Toll Brothers and Irresponsible Urban Design

In a recent Philadelphia Real Estate blog, Toll Brothers has come to their own defense. Toll Brothers, long loathed by Philadelphia urbanites for its isolated, suburban designs, is no stranger to criticism. In fact, architecturally, they are frequently excused from any discussion because their designs simply aren't worthy of critique. In other words, they're projects aren't good enough to be deemed "bad architecture."

That said, Toll Brothers is a wildly successful development firm, and more importantly, local. According to Toll Brothers Vice President, Brian Emmons, that success is bent on appeasing shareholders and neighborhood organizations through safe design. Private developers can take risks with lots of their own cash, whereas Toll Brothers needs to guarantee a prompt return on their investments. But a prompt return for investors isn't a long term investment in the city.

Proposed Toll Brothers project at the former New Market complex in Society Hill

Toll Brothers claims that market research indicates luxury consumers like parking, and even a detachment from retail and business. That's a tough assertion to swallow when the bulk of Toll Brothers' market live in the McMansions the firm helped invent. The claim also becomes a bit of a self fulfilling prophesy when you deliver your market exactly what they think they want. That's the kind of conservative approach that turned The Learning Channel into a nonstop Honey Boo Boo marathon.

People won't want more if architects - artists in their own right - don't deliver them something new. That is until you've completely dumbed down the supply so much consumers become absolutely sick of it. Like reality television.

While Toll Brothers' urban market might echo the suburban market's desire for parking and isolation, and delivering that might provide a profitable return, giving the New Money exactly what they want won't change the fact that they'll tire of the urban ills they're trying to avoid behind a gate or garage.

Anyone seeking isolation in neighborhoods as densely populated as Society Hill and Graduate Hospital, as desirable as the proximity to theaters and restaurants may be, will and have been exhausted by the poor schools, crime, and taxes that tenured residents integrated into the fabric of the city are willing to trade for the urban experience.

A city is more than a portfolio of independent properties, it's a complicated algorithm of its parts. Emmons has cited private developers struggling to attract retail and tenants at the Murano and Piazza, but both examples are responsible cogs in a broader collective effort to terraform emerging neighborhoods. They weren't designed to provide an exponential return on the investment, but to provide a lasting infrastructure.

Toll Brothers might not employ artists when it comes to design, but they're masters at business. I have to respect them for that, but it's an art more responsibly reserved for the suburbs. The Murano and Piazza may be struggling to attract tenants, but that isn't unheard of, especially in neighborhoods like Market East and Northern Liberties.

A decade from now the Murano and Piazza will have established their purpose, while Toll Brothers' projects will, at best, be dull infill. Worse, these pockets of suburban isolation could outlive their usefulness when their market realizes they didn't want to live in the city after all, leaving them to be discarded like a disposable suburban stripmall.

Insignificant Significance: Dock Street's Ritz 5 Theater

A common concern brought about by the possible demolition of the Church of the Assumption on Spring Garden is that it's highly unlikely that anything as architecturally significant will ever stand on the site again. It's a valid concern. The church is old and simply really, really cool looking.

It's easy to browse the "Then & Now" picture books and recoil in horror over the landmarks we've demolished for freeways, parking lots, and other architectural eyesores. Those books profit on a longing for another time but fail to showcase the progress of time, ignoring countless modern marvels that have replaced poorly built or just plain ugly buildings. In short, not everything built yesterday is good.

Philadelphia sits on a balance between slow development trends and a portfolio of priceless history that allows preservationists the luxury to save buildings that would be lost to booms in New York or Chicago, but also to get a little carried away with regard to what constitutes historical significance.

That awkward situation is already teetering at the Ritz 5 on Dock Street and nothing has even been proposed. Landmark Theaters has only suggested an expansion of its Dock Street location, admitting that it's highly likely nothing will happen. That hasn't stopped Lorna Katz Larson of the Zoning and Historic Preservation Committee from lauding the alleged historical significance of the 1970s theater, citing it as "a very modern response to the historic district."

Landmark Theaters' Ritz 5 on Dock Street

Is it? Or is it just a cheaply built theater from the 1970s? If you can interpret little more than bricks and metal as "a response" then why not interpret a parking lot as a response to the American love affair with the car? The Ritz 5 is as architecturally significant as a Safeway.

Another "response" to Philadelphia's historic district. Is it significant?

