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.

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.

Why no Halloween store at the Gallery?

Here's a question: with Halloween creeping upon us, knowing that South Philadelphia's Masquerade will soon be facing it's at-capacity one-in-one-out clientele, why hasn't the Gallery at Market East recruited a seasonal costume shop?

Sure, some of Burlington Coat Factory's sale items might qualify as costumes. But in a mall, a Halloween store brings seasonal foot traffic. At the Gallery, it brings in Philadelphians who thought the mall was closed and might think, "hey, I didn't know Aldo had a brand called Call It Spring, I'll have to come back here."

Of course this isn't solely up to PREIT, but those managing Market East's White Elephant missed a golden opportunity here. Even King of Prussia fields seasonal costume stores to fill its vacant shops.

Changes Coming on Market East

Now that PREIT has finally consolidated the last piece of the Gallery at Market East quagmire, the company that controls 45% of the leasable mall space in the region is primed for a major cohesive overhaul. In the words of Peter Griffin, "that was an ordeal."

Joe Coradino who runs PREIT, made promising remarks, comparing Center City to Manhattan and Chicago and expressed a clear understanding of the importance of the Gallery as a suburban transportation hub.

Coradino is focusing on two options: "high end fashion anchor" or "fast fashion and food." Both are a step up from what it's become. But keep in mind, the Gallery's reputation as a low end "dead mall" is relatively recent.

Despite it's brutal architecture, a decade ago the Gallery wasn't the four-letter-word of Market East. In fact, it was what kept it alive. Strawbridge's was a high end department store that did relatively well, and it anchored a mall that catered to a diverse clientele. Essentially it catered to what Philadelphia was. Whatever the mall becomes, catering to what Philadelphia is, is the marketing strategy that will succeed.

People love to crap on the Gallery, but that's largely because of what it's become. It's become Philadelphia's poster child for "why malls fail in city centers." Maybe that's true. Maybe inward facing malls that fortress themselves from the streets do fail in urban cores. But instead of focusing on the book jacket, let's focus on the potential asset we have on Market East. 

If Coradino can sign an attractive anchor that puts the mall in the black, not only will it raise the eyebrows of smaller retailers, PREIT will finally see the profits to bring the mall up to what the 21st Century says urban shopping should encompass.

With a few doors and windows facing Market Street, the architecture really isn't that bad. In fact, it could be downright fantastic. With any luck, in a few years the only question will be why the Disney Hole is still a parking lot.

More Promises on Market East

With the Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust consolidating ownership of the Gallery at Market East and City Council's approval of digital signage at our city's once prominent commercial corridor, a marketing campaign on behalf of the forlorn real estate has begun.

PREIT recently provided a brochure on their website complete with a rendering of a new Gallery at Market East, turning its retail space inside out to compliment its sidewalk. While the retail climate on Market East hasn't progressed, evident in a mind boggling absence of Christmas shoppers, the consolidation of the property has opened up marketing opportunities and is a huge step towards revitalizing the district.

PREIT's rendering of a new Gallery at Market East

Many may look at the Gallery and see a lost cause, but the grim state of affairs isn't that old. While the mall never was and never will be King of Prussia, it was never intended to be. Not even a decade ago, Strawbridge & Clothier anchored a mall full of mid-market retailers such as The Gap, Aldo, Limited, and Guess. And while it may not be an orgy of consumerism, it still serves a practical purpose.

That fact, despite overwhelming negative public opinion, says more about retailers' understanding of Philadelphia's customer market than it does about PREIT's inability to attract those retailers. K-mart continues to profit as the only discount department store catering to a vast amount of Center City residents without cars or Philadelphia residents dependent on public transportation. Target's lack of interest in the Center City market is based solely on the fact that other Targets already exist within the city limits.

Target continues to do business under the delusion that Center City's K-mart is in the same market, when in fact K-mart competes with large Center City drug stores and local hardware and electronics stores. As successful as the discount department store located in South Philadelphia and the Northeast is, corporate Target fails to understand that Philadelphia is a densely populated downtown city.

