Philadelphia's Polished Turd

In Inga Saffron's latest article, she refers to Brickstone's East Chestnut development as a "Cinderella transformation," and spends a lot of words gushing about Blackney Hayes traditional design for The Collins, named for the Oppenheim, Collins & Co. department store the developer partially demolished. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm one of Saffron's biggest fans. My mom referred to her as "a modern day Ayn Rand," and politics aside, I tend to agree. Her passion for architecture as art has helped elevate her readers' demands for quality design well above the expectations in bigger and "better" cities. And more to the point, her articles - including this one - avoid the academic mumbo-jumbo that plague architectural critiques and alienate lay readers in the Times.

But on East Chestnut, I don't see a Cinderella Story, at least not one that turns a peasant into a princess. A DelCo prom queen, maybe. East Chestnut Street's renaissance, one piece in the larger transformation taking place east of Broad, isn't a fairy tale bringing about something uniquely special. It isn't Walnut Street, Passyunk Square, The Piazza, or even South Street. From the Convention Center District to what I loathe to call Midtown Village, the change unfolding is textbook urban-suburbanization carbon copied from second rate cities around the country. 

And Philadelphia is better than Indianapolis. 

Although East Chestnut is currently seeing a few quirky independent and local businesses emerge from the wreckage of 1976's ridiculous Chestnut Street Transway, the trend won't stick. Philly Cupcake already closed due to increased rent, MilkBoy is on its way to South Street, and I Goldberg is looking for a new home. The Collins, and NREA's East Market a block away, will put a lot of residents east of Broad and even more pedestrians on the sidewalks, but don't expect the kinds of locals that transformed West Walnut Street to be filling their beds. 

East Chestnut's transformation, and more broadly East Market's, is not one of local wizardry. It isn't the dynamic and uniquely Philadelphian approach that piqued the nation's interest in the early 2000s and put us back on the map. It isn't Susanna Foo and Alma de Cuba and Rouge and Astral Plane and all the weirdly fabulous places that made Philadelphia the "it" place to be for those in-the-know.

It's corporate. It's Target. And it's everything that demands more chains.

While PREIT's renovations at the Gallery may have stalled, there is no doubt in my mind that Market East is poised to take off. Curmudgeonly locals may claim that Market East will never be more than a Hooverville illuminated in LED ads for Dunkin' Donuts, but they'll be eating crow the moment East Market opens their doors. I'm not being optimistic when I say this. I don't like the model East Market and East Chestnut have chosen, but mark my words, there will be a crane on the Disney Hole in less than ten years. And it will be because of Target. 

Target is a beast, but it's a suburban beast, even when it's downtown. All you need to do is look to nearby cities to see what follows. The Target in Washington D.C. reinvented Columbia Heights, a neighborhood demographically similar to Market East, and it did so by cramming the trappings of suburbia into a mini-mall. The area surrounding it is chock full of luxury apartments, shiny and new, but in no way reminiscent of their environs. Columbia Heights now looks like its inner-suburban cousins in Clarendon and Crystal City, all thanks to Target, its only lingering urbanity the low income residents City Council requires they continue to house.

A block from our own City Hall without similar housing requirements in place, Market East and East Chestnut are poised to be even more bland because it will be empirically desirable to the Starbucks and beer swilling Basic B's and Bros. It will no doubt be lauded as "cool," but no one's really cool when everyone is.

Within a one or two block radius, Target will suck everything into its high-rent orbit. After its first Michael Graves tea kettle leaves the checkout aisle, it's only a matter of time before property owners begin upping their rent or selling out to national developers, before Cella Luxuria and Lapstone & Hammer start looking for other neighborhoods. We won't see the kind of organic transformation that created Walnut Street, instead we'll see University City downtown. Another Chipotle. A sushirrito joint. Another Starbucks. Then another. Then another. Then a Comcast Experience Store. Sure, that's just capitalism, but unchecked it eradicates diversity and creates neighborhoods for the most mundane un-individals. New Philadelphians who dedicate Instagram accounts to Chipotle despite what happens to their bodies seven hours later.