When Society Hill was redeveloped in the mid 1900s, preservationists criticized the loss of countless Victorian masterpieces and Colonial history. Dock Street was a thriving, albeit dirty, local resource to the residents of Philadelphia, and although the revitalization of the neighborhood ultimately attracted the wealthy residents of today's Society Hill, the loss of the markets on Dock Street and those accessible on Delaware Avenue before I-95 was not met without protest.

Dock Street was once a thriving market place, entirely razed in the mid 1900s to make way for modern development projects including the Ritz 5.

The Ritz 5 Theater is not a significant landmark. Like the fate of so many Victorian masterpieces, The Ritz 5 is the same inconsiderate aftermath we worry will come from the Church of the Assumption's demolition.

It's easy to imagine the residents of Center City looking across the razed prairies of Society Hill in the 1960s and 70s wondering - much like the neighbors of the Church of the Assumption - when anything as significant would stand there again. Even since the neighborhood's revitalization, only Society Hill Towers stands as a significant testament to midcentury design, and I. M. Pei's apartment project still pales in comparison to the Victorian high rises that once graced Walnut and Chestnut.

Society Hill at the height of demolition

Although Landmark Theater's plans for the Ritz 5, however preliminary, may never find a place in the annals of history, the redevelopment of this insignificant property is an opportunity for Society Hill residents to respect the concerns of their predecessors that shopped the markets and filled the offices of another Society Hill.

205 Race Street

Back in 2004, when funky little firms like CREI were using up and coming urban neighborhoods as their architectural playground for experimental and pricy designs, Brown-Hill proposed its own avant-garde condo development for a forlorn bucolic meadow at 2nd and Race.

It didn't happen, but the sign promising the redevelopment of this inexplicably vacant lot remained for years, reminding pedestrians that a small group of idiots with nothing but idle time and the arrogance to dictate their irrational opinions really can make a difference.

At a sensibly scaled 9 to 10 stories and respectful ground floor relationship, it was good design; and adjacent to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, a noisy interstate, and a high speed rail line, it was a good opportunity to develop an unlikely location for residences. But in the heyday of financial optimism, it wasn't good enough for the Old City Civic Association and they managed to keep their beloved vacant lot vacant for another eight years.

Well Brown-Hill is back and, in the wake of the financial crisis and a more realistic outlook on construction opportunities, hoping that the OCCA has a new outlook of their own.

Brown-Hill's new design keeps the same interaction with the sidewalk that  it did in it's 2004 design, but proposes and additional six floors. At 198 feet tall it would be the tallest building in Old City. Not that height in any Center City neighborhood is a rational deterrent to development given precedents have been set in much more historically picturesque locations across the city, including Society Hill and Independence Mall. One could even argue that a high rise's presence next to a busy highway insulates the existing real estate from noisy traffic.

We'll find out the fate of the lot tomorrow at the Zoning Board of Adjustment's Hearing.

Karma can be ugly...and it's covered in vinyl siding

In what now seems to be the age of Yore and Yesteryear, in 2008 Philadelphia's architectural development was booming. So much so I actually had stuff to write about. Neighborhood associations were brutal, and slammed the iron fist of NIMBYism on a potentially new skyline.

As irrational as some of their arguments against Mandeville Place, Bridgemans View, and dynamically planned entertainment and casino complexes may have been, none were more perplexing than the Society Hill Civic Association's opposition to H2L2's Stamper Square.

Center City's most picturesque neighborhood is hoarding an ugly truth behind its mahogany doors. Tucked behind 200 years of history and decades of blue haired entitlement sits a concrete slab that has been eyed by developers since the small tourist mall New Market was torn down 20 years ago.

After H2L2 proposed an interactive, midrise hotel for this trash strewn lot, some residents were relieved. Many more were stractching their heads wondering where exactly this site near Headhouse Square actually was.

What seemed most certain was that Stamper Square had the green light. And why wouldn't they? H2L2 not only designed an engaging complex with ground floor retail at scale with the history of the neighborhood, developers were reaching out to the community, altering design after design to accommodate even the most absurd requests.

Then the SHCA decided on behalf of this entire neighborhood, one that belongs as much to every Philadelphian and tourist as it does those who live there, that we were all be better off with a vacant lot. And they won.

Well, in spite of a bad economy, some developers still manage to thrive, and this ugly lot is still on their radars. Unfortunately for the SHCA, and Philadelphia, the developer is nationally renowned McMansion designer Toll Brothers. Not only is Toll Brothers proposing a gated development at this undeniably urban location, but they have the weight of a massively powerful public company to make it happen.

