Comcast Center, these other projects are true game changers. They will bridge gaps, extending what we think of Center City beyond its psychological barriers. 

But altering the way we see a city from the interstate is only part of what makes a city. Tall buildings can be purely aesthetic. Ask Los Angeles or Dallas. 

Philadelphia knows better.

Despite new heights being reached north, south, east, and west, the most influential project under development right now is taking place on Market East. NREA's East Market is clearing and rehabbing the Girard Trust Block for a massive mixed use complex bound by 11th and 12th. The project includes shopping, entertainment, restaurants, and a mid rise apartment tower, perhaps two.

In University City this might not seem so exciting. Hell, it wouldn't be unheard of in Conshohocken. But in Center City, developers tend to build up. East Market isn't necessarily tall, at least night in a city where we tend to look vertically. But Center City hasn't attempted a mixed use project on this scale since the Gallery at Market East. And unlike the Gallery, East Market isn't an attempt to offer urbanites suburban woes, it's offering city residents a slice of modern urbanism.

Its storefronts face the sidewalks, and it sacrifices land for even more pedestrianization by slicing the block in half. It's ambitious, but not blindly. It's finally giving Philadelphians what they want on Market East, what they've wanted for fifty years, and what it was a century ago: a shopping hub. 

It's called "Market Street" for a reason.

Sure, I may be gushingly deviating from truly Philadelphian pessimism, but it comes from a realistic place. East Market isn't another Gallery, it's the Gallery-done-right. The only reason it seems risky is because the Gallery is its only analogy. Architecturally, East Market is nothing special. Its modernity is carbon-copy, its tower looks like many built in the early 21st Century. The excitement of its renderings stems from plasma screens and flashy advertisements. But where East Market deviates from large projects past is its sustainability. 

It's engaging, it's smart, and it answers to what residents have been long asking for. It makes Market East feel less an island of poor urban planning and more like an integrated part of Philadelphia. Smart architecture doesn't just exist like Comcast Center or Centre Square, it engages the community and encourages future growth like Dilworth Park or the Piazza. It recognizes the fact that cities aren't just isolated buckets, but pieces of a larger whole. East Market isn't just good urbanism, it begs developers for more.

Potential Renovations Coming in the New Year

With the successful arrival of Century 21, you might have expected The Gallery at Market East to roll out the holiday cheer. But with the exception of a thermostat set to "summer in Miami," it might as well be an April Wednesday in the halls of the beleaguered mall. 

No decorations, no Santa, the same classical Muzak. It's just not Christmas on Market East.

Well the Daily News has the reason. PREIT has asked kiosk vendors to vacate the Gallery 1 by the end of the year. The potential renovation is likely good news for shoppers. But some retailers are unhappy. It's not guaranteed that all vendors will be asked to return, and some are speculating that PREIT may not want some back.

"Over-Success" or Something Better?

Can a city suffer from "over-success?" Ask a capitalist and you'll get a staunch "NO." Ask a native New Yorker or Washingtonian who watched their city transform over night and you might get a more insightful answer.

Inga Saffron posed the interesting question on Changing Skyline. Philadelphia natives would likely laugh, as would anyone just a few years ago. But things are changing fast and that change is about to accelerate. 

Relaxed rules at the Pennsylvania Convention Center brought 2500 fraternity brothers - and nine million dollars - to 12th and Arch this week. National retailers once leery of competing with local boutiques in a city rigidly attached to homegrown businesses are quickly filling up Walnut Street.

While local retailers have largely managed to relocate to Chestnut Street, and Market East and East Chestnut remain affordable sources for future growth, the dull ills that come with being a bull's eye for big business are showing themselves in the places Saffron mentions: banks.

Long gone are the days when banks were independent feats of architectural marvel. Today the panache of grand columns and chandeliers means nothing to the institutions. Like a roadside Hampton Inn or Taco Bell, banks are creatures of branded design. And where retail thrives, banks are in the business of making themselves available and visible. 

Fortunately for Philadelphia the footprint of your average Wells Fargo can be diluted by its surroundings. What's worse, and what Saffron forgot to mention, are the never-ending chains of drug stores. Can we even call them that anymore? They're essentially high priced grocery stores that happen to have pharmacies somewhere beyond the stacks of fatty junk food.

And they take up a lot of space.