These are people who don't get cities, and don't get local businesses. These are people who look at the corner dry cleaner with disdain and say, "that would make such a great gastropub." These are the people who will be Market East. And they'll be the first to leave when their kids reach pre-k and realize just how bad our schools are, because they helped crowd-fund a beer garden instead of a library.

It's not necessarily bad for Center City, at least as a whole, or financially. Downtown Philadelphia needed a place to dump its suburban garbage, and ever since Kmart closed, people have needed a place to buy kitty litter and toothpaste. Target - three of them in fact - is our answer. But don't fool yourself into thinking that the 1100 block of Chestnut Street is some kind of Cinderella Story unless your notion of Cinderella picked up her gown under the fluorescent glow of a Target and chucked it into a shopping cart next to a box of Tampax and a plastic barrel of cheese balls. 

East Chestnut and the greater Market East vicinity is undergoing a transformation, but it's purely pragmatic. A place for auto-tethered Millennials to pretend they're being urban and conventioneers to find a little piece of Oklahoma City. It's going to be big, it's going to be shiny, and it's going to change Center City Philadelphia. But the only thing that will make it unique is that it will upend everything that has made our city so special. 

Our individuality. 

The Fashion Outlets of Philadelphia

PREIT finally revealed its vision for the revamped Gallery at Market East, the Fashion Outlets of Philadelphia. Understandably, the local internet went ape shit. And why shouldn't it? In the last few years, the Gallery has gone from a joke to voluntarily vacant. At this point people, especially those living or working near Market East, simply want anything. 

But simply anything seems to be exactly what we'll be getting. Jeff Gammage of the Inquirer relayed a presentation offered by PREIT CEO Joseph Coradino and AIA Chairman, James Grigsby, calling the proposed changes a "dramatic transformation." 

Does it look okay? That's exactly how it looks.

After looking at the renderings I quickly searched the article for the subtle "Paid Advertisement" disclaimer. It seems our collective desire for a passable shopping experience at the Gallery has trumped our standards. 

If the Gallery was shopping for a prom dress, she got it at the Gallery and paid way too much.

Sure, the glass entrance at 10th and Market has been replaced with...glass, and some of the flyovers have been sheathed in wood paneling, but this is a $575M endeavor. To put things into perspective, Comcast Center cost $540M. That's a hefty price tag for what barely amounts to a makeover. 

I truly hope the bulk of that money is earmarked for research and fielding the best retail, the only variables that will ever make the Gallery succeed.

2 Street Cafe

In anticipation of upcoming improvements to the Gallery at Market East, and Market East as a whole, PREIT has been closing shops within the mall and promising very few lease renewals. At this point, PREIT's plans seem unclear. No formal proposals have been released, all of which seem to hinge on the city relinquishing its ownership of the mall's exterior. 

Many of the closures are what you'd expect. Kiosks selling knock-off sunglasses and local businesses that kept the mall's doors opened since its decline. If PREIT wants to reinvent the Gallery as a mall that shoppers - tourists being ferried to the historic district - expect, then they plan to flood it with predictability. 

But there is one business within the Gallery that has managed to succeed in some form or fashion since the mall opened in 1977. 2 Street Cafe, named for the Mummers, opened in 1990, but its heart has been in the Gallery since it opened. 

Jimmy Plessas played for the Greek National Soccer Team and moved to the U.S. to play in Chicago. After retiring he moved to Philadelphia and opened several restaurants, at a time when Philadelphia actually had its very own Greektown.

A small restaurant in the Gallery eventually became the 2 Street Cafe, perhaps the mall's only business that attracts "regulars." 2 Street Cafe is one-part classic diner, and one-part bar. It's the perfect place to grab lunch, or a beer before heading home to the suburbs. But more importantly, it is still quintessentially Philadelphian, a rare feat for any business leasing space in a mall.