The SHCA isn't happy, and reasonably so this time. I'm no fan of the McMansions that now rise above the Virginia farm I grew up on, and I certainly don't like the prospect of them taking up valuable real estate in Philadelphia's most iconically Philadelphian neighborhood.

That said, how many opportunities should the SHCA be allowed to dictate what happens in a lot it doesn't own? If Toll Brothers moves forward with this project, it wouldn't be the first time the SHCA dragged its feet to secure the status quo.

When developer John Turchi bought Dilworth House, planning to restore the home and make it his private residence, the SHCA demanded this vacant home be restored and turned into a museum. Turchi then applied to have the home demolished. It still stands - for now - but what could have been a beautifully restored Colonial reproduction on one of our city's most beautiful squares, it still sits vacant.

How much weight can these neighborhood associations reasonably demand? It's one thing to request compromising details: brick, trees, store fronts. But allowing them to demand a compromising developer hit the road with no alternatives in sight, allowing them to keep a valuable piece of property vacant and unused for two decades neighboring some of the city's most prominent addresses, that's irresponsible.

Well, SHCA, here's your silver metal. And unfortunately for all of us, the economic climate is no longer affording the kind of idealism that keeps lots vacant.

Replace Our History, or Create a New One?

Philadelphia - historic as it may be - has always functioned as a working city and as a result, has no inherently true "historic districts". Center City's one seemingly historic district is the result of a mid-century attempt to reconstruct a Colonial past, one which is only as important as a number of other movements responsible for the PSFS Building, the Divine Lorraine, even the Cira Centre. The result, Society Hill's "historic district", is a collage of questionable reconstructions which sacrificed dozens of 18th and 19th century buildings, some by Willis Hale and Frank Furness. This attempt at architectural cohesiveness created a very peaceful, historic illusion, but compared to the rest of Center City is one of the less interesting neighborhoods to look at.

Historic districts are important but it is just as important to respect the existing history of a neighborhood which has naturally evolved. The Keystone National Bank Building is a prime example. Is it more historically respectful to replicate the original facade which was replaced less than ten years after it was constructed, or do you pay homage to the five successive facades implemented over the following 100 years by designing something truly modern that represents the needs of the existing urban fabric of a culturally, historically, and architecturally diverse neighborhood? Unfortunately we usually fall somewhere in the middle, attempting to appease the devout advocates as well as the needs of the client, and we end up with bland, historic interpretations. Instead we should be replacing the avante garde masterpieces we've lost over the decades with exciting new architecture.

An empty construction site or blank facade has the potential to be architecturally significant someday. In a city as aesthetically diverse as Philadelphia, architects should be creating tomorrow's history and not wasting their time recreating yesterday's.

Society Hill - Revolution, Commercialism, Blight, and Rebirth

Many planners and architects consider Society Hill one of the most successful urban renewal projects in the country. Decades after its transformation, Philadelphians often don't realize that Society Hill was once the most blighted neighborhood in Center City, and many more are not aware of the severe architectural transformation that took place between the 1940s and 1970s. It's easy to stroll through the green-ways of Independence National Historic Park and assume that these are the meticulously preserved trails traveled by William Penn and Benjamin Franklin, and not the mid-century recreations of Ed Bacon and Mayor Richardson Dilworth.

Carpenter's Hall in 1958 during the reconstruction of adjacent buildings.

While many of the private residences of Society Hill are preserved examples of colonial architecture, only a handful of the iconic landmarks are actually original. Carpenter's Hall, the First and Second Banks of the United States, and of course Independence Hall are all original - although significant alterations were performed to return the structures to their 18th century appearance. It's difficult to imagine that the stone, Victorian era Drexel Building once occupied the SE corner of 5th and Chestnut or the equally imposing Irvin Building at the NW corner of 4th and Walnut. Here are just a few of the architectural losses that make up the ghost of Society Hill's once empowering skyline.

The Irvin Building on the NW corner of 4th and Walnut was designed in 1911 by Seeler, Edgar Viguers, and enlarged in 1928 by Ernest James Matthewson, and again in 1955 by Clarence Woolmington. It was demolished in 1974.

The Irvin Building

Diagonally across the street, The American Life Insurance Company Building at the SE Corner of 4th and Walnut was designed by Thomas Preston Lonsdale in 1888 with alterations designed by William Decker, an architect with a distinct style rarely preserved at the time it was demolished in 1961.

