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.

Bringing Change to Market East

Karen Heller's recent assessment of the state of Market East and it's future is pleasantly hopeful, and its numbers informative. Market East and East Chestnut are, of course, Center City's final frontier.

We've all been there and scratched our heads wondering why. The reasons are complex but common. Almost every post industrial American city has or has had a deteriorating stretch of forgotten retail space. Given the fate of cities like Cleveland or Detroit, Philadelphia's Market East has fared better than its given reputation.

It's not pleasant but it's relevant.

SSH Investments - Girard Trust property

The end result of midcentury suburbanization and poorly planned Cold War era design, the Gallery at Market East attempted to compete with King of Prussia and Cherry Hill Mall by providing urbanites with the indoor retail amenities that city planners assumed we wanted.

Market East should have become Philadelphia's answer to Chicago's miracle mile, but the city's overzealous planning stalled when it created a canyon of undesirable street life. Market East became trapped between Center City's central business district on West Market and Society Hill's historic district, leaving it with no reason for anyone to be there.
 
It was a good idea but it wasn't organic. When city planners over-plan they tend to take a suburban approach. Every place takes on a role. That's not what urbanites want or what tourists want when they visit a big city. That's why West Market Street, despite its dazzling skyscrapers, is a ghost town at night.

Market East's attempt to become the region's premier retail corridor was fleeting and has long been forgotten. Salvaging what's become of it has been the primary goal for decades. We've been teased with plans to revitalize the Gallery, potential casinos, and various skyscrapers. Morale surrounding development opportunities has become so grim the simple idea of a few display windows at Kmart seems like a herculean feat.

While the Gallery at Market East is the neighborhood's largest presence, it's also a major obstacle. Still, management at the Gallery seems to be waiting for neighbors to make the first move, or the city to pull the plug.

It's like the annoying neighbor who refuses to mow the grass complaining about the neighborhood. It doesn't cost a dime to ask Old Navy to properly use its display windows. Instead of telling homeless people to stop sleeping on its desolate Filbert Street façade, the Gallery put up an iron fence. That's inviting.

SSH Investments seems poised to give Market Street the injection it needs, and the competition the Gallery needs to get its act together.

Plans for a revitalized, and tall, Girard Trust property are nothing new. Prior design studies for improvements have includesdthis spectacular proposal by EEK Architects.

SSH signed a 150 year lease with the Girard Trust, the four acre parcel between 11th and 12th, promising to blow us away in the next few years. Tentative plans include a retail complex capped with apartment towers.

Lately development and discussion has been primarily focused on the Pennsylvania Convention Center, pandering Market East proposals at conventioneers who often don't care what city they're in.

The center's numbers dwindling, massive debt, it's become the money pit everyone but those in City Hall seemed to know it would become. That's enough to prove to anyone that conventioneers are not the demographic Market East needs to accommodate.

Center City is certainly more than the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Those indebted to the site seem solely focused on the center while simultaneously discussing what a disaster it has become. This face saving dialogue is futile.

If SSH can truly pull off a successful revitalization at the Girard Trust property, one that includes residents, it can change the game at Market East and give the neighborhood more to work with than convention numbers that continue to decline.

Plans for a revitalized Girard Trust property have circulated in the past, and phased projects that promise exciting towers routinely leave us with a stump. The Gallery might be as successful as Liberty Place's shopping center if it was capped with the two office towers it was built to support.

If SSH can't bring it's game, the Girard Trust property could become the Gallery 2.0. But if it can bring hundreds of residents to 11th and Market, it brings hundreds of pedestrians to the street and, more importantly, people looking for a place to shop.

NREA's Market East

A new rendering for the Girard Trust block - the 1100 block of Market East - has been released by NREA Development Services.

Likely a massing study, it's similar to prior proposals for the block with the addition of two towers.

Although NREA appears to have left the handsome Girard Building as well as an older building on 11th Street untouched, the Market Street façade isn't that much more interesting than the truncated Snellenberg's Department store that stands on the site today.

That's not to say it can't be. The proposal is rough. With a little imagination, this looks a lot like the proposed Essex Crossing in Manhattan's Lower East Side.