2 Street Cafe gets a wide variety of regulars from every demographic, something New Philadelphians don't seem too in tune with. 

While improvements to Market East aren't just welcome, they're essential, the district doesn't have to become Times Square. And 2 Street Cafe is the proof. Success doesn't mean we have to lick all the icing off the cake of what makes us a great city. All that leaves us with is bread. The Gallery is big enough to accommodate both the expected and the home-grown. 

PREIT is thinking like a mall, and that's what the trust is designed to do. But Market East is more than a mall, it's a community of residents, commuters, and tourists willing to welcome more than a Gap or a Ruby Tuesday. Despite its Brutalist exterior, the Gallery can be a Philadelphian experience. Instead of replacing 2 Street Cafe with a chain restaurant offering watered down cocktails, the mall can offer the expected along side the unexpected. PREIT has the opportunity to learn from the flaws at Times Square and Eaton Center, as well as what makes them work, and grant the city a better experience.

Save Robinson's

When it comes to Philadelphia's architectural heritage, and legacy, our most iconic landmarks tend to elicit both affection and hatred. Many confuse the PSFS Building with midcentury modernism, despite the fact that it was designed at the height of the Roaring 20s. As soon as City Hall opened its doors, residents deplored its chaotic, classical elements. Arguably Frank Furness's greatest work, the Provident Life & Title Company was slated for demolition because city planners felt it didn't blend well with the Colonial recreation they were attempting to establish near Independence Hall. 

The starchitects of the 19th Century - Frank Furness, Willis G. Hale, William Decker, Wilson Eyre - were the Norman + Foster and Zaha Hadid's of their day. Time will likely treat their works with the same lack of regard, only to come to appreciate those that survive once again a century from now.

With Market East's impending rebirth, it's easy to look at the grit and ask that it all be wiped clean. Save the PSFS Building, Reading Terminal's head house, Lit Brothers, and the 9th Street Post Office, it's hard to see anything notable hiding in the urban brambles. What commercial history remains has been significantly altered, haphazardly combined, and skinned for illuminated plastic panels that resulted from marketing teams behind CVS and H&R Block, not architects. 

Meanwhile, the Gallery at Market East's cold, concrete walls serve as the district's white elephant, blinding us from truly looking at much else. But there's at least one worn beauty hiding behind the dust of recent development.

I've mentioned Robinson's Department Store before, but short of a few other small blogs like mine, few have really bothered to look up. Those who do see what it offers. They see blight. They see a Jetsonian nightmare or something from Bladerunner. It is dystopic. 

Like the PSFS Building, it was built earlier than most assume. In 1946, Robinson's was built during a uniquely transitioning era of American architecture. Cities were demolishing Victorian and Gothic buildings synonymous with the corporations that led to the Great Depression. Art Deco schools and post office were being built with federal funds being pumped back into the economy, but the style was synonymous with government bureaucracy. As America was struggling to rebuild its economy from new humble beginnings, companies didn't have the funds to hire the starchitects of the era, but the starchitects also no longer existed. 

Inga Saffron has a great historical perspective on the beleaguered building, and finally brought it to the attention of the general public.

Robinson's Market Street location was designed by Viennese architect Victor Gruen. Known prominently for designing some of the nation's first shopping malls, our Robinson's Department Store may have been one of the first buildings designed specifically to be identified with a brand. 

Prior to the 1940s, architecture was primarily dictated by what was aesthetically en vogue for the time. Art and architecture existed superfluously side by side. With the emergence of the suburban ideal, architecture evolved as a way to set its tenants apart from their competition. If you wanted to find a Howard Johnson's or a Stuckey's, all you needed to look for was the roof. Likewise, Robinson's curved wall clad in thousands of purple tiles and looming over Market Street was unmistakable. The building was synonymous with the brand it housed.

But will it survive the hype surrounding Market East's renaissance? Only if enough people are willing to look up and see more than what's there. Astounding architecture can be lost in the shuffle. Some people don't care, others want something new, still others are more conservative. And although Robinson's is nearly 70 years old, it's anything but traditional. 