The American Life Insurance Company Building

The Brown Brothers Company Building at 330 Chestnut Street is now part of the site of Independence National Historic Park.

The Brown Brothers Company Building

The Drexel Building on the SE corner of 5th and Chestnut sat directly across the street from Independence Hall until it was demolished in 1955. It was designed by Wilson Brothers & Company in 1885 who made various alterations through the late 1800's and early 1900's. Later Harris & Richards would also make alterations in 1914. It is now part of the site of Independence National Historic Park.

The Drexel Building

The High Horse on Horses

As if politicians don't have bigger things on their plate, PETA has urged Mayor Michael Nutter to ban the horse drawn carriages that carry tourists around the quaint, shady streets of Society Hill. Sometimes I wonder if anyone involved with the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have ever really spent time with an animal. Animals are not people. They aren't bred like people, they don't think like people, and their bodies are accustomed to different physical activities than people.

Has PETA seen how these horses are babied? First of all, if these tired old horses weren't pulling carriages they'd be glue. There's your alternative PETA. Second of all these horses are treated better than half the human population of Philadelphia. The "busy streets" of Society Hill? And "Heavy loads"? It's a HORSE people! We use the horse as a system of measurement - HORSE POWER - for hauling just that! Animals aren't people, people aren't animals. Humans weren't bred for riding and pulling carriages - horses were.

Perhaps we should spend our stimulus money on air conditioned apartments and massages for retired horses. Let's cut a little more education funding or close another library so we can make a horse a little more comfortable. And who's to say they aren't? Half the time the things sleep standing up, something tells me they might WANT regular exercise. PETA lost all credibility when they protested the President for swatting a fly. Even entertaining such an organization would be political suicide.

Do something to really help animals. Support your local ASPCA.

More Lessons

Philadelphia lost three city blocks for the creation of the Independence Mall, and subsequently several adjacent neighborhoods filled with architectural gems and colonial history in the neighborhoods of Franklin Square, Society Hill, and Penn's Landing. Most of the initial construction was with good intention considering the leveled neighborhoods were blighted and crime ridden, unfortunately much of the neighborhoods today (with the exception of Society Hill) are filled with surface parking lots, unfriendly windowless government buildings, and unappealing indoor retail.

Just a little of what's been lost:

The three blocks of buildings behind Independence Hall (the horizon of the photo) now make up Independence Mall National Park.Completely unrecognizable today, every building here on Dock Street is gone.

Here you can see four blocks neighboring Dock Street after they were leveled for the construction of I-95 which still serves as a barrier between Society Hill and the river. Note the hill at Front Street which used to lead down to the Penn's Landing neighborhood, now completely nonexistent. The hill is responsible for the difference in height between the west and east side of I-95, accommodated by the large staircases at South Street and Market Street.

Just north of Independence Mall the Vine Street Expressway wiped out a large portion of Franklin Square and Chinatown in the 1980s, and even more recently in the 1990s the Pennsylvania Convention Center consumed three city blocks of dense urban real estate, and in the past two years has expanded east to Broad Street taking with it two more blocks and an historic firehouse, a townhouse built in the early 1800s, the massive stone Odd Fellows Building, and illegally destroyed two designated historic landmarks on Broad Street it had agreed to preserve.

Obviously Philadelphia hasn't learned too many lessons it should have learned from the 50s. Particularly since we have a tendency to bulldoze in anticipation of projects that never come and wind up with surface lots that never seem to go away.

Dilworth's Legacy

It's still there, not yet encased in Robert Venturi's latest architectural abortion. The quasi historic Colonial reproduction built by Mayor Richardson Dilworth in the 1950's - and the catalyst for Society Hill's renaissance - The Dilworth House has been sitting in front of developer John Turchi's wrecking ball for nearly a decade and it's still there, empty. Is he waiting out the recession? Or better yet, waiting for the house to fall into a state of "disrepair" so he can pay off L&I to have it demolished for "safety" reasons. Or better yet, watching it burn down from Washington Square with a quizical look on his face and a smoldering match.

With all that said, and I'm not siding with Turchi (a hot headed little man who wants to bulldoze the house in spite), is a 50 year old reproduction a fitting legacy for Mayor Dilworth's contribution to Philadelphia, or is the opulance and beauty of Society Hill itself?