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.

We're Almost There

Market East is on its way to returning to its rightful place in history as the brightly lit corridor of consumerism it once was. Bill 100720 passed the Rules Committee yesterday, which would allow various types of illuminated and digital advertising to be applied to Market East's non-historic facades, including The Gallery. Developers applying such advertisement would be required to invest $10M into the building to which the scheme is applied.

 

The Gallery as it is.

 Eaton Centre in Toronto is a common example of what Bill 100720 is aimed at accomplishing. 

Historical groups continued to pander their case that Philadelphia is a one horse town, accusing this bill of threatening Philadelphia's cultural heritage. Others continued to speculate that the primary reason people come to Philadelphia is for its history. At one point in the hearing, a man dressed as William Penn appeared, accusing Council of being paid off for their support.

Philadelphia's historic historic Market East?

 

More "cultural heritage"? 

Market East was never charming and its mind boggling why preservationists and historians have gotten so wrapped up in this bill. There isn't a lot of physical history there, and the few antique buildings that have survived Market East's long, evolving history are exempt from Bill 100720 and will not be affected.  

Luckily the counter arguments were so absurd that City Council was not swayed. Market East's primary cultural heritage lies in its place as a shopping district, not in its architecture. Tourists don't solely come to Philadelphia for our history, but for those who do, there is nothing wrong with offering them a great shopping and dining experience on their walk to Independence Mall.

City hoping for a Market rebound

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.

Illuminating Broad Street

Arguments against digital signage may have lost a little traction as the Kimmel Center unveiled it's animated video cube at the corner of Broad and Spruce.

Broad Street's historic core has been illuminated in everything from lanterns to neon to LEDs for the past 200 years, and now plasma.

The new signage shows how illuminated advertising can revitalize an architecturally barren corner.

While the target demographics for the Kimmel Center and The Gallery at Market East may be substantially different, the PIFA cube has transformed a stale, unfriendly design into something dynamic through the process of digital advertising.

Far less architecturally significant, Market East's target retail market is primed for an exponentially larger implementation of this successful medium. While South Broad is home to more than a dozen historic skyscrapers and theaters, Market East's major retail artery is left with four historically significant properties at best.

8th Street to 12th Street is an architectural fallout zone of poorly designed retail space, unattractive signage, and The Gallery, saddled with more than two blocks of sporadically adorned metal and concrete walls.

If the argument against the proposed digital signage at Market East is based on its content, then the conversation hasn't begun. Advertisers would be sought after the space is approved. As SCRUB proved with an Absolut ad near 8th and Market, it only takes a few helicopter parents to harass advertisers away.

No one has proposed illuminating The Gallery, or any other building in the vicinity, with advertisements for Delilah's. The potential revenue generated by this space and the business it will attract are staggering. Campaigning against digital signage on Market East purely based on its speculative content is irresponsible to the community.

However if the argument is based on the wattage, medium, or the technique in which the content is applied, a format justified even minimally on South Broad Street cannot rationally be banned from what should be Center City's core of consumerism.