Despite the overwhelming amount of undeveloped real estate on Market East, with surface lots at 12th and Market and at the Disney Hole, Robinson's demise might not seem imminent. But NREA chose to demolish the remnants of Snellenberg's department store in lieu of developing on cleared land for a reason. The 1000 block of Market Street could be next on the chopping block. 

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.

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.

Broad and Washington

Thanks to kidphilly on PhiladelphiaSpeaks.com, we know a little more about Bart Blatstein's plans for the long dormant "Cirque Hole" at Broad and Washington. 

While many keep calling this "the next Piazza," I suggest we hang that up. This is not the Piazza. The Piazza is relatively detached from the urban experience. It's insular. If the plan for Broad and Washington happens in its entirety, it could be far more urban than the Piazza ever intended to be.

With two towers roughly thirty stories high, Broad and Washington could carry the city's skyline south while drawing upper South Philadelphia neighborhoods into Center City. One can hope it will also inspire improvements in the vastly suburbanized street scape between South Street and Washington Avenue.

At 750 parking spaces, it can provide some much needed parking for the Italian Market and mobile neighbors.

However, with 1600 residential units, the endeavor is ambitious even for Center City, let alone what is technically part of South Philadelphia. Also, in what are hopefully preliminary renderings, Broad and Washington lacks the Piazza's futuristic architecture brought to us by our own Erdy-McHenry. 

Seriously, the Piazza's concrete walls, angular windows, and Piet Mondrian-esque color blocks are straight out of a Battlestar Galactaca flashback. But at Broad and Washington, save a few floors and it would easily blend in King of Prussia. 

But will its most exciting components even happen, or are they simply being used to pitch what will essentially be a big box retailer on a city street? When the Gallery at Market East, a similar concept, was pitched it included two sleek, albeit bland, towers that never emerged. Will the same "we'll get to it someday" be true of Blatstein's Broad and Washington towers?

What the Gallery at Market East was supposed to be.

"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.

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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.

CBRE's Market East

CBRE

Commercial real estate advisors at CBRE + Fameco created a forecast report for the Great Philadelphia Area. It's full of really exciting ideas (PDF), but the true gem is a reborn Gallery at Market East which includes a theater, several high-rise caps, and even shows a Filbert Street brimming with retail activity and nightlife.

Of course this report is an overview, not in anyway a series of proposals. But it shows what needs to be done to redefine Market East.

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.

The Philadelphia Boondoggle

From Penn's Landing to the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia's public endeavors seem to be the definitive embodiment of a boondoggle. Twenty one years after the Pennsylvania Convention Center opened, the billion dollar money pit has yet to deliver its promises. When the Center's first phase failed miserably, the state threw more money at an expansion that hasn't unlocked the front doors of its grand façade, several years after it was complete.

Now it's true, civic projects are not designed to profit but - theoretically - use tax revenue to best serve its taxpayers. They provide a necessary service or an asset. However profitability shouldn't be ignored. Adjacent development was used to pitch the PCC expansion. When the development never emerged, or emerged heavily subsidized, no one was really held accountable. Empty promises are the method operandi of the status quo.

The only new hotel to emerge near the PCC is the lackluster Hilton Home2 at 12th and Arch, its ground floor retail occupied by the first fast food options you'd expect to find next to any convention center in America, two decades after it opened.

Meanwhile the surface lots north of the PCC continue to chip away at the build environment, trading buyable real estate for high cost/low maintenance surface parking. Whether or not the PCC has recouped the billion spent on its two phased construction or if it can maintain its day to day operations with the revenue from its vendors, the center has done more harm than good. Considering the emerging revitalization of the Loft District, the Reading Viaduct Park, and the nation's overall renewed interest in downtown living, the PCC has come to find itself an unwelcome partner in City Hall's vicinity.