Manhattan's Proposed Essex Crossing

The Girard Block includes the midcentury retail and parking complex on Chestnut Street. The corner of 11th and Chestnut was recently renovated and it's unclear if that property is included in this proposal, if it's intended to be part of a phased development schedule, or if it will remain untouched.

Turn on Those Lights

The nice weather is bringing out the tourists and just as I passed 12th and Market, what were they taking pictures of? Not Market East's "quaint Colonialism", but the Hard Rock guitar and the news feed outside Loews. 

History is our brand? Not everywhere, SCRUB. Tourists like shiny things. As soon as we stop struggling to convince Nebraskans that they have to appreciate our cobblestone streets and Steven Starr restaurants, the sooner we can just give them what they want: "authentic" Italian from Sbarro and $20 plastic busts of Benjamin Franklin.

We burden ourselves with the labor of insisting - even dictating - the tourist experience. The sad reality is most tourists don't care. And they're not going to care. You can't educate a revolving population of individuals that spend three days here once in their life. Try to do that and you'll make yourself crazy. Try to do that and you'll find yourself fighting to preserve the "historic brand" of Market East.

Most tourists want to see what they see in pictures and have dinner at a familiar restaurant. You're average tourist doesn't want an adventure, they want convenience. It's true we have a great restaurant scene, and the Foodies that come here know that. But they know exactly where to go and they have fun finding it.

Instead of shoving gourmet food down the throats of families from Phoenix who wouldn't know the difference between Olive Garden and Vitri, reserve it for those who appreciate it along the quaint cobblestone streets of Society Hill.

There is no shortage of opportunity for authenticity in Center City. Look around. Chestnut Street, Washington Square, and even Old City are home to plenty of vacant storefronts and undeveloped properties bound to become the next hot restaurant run by an Iron Chef.

Let Market East be what it is dying to be. Practical for us, bright and shiny for tourists, and a gold mine for the city. Given the excitement generated by that neon guitar, and then the dread as tourists turn to the east, I don't think SCRUB is going to win this one. It's just a matter of one of the Market East stakeholders making the first move and turning on the lights.

Putting Stock in Market East

Philadelphia Heights put the spotlight on some exciting movement taking place in our struggling retail corridor, Market East. While The Gallery at Market once sought to streamline a successful haven of consumerism, it merely turned it in on itself, eclipsing the street in the shadow of windowless concrete. The same tactics that work in suburban shopping malls surrounded by parking lots, don't typically fly in dense urban areas that rely on window shopping.

Often criticised by car bound urban newbies who still flee to Cherry Hill for groceries, The Gallery is surprisingly practical. There is no denying the loss of Strawbridge's put a huge dent in its retail portfolio, particularly upscale retail. Still, if you're an urbanite and don't have a car, it's a great resource. Personally, I'd be lost without K-Mart.

The mall could be better. What mall couldn't in this economic climate? But its vicinity contributes to The Gallery's woes as much as its management. The Gallery's architecture can't be faulted for its lack of Baby Gaps. It's a mall. From Manhattan to Terre Haute, they all look the same.


Unfortunately its sensible and malleable design is just that. It's there and it's dull, and its success will partially rely on exciting surroundings. But when you step out on the sidewalk, the stage presented to tourists ferried from their hotel to The Liberty Bell, it's not just dull, it's depressing.


As a purported historic district, it's history is purely philosophical. With four arguably historically significant buildings between 8th and 12th, Market East's historic credibility is in its place as the nation's first concentrated avenue of consumer goods, not its architecture.


Fortunately, developers are starting to understand the artery's importance as just that, and recognizing this forgotten potential.


The organization managing The Gallery, PREIT, will begin a $100M renovation this year. Although Strawbridge's retail space is still unspoken for, it's upper levels have been renovated for the relocation of the employees formerly housed in the State Office Building on North Broad.

Nearby at between 11th and 12th, JOSS Realty Partners, SSH Real Estate, and Young Capital will be demolishing the two storeys that remain of the old Snellenberg's Department Store, replacing it with the 280,000 Pavilion at Market East.

