MIC Tower

Philadelphia Real Estate Blog

After Stantec Architecture was asked to improve its MIC Tower behind Lit Brothers, the firm came back to the Historical Commission with a slightly better design. The tower still adheres to its premise of blending into the historic Lit Brothers building rather than attempting to add anything significant.

Along with NREA's East Market proposal for the Girard Trust Block, the MIC tower will bring the residents and shoppers that Market East has been begging for. While the MIC Tower will remain largely unnoticed from Market Street, the Filbert Street apartment building will add 29 floors to the city's relatively shallow eastside skyline.

Stantec's Tower Back to the Drawing Board

Brickstone Realty Corp's proposed residential tower behind Lit Brothers was sent back to the drawing board by the city's Historical Commission. While Stantec's design was deliberately bland, not to take attention from Lit Brothers' historic façade, it was too bland for the Historic Commission.

While Brickstone's tower is deliberately boring, it's hard to know what the commission expects. The commission is notorious for green lighting the demolition of Philadelphia's historic landmarks despite its namesake. It may be sophomorically attempting to diffuse blowback from decisions at the Church of the Assumption and the Boyd Theater, hoping for a tower behind Lit Brothers that echoes its aged façade.

Fortunately the commission has no issue with the height considering Market East's lagging development. As one of the area's few historic landmarks, Lit Brothers deserves the utmost historical consideration, but Brickstone's bland tower may have been its most respectful.

The Historical Commission's unfamiliarity with the architectural history it's charged with protecting may be reflected in this decision, in that this tower is behind Lit Brothers, not on top of the historic landmark.

MIC Tower

Philly Bricks usually breaks out in song anytime a developer dares exceed 200 feet. But the proposed Mellon Independence Center Tower near Market East barely elicits a "meh." The 429 foot mixed use tower designed by Stantec Architecture will be reviewed by the city's Historical Commission next week. You know, the guys who green-lit the demolition of the historic Church of the Assumption and Boyd Theater.

Let's step back though. I'm not mongering fear. Despite the fact that this is being wildly described as a tower above Lit Brothers, it's anything but. The Lit Brothers isn't a building, but a block of buildings tethered together by a century of bureaucracy. What we commonly refer to as "Lit Brothers," its iconic iron facade, will remain untouched however the commission rules.
 
In fact, Stantec's design is deliberate. Setback from both 7th and Market streets, it will remain largely unseen to pedestrians.

Renderings show the MIC Tower from an angle most can't access. To pedestrians on the sidewalk, the tower will only be visible on Filbert Street.

It's absent presence is evident in the tower's design as well, devoid of detail and color it is intended to fade into the shadows of better buildings. What makes the MIC Tower great is the fact that it isn't. Reminiscent of some of the latter Penn Center towers, it could set a precedent for new highrises in a desolate part of Center City. But hopefully it will also bring with it the adjacent - and better - architecture that masked how awful Penn Center really looks.

Of course Captain Obvious would point to the eight surface parking lots within a block of this site as a better location to build...anything. Unfortunately the politics of parking in Philadelphia is so complicated it has its own TV show.

More Misleading Renderings

The Preservation Alliance has joined SCRUB in misleading the public with renderings falsely displaying an historic building shrouded in advertising. I have to give them props for using a Krispy Kreme ad in their doctored rendering right in the midst of the sugar tax fiasco.

As I understood the bill, the Lit Brothers building was exempt. However, look closely at the facade next time you walk by it and you'll see the moulding is covered in period signage.

The Preservation Alliance prepared a rendering showing a sixty year old black and white photo of Lit Brothers shrouded in color billboards, including office windows. This is a worst case scenario that will never happen. Not only is Lit Brothers a landmark loved by the city, there are many other locations on Market East more condicive to these advertising schemes, including The Gallery, The Girard Trust Block, and the Disney Hole.

Even if it's not exempt, the public outcry from someone attempting to cover this landmark in billboards would be louder than any irrational rant carried out by SCRUB.

On the roof, however, who cares? If you ask me, that block could use some height. But the Preservation Alliance would like you to believe that the facade, including the office windows, are going to be covered in Revlon ads. Really? That's just ridiculous.

This is our historic corridor of consumerism but it is not Philadelphia's historic core. While it leads tourists to our to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, so does I-95 and Delaware Avenue. There is no endangered history on Market East. With historic churches and theaters decaying all over the city, like SCRUB, the Preservation Alliance's resources are better employed elsewhere.

Ghosts of Market East

Speaking of the grand, old department stores like Strawbridge & Clothier - which stands vulnerable once again now that Foxwoods has been told to retreat to the river - Market East was once Philadelphia's booming hub of commerce. Like an outdoor European Arcade or precursor to the the American Shopping Mall, Market East was lined with about a dozen department stores ranging from the tiny Robinson's to the massive Wanamaker Building. Let's take a tour.

The recently defunct Strawbridge & Clothier's second building (see previous post) at their original location still stands empty. Designed by Simon & Simon in 1928, it compliments the adjacent Post Office at 9th and Market as beautifully preserved examples of large scale Art Deco design. It is significant to mention that Strawbridge & Clothier, a once mighty retail empire including Macy's and Hecht's, began at this location in Philadelphia.

The corner of the Gimbel's complex at 9th and Market is seen here in 1979 shortly before it was demolished for a parking lot, a.k.a. The Disney Hole, named for the would-be location of Philadelphia's failed DisneyQuest. Fortunately the Gimbel's office building still remains, seen in the background.

Robinson's quasifuturistic tiled 1940's facade still remains on Market East between 10th and 11th. A broken neon sign reading "Robinson" can be seen at the right of the building.

The sprawling Lit Brothers department store at 7th and Market was designed by a number of architects from 1859-1906 and still stands today as a shining example of what Market East could be.

Few realize it, but the Snellenburg Department Store at 12th and Market still stands today...sort of. Designed by James Hamilton Windrim and John Torrey Windrim in 1906, the first two floors of the building remain as the "placeholder" structure known as the Girard Block, which has been awaiting redevelopment for nearly three decades. Redevelopment of this block is undoubtedly a key in any potential Market East Renaissance.

You can't talk about department stores in Philadelphia - or the United States for that matter - without mentioning John Wanamaker. My father and grandmother have both told stories that begin with a trip downtown to meet their friends "Under the Brass Eagle". The present building designed by Daniel H. Burnham includes what was once the world's largest pipe organ. The organ still plays everyday at 5 P.M. and is the focal point of the store's famed Christmas light show. The Wanamaker Building still as a department store as Macy's, previously Lord & Taylor.

These are just a handful of the department stores that lined Market East between the early 1800's and the mid-1900's, not to mention the dozens that lined Chestnut Street and Filbert Street. Unfortunately today, the nostalgia outweighs the need when it comes to department stores. Shopping Malls supply the specialty needs while discount department stores supply the necessities. Sadly Market East has become such a ghost town that even K-Mart can barely survive. What this location needs is some sort of destination attraction, something to draw a crowd, improve public transportation, and create a residual market for shopping.