After all, the streets surrounding Reading Terminal below Vine Street looked a lot like today's Loft District before the PCC was dropped on us by the state. It's no stretch to imagine that the neighborhood's proximity to Washington Square West and Reading Terminal Market would have helped it evolve into one that looks a lot like Old City were it not for the PCC. And full time residents vested in its streets would have undoubtedly had an impact on our deteriorating Market East.

But ifs and buts aren't cluster of nuts, so, no granola.

Still, what about our future boondoggles? Has the city learned its lesson?

As malls go, ordinary but not bad - architecturally. Fill it with attractions that appeal to the market on the street: TOURISTS.

Speaking of Market East, PREIT may be the city's next money pit. Although the Gallery at Market East isn't owned by the city, the marriage between the two is strong. It's not surprising that PREIT's proposals for a revitalized Gallery Mall are about as lackluster as anything the city pitches. History has told us that inner city malls don't work and why, but those at PREIT can only see their white elephant as a mall.

While its layout may scream "mall," its best reuse as a mall is only by the vaguest definition. Tucked between numerous hotels and the Historic District, it should be full of tourist attractions, a beer hall, and some corny museums. But all PREIT can see is Center City's answer to King of Prussia and a Target, despite the fact that Center City already has KOP on Walnut Street and Kmart failed for the same reason a Target won't succeed.

But why should we expect innovation? PREIT, like the city and state offices vested in the PCC and its expansion, don't understand Center City and what it needs. When it comes to master plans, particularly if the word "Pennsylvania" is affixed, it's tough to expect more than a cash strapped burden.

Can it ever get better? Maybe. The Delaware River Waterfront Commission incited a bit of excitement surrounding the release of its new master plan. But "master plan" has developed a pejorative connotation when it comes to civic projects. Hargreaves Associates master plan for Penn's Landing and the vicinity is far from the first. Despite the fact that it's a good design, one that includes speculative commercial and residential development, on its own it provides no new reason to go to the river that isn't already there.

With more destination attractions, residents, and events, Festival Pier is not a bad space.

Like PREIT and City Hall, the DRWC doesn't understand its audience. It's unfortunate. More so than the PCC or the Gallery Mall, Penn's Landing is a potentially unrivalled asset for the city. But it's operated by bureaucrats that understand two things: pushing paper and maintaining the status quo. It should be filled with events every weekend: concerts, movies, exotic animals to promote the Philadelphia Zoo and the New Jersey State Aquarium, local restaurant booths, beer gardens. But the DRWC doesn't field events, it maintains those willing to return.

Unfortunately, until these organizations are employed by visionaries working with businesspeople who know how to execute a vision, we'll be faced with nothing more than renderings and master plans, and perhaps someday, a new Convention Center, Mall, or Waterfront Park afflicted with the exact same obstacles that kept them from ever succeeding in the first place.

How to rebrand the Gallery mall? Stop thinking of it as a mall.

For decades, The Gallery at Market East has been a piss poor example of urban shopping malls, a genre known for piss poor shopping. The blogosphere has been buzzing with rumors for Kmart's vacant space with everything from a Bloomies to scaled back retail space allowing for more tenants.

But can the Gallery ever be more than it is as a mall? It will still be an enclosed, urban shopping experience. An experience that never thrived in any city since it began in the 1960s, and is even less likely to thrive now that residents have revisited their love affair with the urban experience.

There are of course a couple ways that the Gallery could improve its reputation as a shopping destination. Altering its Market Street façade, namely at the street, opening its retail space to the sidewalk would be vastly more inviting to pedestrians than a concrete wall that doesn't even utilize its existing display windows. But if PREIT ever hopes to attract high end shoppers, changing from its current state to a King of Prussia rival won't organically evolve. The mall would have to be shut down, remodel, and reopen with enough fanfare to squash its reputation amongst locals.

But even that is a gamble. Center City already has its answer to King of Prussia and it's growing. Walnut Street's high rent is pushing retailers to Chestnut Street. If anyone thinks the Gallery should try to compete with suburban shopping, they're ignoring the fact that suburban shopping never worked a few blocks from City Hall.

