Hotel at Big Brothers Big Sisters Headquarters?

Once home to a film company, 238 North 13th Street is known to most Philadelphians as the former national office for Big Brothers Big Sisters, if it's known at all. 

Vacant for a few years now, the small art deco building stands less than a block from the Pennsylvania Convention Center, and as with much of the property between Vine and Race, developers are likely eyeing it for a potential hotel.

But the building is only two floors and stands on a small footprint. Yesterday, the city's Historical Commission voted to deny and unnamed developer's proposal for a tower atop the historic building. 

Howard B. Haas, a Philadelphia lawyer and prominent voice in the campaign to save the Boyd Theater's auditorium, had this to say on his Friends of the Boyd Facebook page:

Good news! Today, the Philadelphia Historical Commission's Architectural Committee unanimously recommended against allowing a hotel tower that would poorly fit in with the former Warner Brothers Film Exchange at 238 North 13th Street. It was designed in 1946 by William Howard Lee, one of our best movie theater architects and was later offices for the NFL. I wrote a letter of opposition for today's hearing. In 2007, I had assisted with the research & testified for the succesful historic designation of this lovely Art Moderne building. Thanks to the Preservation Alliance's Ben Leech & architect Rich Thom for leading the opposition.

Hopefully we won't see the Boyd's fate replay itself. Considering the building's proximity to the Convention Center and Center City itself, the property is likely too expensive to be sustained as a modest office building. 

As development tends to go when faced with the Historical Commission, the developer will probably return with a more appropriate design for its tower component. It's bound entirely by 13th Street and three smaller streets, so the only direction to add square footage is up. It's encouraging that developers are again considering the area north of the Convention Center for new hotels

Last Minute Miracle...maybe?

In what may be a last minute miracle, Friends of the Boyd founder Howard B. Haas seems to have an anonymous buyer willing to match iPic's $4.5M offer for the beleaguered Boyd Theater. 

Still, the fact that the offer comes just a week before Live Nation's (current owner) hardship hearing with the Historical Commission and the anonymous nature of the donor, things seems fishy.

Who is the donor? Where has he or she been for the last two decades? Was Friends of the Boyd holding this card until it was absolutely needed? If that's the case, will the investment end at $4.5M ensuring that it continues to sit, or will the potential owner invest in its restoration, reopening it as the grand movie palace it once was?

These are all questions the Historical Commission will consider before it decides the fate of the historic building. Simply ponying up $4.5M so that it can be managed by an advocacy group could prove to be the iconic theater's worst case scenario, particularly if it requires just as much money or more to open the doors as a profitable venue.