Of course Philadelphians are the collateral damage of any retailers' ineptitude. Have you ever taken public transportation to Target? It is literally faster to walk to Target than it is to take two buses and a subway. If Market East can attract one successful upscale, or even mid-market retail attraction that puts people on the street and in the mall, smaller retailers dependent on an anchor store will follow.

Market East is home to anchor outlets which compete and feed off each other, and that competition has recently attracted Marshalls. Sure, Burlington Coat Factory and Ross aren't glamorous, but the fact that they profit is proof that consumerism and competition is still viable on Market Street. The same environment can foster the upscale market.

PREIT's marketing campaign is aimed at changing the misunderstood impression held by large national retailers. While locals have known for years that a downtown Target would thrive, the expansion of the Convention Center, the growing success of Reading Terminal Market, a bevy of new hotels, and more apartments being developed north of Market, large retailers like Target will be forced to take another, more comprehensive look at Center City.

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.

Market East Gets On Target

Who killed Market East? Well let's take a look at the big box, discount department stores that typically provide the scapegoat for the death of the American Main Street. After all, Market East is the historic model for every Main Street in North America. The answer might not be as simple as blaming Walmart.

First of all, Walmart didn't kill small town Main Street. That's just how activists and protesters remember it. Small town Main Street died 30 to 40 years ago, before the Walmarts and Targets were what they are today, around the same time and for the same reason big city downtowns died. Small towns started becoming sprawling, independent suburbs, with strip malls, shopping malls, all catering to the car. This is even more evident in small towns where everyone has and always has had a car, making downtowns even more useless than big city downtowns, particularly during the 60s and 70s when suburban sprawl was en vogue.

Once this cultural mindset was well established and absolutely nothing remained in these small city's downtowns, discount department stores began to grow, and these megamarts became the nail in the coffin of already dead Main Streets. The difference between, say, Scranton and Philadelphia is the fact that Philadelphia, as well as a number of major cities, managed to retain a population significant enough to warrant the retention of a practical public transportation system and walkability, which is why Targets and Walmarts haven't killed downtown Chicago, New York, Toronto, DC, etc.

It's easy to blame megamarts for killing small town business, but more fault is on the part of a lingering mid-century culture of convenience in lieu of quality. Most of the successful, post-industrial cities manage to walk a sustainable balance. And Philadelphia actually did that by using that discount element to combat suburban competition by putting it right on our Main Street.

As much as we love to hate it, anyone who's been to Market East can tell you that the big box, discount chains are the only thing keeping Market East alive. And Target aptly placed in the Disney Hole might introduce the competition needed to put products back on the shelves at K-Mart and encourage PREIT to start implementing some of these proposed changes they claim to be so excited about and actually improve our Main Street.

Blatstein's New Empire

Blatstein's been a buzz this week in Philly's blogosphere. Most of the ink is over the typical shenanigans that make developing anything in this town as acid-inducing as trying to wrap your head around the success of Glee. There's no use going into the maniacal specifics taking place at 1400 Spring Garden short of saying it's costing both sides tens of thousands of dollars and is being held up in part by the great thorn in Philadelphia's ass, PREIT.

With that said, the sale of the State Office Building to Bart Blatstein of Tower Development is moving forward, even if at a snail's pace. With the never ending success of the Piazza at Schmidt's transforming a once desolate pocket of Northern Liberties into a new city of its own, and Avenue North anchoring an element of - well, something other than a crime statistic - in North Philadelphia, Blatstein's vision for Broad and Spring Garden will be met with eager anticipation. If this corner sees a fraction of the success seen at the Piazza it could be the catalyst to bridge the gap between Center City and Temple University.

The project is purported to include apartments or condos, shopping, and possibly a high rise addition. New residential life on North Broad Street could not only bring life to the street itself but open up the insular Loft District and link Spring Garden and Fairmount to Center City, maybe even someday encouraging the redevelopment of the architectural gems along Ridge Avenue and of course the sadly neglected Divine Lorraine.