Of course that leaves us with a white elephant on Market East, one PREIT seems to be maintaining as-is until adjacent development changes the district's market and puts more people on the street. But PREIT is thinking inside the box, literally, assuming that a building built as a mall must be a mall.

The Gallery sits on very unique corridor within Center City and those vested in its success have completely ignored what that corridor uniquely offers: thousands upon thousands of tourists. On one side the Gallery is a dense cluster of hotels and at the other, the city's historic district.

Thousands of tourists and conventioneers traverse Thunderdome every month, ignoring the Gallery and huffing it to 6th Street. In turn, PREIT ignores them, dreaming of a Target replacing Kmart or a few Forever 21 carbon copies turning out the same revenue as those already at the Gallery.

Tourists are looking for their traps and PREIT isn't listening. I heard my uncle complain about Philadelphia after attending conventions here. Gushing about Baltimore of all places, I had to explain to him that he needed to venture a few more blocks to experience Philadelphia. But the truth is, he wasn't looking for a local Philadelphian experience, he was looking for those trappings he found near Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Convention Center: ESPN Zone, Dave and Busters, maybe a movie theater.

The Gallery is the perfect locale and a blank slate for these venues. It's too perfect to ignore, yet PREIT ignores it. If those in charge had the foresight to think of the Gallery as more than a mall, they could have worked with Live Nation to salvage the Boyd Theater's grand auditorium and rebuild it inside the vacant Kmart. The two story Old Navy is the perfect venue for a two story microbrew or concert hall. Anchor the east side of the mall with a flagship Urban Outfitters, our city's homegrown purveyor of hip clothing. Sure there's one on Walnut Street, but if two H&Ms can succeed a few blocks from each other, an Urban Outfitters on Market East, catering to an entirely different, tourism driven market would thrive.

If PREIT is waiting for nearby development to  spawn interest in the neighborhood, it's ironic, because The Gallery at Market East is the perfect space to kick off interest in the neighborhood. But it won't succeed as an indoor, suburban style shopping mall for the same reason it's never succeeded: that's not what those passing by want. Right now, PREIT is the only legitimate game in the vicinity, and if NREA moves ahead with its East Market between 11th and 12th, the Gallery is going to find itself not only facing competition amongst shoppers, but also tenants.

Start marketing the location and catering to tourists on the street. Stop thinking about locals who already have a Diesel and a Betty Page on Walnut Street, don't need a Macy's equivalent, and are just as unwilling to lug home a desk from Target as they were from Kmart.

Suburban shopping will never succeed in an urban environment because it's urban. The only want to adaptively reuse a behemoth like the Gallery, particularly one tucked conveniently between the tourists and their destinations, is to stuff it full of Lego stores, Ripley's Believe it Or Not and Guinness Museums, and maybe even an FAO Schwartz.

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.

NREA's Girard Square

Since Mayor Richardson Dilworth's massive overhaul of Society Hill, Philadelphia's Center City has seen a number of hackneyed projects by urban planners, but private development has been left to grow organically. In recent years, developers have taken to emerging neighborhoods to implement master plans, some more successful than others, but from Passyunk Square to the Piazza, they've left a lasting impact.

It seems counterintuitive that developers take to the netherregions of the city to invest, but in cities like Philadelphia, those neighborhoods are home to vast tracts of affordable property and less community involvement. Most visibly, these neighborhoods offer architects the opportunity to practice and fine tune their craft, for better (the Piazza) or worse (the Piazza).

The time may have come for this creative planning to find its way to Center City. Unlike New York or Chicago, Philadelphia's proper core hasn't been exhausted. Contrary to logic, the untapped localles surrounding City Hall have always been risky. It's taken developers a long time to come to trust Center City's real estate market well enough to know we don't have a U-Haul parked in front of our apartments, ready to bolt at any moment.