With City Target as a possible anchor, like The Gallery at Market East, The Pavilion will be built to support a skyscraper. Target completion is 2014.

Goldenberg Group, Inc. is planning its own retail and entertainment complex on the long reviled Disney Hole at 8th and Market.

While three large retail complexes would be ambitious even in a successful suburb, the long list of savvy developers involved suggests confidence in our market. And given Center City's lack of suburban challenging entertainment, grocers, and retail, it seems a logical move to introduce some large scale capitalistic competition.

Undoubtedly, there were be plenty of push back from tunnel visioned activists. Many Philadelphians are staunchly opposed to chains and will complain about any new retail that isn't local and organic.

But the opposition are often those who most vocally avoid Market East, so what better place to erect Philadelphia's dirty little secret: A successful, corporate retail and entertainment corridor catering to conventioneers and tourists, and of course those of us who don't turn our nose up at buying kitty litter from K-Mart.

A Could-Be Cindarella Story

The Gallery at Market East
Photo from Brownstoner Philadelphia

The Philadelphia City Planning Commission meets tomorrow to discuss turning The Gallery at Market East into our town's Times Square.

The first mistake anyone in favor of this exciting proposal made was comparing it to Times Square. While Market East belongs to commuters and tourists, every NIMBY in a five block radius will be claiming it their Main Street and undoubtedly packing the meeting space to stomp their feet in protest.

It's true that neon signs and plasma screens won't make up for The Gallery's dwindling business, but a dull and uninviting facade doesn't attract retailers in the first place.

People forget that this stretch of Market Street is the Gateway to Philadelphia for many tourists. Conventioneers and families from all walks of life stay near 12th Street and walk down Market East to The Liberty Bell. Philadelphian's are stern footed when it comes to suburbanizing our retail scene, but when it comes to out of towners, they are typically looking for familiarity. Most don't know who Jose Garces is and they don't care. They're looking for California Pizza Kitchen and Fuddruckers.

Sure, lighting up The Gallery might be the equivalent of putting a turd in a sundress, but considering that turd makes up three blocks of a neighborhood most retailers avoid, dressing it up has to be the first step in turning it around.

The Gallery at Market East facade as seen in part of a comprehensive plan for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission by Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects

What other options do we have? Tear it down? It's not like Market East is lacking in available real estate. As sad as it is, The Gallery is the lifeblood of Market East. The "scrap it and start over method" gave us the Disney Hole and the Girard Trust Block. Let's not make that mistake again.

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Other proposals and concerns being addressed in the meeting include a parking garage near 13th and Arch to service a new hotel at Broad and Arch. Councilman Clarke has proposed limiting student housing in Temple's Yorktown neighborhood to keep university presence out of his blighted district.

Times Square South

Whatever happened to Trinity Capital Advisors' grand plan for 12th and Market's Girard Block? It seems the former site of the Snellenburg & Company Department store is destined to stay the stump it is.

It's sad too, because it's an unkempt blight at an otherwise fine corner. It's the impression most tourists receive when they first leave their hotel room, and the last impression they take home with them. Its gloomy exterior, dirty walls, and sprawling uniformity of unorganized retail and office space discourage tourists from exploring Market East by foot. It no doubt deters big business retail or services from occupying the former Champions' location in the Marriot across the street.

TCA has specificed that they want to take their time with the location, to do it right. What they're really doing is what all big developers do with Philadelphia. They aquire property when its cheap, and then sit on it until a better market returns. I've said before, we're not NYC or DC, and although we're lucky they haven't yet bulldozed the entire block (including the Girard Building which is intended to be demolished as part of the master plan) and we're not stuck with another Disney Hole for two decades, with TCA holding the lease and sitting on their hands we will be stuck with the Girard Hole as it is for a long, long time.

Interestingly enough, the Market East corner of 13th once had a similar stump. It didn't span the entire block of Market or 13th and it's rental spaces were better designed and blended better into the existing urban fabric. However, it was demolished for a surface parking lot which seems to show no signs of being developed. So things could be worse.