About a year ago Walgreens occupied the vacant Borders at Broad and Chestnut opening up one of the grandest pharmacies anyone's ever seen. Not only is it three floors, it's three floors of some of the most bad ass architecture in Philadelphia on a prime corner. It's hard to argue. It's better used than vacant. But with hindsight being what it is, the recent retail boom asks if this could have been a better location for the Cheesecake Factory coming to 15th and Walnut. 

Luckily the former Daffy's at 17th and Chestnut will find new life as it was meant, soon to become a Nordstrom Rack. However, while Chestnut was a brief reprieve for the independent boutiques priced off Walnut Street, the new American Eagle Outfitters and upcoming Nordstrom Rack may be a signal that Chestnut is about to change. The proposed W Hotel at 15th and Chestnut will likely up the ante.

----------------

For the time being, independent retailers have plenty of room to play. East Chestnut is about to see some new residents and Midtown Village has proved itself a successful experiment in cultivating local entertainment and shopping. The businesses that once made Walnut what it is are in a position to do the same east of Broad. As Walnut swaps local flair for Center City's answer to King of Prussia, the shopping streets east of Broad are ready to trade City Blue and Easy Pickins for that local flair.

It's hard to determine how the city's retail environment will evolve. Market East improvements will bring their own chains to the Gallery at Market East and the upcoming Market East's mixed use complex, likely impacting the shopping culture on Chestnut and Walnut. But there's still room before Philadelphia succumbs to "over-success." Center City sits on a very small, walkable acreage, but unlike New York or Washington, D.C., it has room to grow.

North Broad is a hotbed of underutilized storefronts. As more residents find themselves in Callowhill, local businesses will surely follow. Even Old City, although perceived to be pricy and successful, is chock full of vacant buildings and subpar retail. There are plenty of neighborhoods well within the limits of Center City, more between Spring Garden and Washington Avenue, ripe for the kind of retail innovation that separates Philadelphia from New York and other cities.

Rittenhouse and University City are what they are for very specific reasons. Rittenhouse, namely Walnut Street, has become the city's premier shopping district for visitors while University City caters to college students who seek out the creature comforts of home.

But Northern Liberties and Passyunk Square have created enclaves of local charm, almost exclusively fed by homegrown businesses far from the radar of national chains. As the city continues to grow local businesses can fill in the gaps, cultivating Callowhill, Broad Street both North and South, Hawthorne, and Grays Ferry.

In a city so large it's shortsighted to assume shopping destinations can't exist beyond Walnut Street and University City.

We have a unique situation in Philadelphia, perhaps the only example of a post industrial city that has truly recovered from the throws of irrelevance. As local businesses feed off the growth of national chains - and they will - they'll do what they did for Walnut Street elsewhere, terraforming the city north to Girard and south to Washington, fostering a city in which independent businesses and national chains thrive side by side. 

How? 

Because Philadelphia is more than just a Renaissance Town of local boutiques and tiny art galleries. Leave that to Birmingham and Richmond. We're a capital of innovation and creativity, a city capable of turning our local boutiques into the national chains so many revile. In a capitalistic sense we're where Manhattan was ten years ago, begging for more of the same, but our vast portfolio of underutilized real estate affords us the ability to be something much greater. Bringing on more national retail will only enable us to expand our vast wealth of independent ideology well beyond the confines of Center City.

Philadelphia's Game Changers

BizJournals reported on Center City's retail trend, and how it's ready to explode. The Neiman Marcus Last Call on the second floor of the Shops at Liberty Place turned out to be an unsubstantiated rumor. But Nordstrom Rack is scheduled to occupy the former Daffy's space at 17th and Chestnut while Forever 21, American Eagle, and Uniqlo will round out the blocks. Nearby, the Cheesecake Factory is under construction. And across Center City, 801 Market Street is being prepped for a Century 21 while Macy's could be expanding its furniture section.

The storefronts along Market East's Girard Square are advertising Going Out of Business sales, making way for NREA's East Market, a residential, retail, and entertainment complex that will span the block and link the Pennsylvania Convention Center and Midtown Village.

Kmart has closed, its escalators have been removed and stacked for maintenance. Everything from a Target to a high end grocer has been rumored for the space, but the mid-mall flagship may be divided to expand low volume retail. 