In Philadelphia, we do things backwards. We're cautious. Just as developers have chosen Graduate Hospital and University City to invest, Center City developers have tiptoed around our major thoroughfares. With the exception of a few large residential projects on West Market Street, likely driven by their proximity to highways and corporate Philadelphia, it's hard to look at the should-be prime real estate of Market East and not ask, "how bad are they going to let this get?"

PREIT has tentative plans to subdivide its Kmart location and offer smaller retail. It's true, the pass-through anchor store is unusal, and in a successsful mall, PREIT's plan would make sense both financially and architecturally. But with a third floor all but vacant, what retailers will fill these smaller spaces?

Despite the Gallery's reputation, change may be coming to Market East. One of Center City's most successful changes is just around the corner. Midtown Village was a cohesive plan that transformed a forelorn stretch of Center City's Gayborhood overnight, and it's quickly spilling over to Chestnut Street. Some have even compared it to Passyunk Square and the Piazza.

NREA has joined a local developer, and owns the primary stake in Girard Square, the block bound by 11th and 12th, and Market and Chestnut, the block that makes the Gallery at Market East look like a beacon of retail success. NREA recently released a pair of renderings of a redesigned Girard Square that doesn't just redefine Market East, it redefines this part of Center City.

Bringing Chestnut Street's failed pedestrian promenade to the middle of a block where it belongs, NREA combines the success of the Piazza and numerous University City developments, and drops it two blocks from City Hall.

The key to Girard Squares success lies in NREA's proposed residential towers. Despite its proximity to Midtown Village, Center City has proven itself fickle. Without in-house residents for the development's retail and entertainment venues, a Girard Square pedestrian promenade could be a bigger disaster than the Gallery.

Still, the rendering provides some excitingly hopeful eyecandy. Midtown Village is growing with urban newbies, the kind of 30 somethings that grace the cast of Happy Endings and The New Girl, the kind that spend happy hour at Frankford Hall and Bru. They flocked to the city for the Piazza and Passyunk Square. It only makes sense to offer them a place to imbibe amongst Center City's skyscrapers, with a convenient elevator ride home.

Center City's Kmart to Close

Market East is about to face another blow, or perhaps an opportunity. Although a massive vacancy at the Gallery can hardly be considered an opportunity when most of the street between 8th and 12th and underutilized or downright vacant.

Sears Holdings announced that it will be closing their Kmart location at the Gallery at Market East. While "good riddance" has been echoed through the snottier parts of Center City, Kmart isn't just one of the Gallery's anchor stores, it anchors it in the middle.

It was bad enough when Strawbridge's closed, leaving the mall with no fine department store, but Kmart sits right in the middle. To pass from one side to the other, shoppers will soon need to pass through the bottom floor.

PREIT appears to have no plans for the vacant space despite rumors of everything from a Bloomingdales to a casino. Say what you will about Kmart, but without a grocery store or big box chain in Center City, it was a convenient place to buy reasonably priced kitty litter and Diet Coke.

Robinson's on Market East

Robinson's Luggage is closing its doors. I don't know why that's news. Who buys luggage at a specialty store? I still throw my chonies in a Jansport backpack.

This isn't about overpriced handbags. It's about Market East's Robinson's Department Store and the need to declare it historic and begin the campaign to restore its façade is now. Yes, this very minute.

Historic communities have a knack for calling history buffs to action at the eleventh hour. The historic Boyd Theater is likely doomed, as is Kenny Gamble's Philadelphia International Music. As much as I'd love to see both saved, historic preservation is a job for thousands of people, and part of that job is admitting you've lost.

But more importantly, it's anticipating future loss.

With NREA's planned expansion of the Girard Trust Block, the Gallery's proposed renovations, and rumors flying around Bloomingdale's interest as an anchor, it's quite possible that we will be looking at a whole new Market East by 2015.

Market East doesn't host a bevy of historic properties. With ample real estate at the Disney Hole and lackluster, craptastic architecture begging to be redeveloped, the gems of Market East are likely secure. No one will ever tear down Reading Terminal or the PSFS Building and the post office is probably safe.

But there's one icon on Market East that is largely ignored by historians and completely ignored by shoppers that choose to endure Kmart.

Victor Gruen's Robinson's Department Store still stands at 1020 Market Street. Its neon lights broken and large signature long gone, few people know it's there and why it's significant.

At first glance, Robinson's is a Brutalist nightmare, a product of midcentury design many would rather forget. Stained and cracked, the five story Robinson's looks like a murky, concrete wave prepared to envelope what's left of Market East.

But it's more than that. The façade is actually comprised of thousands of small, indigo tiles that once sparkled as a beacon to Market East's thriving enterprises.

Of all of California's Grayson - Robinson's eleven unique department stores, Philadelphia's is one of the few that remain. Although Robinson's tends to get lumped into worn midcentury design, it's anything but.

Its graceful curves harken earlier experiments with Art Nuveau and Art Deco while the sterility and simplicity of its face carried architects to their modern interpretation of International Style: Brutalism. It was built at an odd period of European influence during America's rebirth that followed the Great Depression. Many peg it for basic 1960s retail design, but it was built in 1946 and it's so much more interesting.

While Robinson's peddled affordable womensware much like Burlington Coat Factory and Marshall's, it predated low budget architecture by a solid two decades while catering to the diversity that was Market East.

In its heyday, Robinson's dazzling façade was illuminated by five large lights, its signature, and two smaller neon demarcations. Although its beauty is hard to see today, the building is largely underutilized. Some Scrubbing Bubble and a Sham Wow could easily bring out its luster.

But now is the time. Market East has positioned itself as a clean slate and Robinson's simply blends into the background of disposable real estate. Philadelphian's preservationists need to recognize Robinson's worth, as it was, is, and can be.

Philadelphia's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Philadelphia seems to have more parades than anywhere I've ever lived. Okay, that's not a lot. DC, Portland, a small town in Virginia no one's ever heard of. But Philadelphia does a fine job commemorating holidays, even unconventional holidays, with great reverence. And we do it well.

Traditionally the Thanksgiving Day Parade doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving so much as it kicks off the Christmas season, and particularly the shopping season.

Although the national Thanksgiving Day Parade has its roots in Philadelphia, it was embraced by Macy's in New York as a means to push its wares for the month before Christmas.

Obviously no parade can rival Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but Philadelphia doesn't rest on its laurels when it comes to parading down the Parkway.

However any Thanksgiving Day Parade is more than a collection of high school bands culminating in a fat white guy sitting on top of a chimney. It's a moving billboard telling people to start shopping.

That's why America's oldest Thanksgiving parade was started in 1920 by Gimbels, and paraded past its flagship store at 8th and Market. Crowds would  gather to watch the parade, then turn to extravagant display windows along Market East aglow with toys eagerly anticipated by brats on their fathers' shoulders.

It was like a scene out of A Christmas Story. It was A Christmas Story.

Of course the (official title) "6ABC - Dunkin' Donuts Thanksgiving Day Parade" doesn't have the same capitalistic allure of the Macy's or Gimbels Thanksgiving Day Parade, nor does 6ABC or Dunkin' Donuts share the motivation. On the Parkway, our Thanksgiving parade does little more than publically celebrate one of the year's more introverted holidays.

Honestly, a Halloween parade would be more interesting.

What makes a Thanksgiving parade interesting, or even serve a purpose, is kicking off Christmas. Let's face it, unless it's full of floats decorated with pilgrims and Indians, it's not celebrating one night of gluttony. It's celebrating Christmas.

That's exactly why it belongs on Market East. Although our commercial core continues to struggle, it's home to Macy's and the city's only shopping mall. While Kmart and Old Navy refuse to appropriately decorate their display windows for the holiday season, imagine what those windows would look like if they knew thousands of potential customers would be spending Thanksgiving morning right outside their doors.

It would remind Philadelphians what Market East is, was, and will be. It would tell cynics the corridor is still very relevant. It would force the Gallery to clean up its act, at least for a month.