Game Changer

Brickstone Realty is currently demolishing several buildings on the 1100 block of Chestnut and is in an agreement to purchase more. This development will face the south side of NREA's massive project. Brickstone is also developing the Stantec Tower behind Lit Brothers which will introduce hundreds of residents into a colonnade of retail, entertainment, and office space that already extends all the way to 12th and Market.

Paul Levy was quoted in BizJournals stating, "we've crossed over the tipping point." That's great for retailers, particularly high end retailers that have been wondering when Philadelphia will finally arrive. It will provide tourists with an avenue to burn cash on their way to the Liberty Bell and conventioneers will have entertainment and restaurants at the door of their hotels.

But there was a cold functionality to what Market East was, and it's hard to tell if it is missed, if it will be replaced, and where. Namely, Kmart. Kmart left because of its own corporate struggles, but it served its purpose on Market East and to the thousands of Center City residents seeking the goods that can't be found without a car.

When the mercury inches towards 80 degrees, residents are going to start looking for new air conditioners and garden hoses. Items that can be carried home in a grocery cart, but not lugged back on a bus from South Philadelphia. The problem with the "tipping point" is that it tips in favor of a specific demographic. Will discount retailers revisit Center City, even Target? Or have these proposals solidified Center City's economy as a Manhattanized microcosm? 

Zip Cars and bike lanes are not answers to pedestrianization, and islands of economic homogeneity don't make good cities. Center City isn't cheap, but it's affordable. These changes will come fast, most notably on Market East, and it will attract residents that creep into affordable Washington Square West, South Street, and Chinatown neighborhood. Neighborhoods that have delicately maintained Center City's inadvertent uniqueness. 

These are game changers, and they're coming fast.

Bye Bye, Girard Block

Have you walked around the Girard Block and wondered why so many of its Market Street storefronts are having closing sales? Well, that's because this summer, the eyesore with its giant 70s era McDonald's roof will be coming down.

National Real Estate Advisors will begin demolishing the remains of the old Snellenberg Departmemt Store to make way for their $500M redevelopment of the entire block. The initial phase will include a 17 story tower, retail space, and a renovated Family Court building on 11th Street.

Although the market will control future phases - which was the plan when the Gallery was built to support two office towers - this project will be the shot Market East needs. Apartments along 11th Street will help spur adjacent development between Market and Chestnut. Likewise, it s retail presence will provide the Gallery with the competition it needs to step up its game.

East Market

With skyscrapers sprouting up around University City, luxury apartments planned along the Vine Street corridor, and warehouses being converted throughout the Center City's adjacent neighborhoods, the same ambitious investment has avoided the city's core Market East neighborhood. High land costs coupled with low rent potential have made Market East a risky endeavor for decades, particularly on a major thoroughfare that demands big construction.

The National Real Estate Advisors of Washington has taken note, planning what it calls East Market at the Girard Trust Block between 11th and 12th, the former Snellenberg's Department Store. If all goes well NREA will be demolishing the Snellenberg stump as early as July. In its place would be a skyscraping mixed use complex incorporating luxury apartments, retail, office space, and underground parking. The Snellenburg warehouse on 11th Street would be stripped and refaced and the grand Girard Building on 12th Street would be restored, converted into apartments of office space with ground floor retail.

It's all too easy to look at the Gallery at Market East and ask, does the struggling Market East need more retail when what it has is an epic failure? But the Gallery's woes are not solely its own responsibility, and even if they are, the solution to the Gallery's lackluster existence won't be solved by the Gallery's owners.

What NREA's East Market brings is what the Gallery always lacked, and why Liberty Place succeeds as an urban indoor mall and the Gallery struggles. East Market won't just be a suburban mall in the middle of the city, it will be street friendly and include the office and residential components that make Liberty Place a sane place to shop and grab lunch. The Gallery was built to support two large office towers that never materialized, leaving it a massive train station that hosted the kind of craptastic shopping you expect to find in an urban regional rail station.

East Market will finally offer the competitive challenge its neighbors have always needed. If East Market succeeds (given Center City's growth and Midtown Village's expansion, it will) its residents will beg more of Market East, NREA's retail will ultimately reach capacity, and new vendors seek out nearby property to set up shop: The Gallery.

Of course Philadelphians are nothing if not skeptical, but the $500M project is backed by Washington and New York developers who seem eager to start. In a few short years Market East may be less synonymous with downtown Detroit and more like Center City's answer to King of Prussia, only better.