Goldtex Apartments' Next Uphill Battle

Now that Goldtex has defied convention and won the war against the region's unions, let's talk about the new apartment building that stands to define the city's latest hip address.

It's certainly grand. Post Brothers brought ambitious design, high end appliances, and the kind of amenities usually reserved for condos to the rental market. But their next challenge could be finding those renters.

Starting at almost $1400 for a little more than 500 square feet, Goldtex must compete with luxury rentals in Rittenhouse and Society Hill. In fact, the main thing more appealing about Goldtex than similar Center City rentals is easy parking and freeway access, and one can find those conveniences in University City or the suburbs for far less. 

Come on, who shaves like that?

But that could all change. Goldtex may be the catalyst Callowhill needs bring the same success found in hip islands like Passyunk Square closer to Center City. Although it's not comparable to the Piazza, more foot traffic at 12th and Wood can encourage other developers to explore the vicinity's vacant warehouses and surface lots, even those across Vine Street.

The nearby State Office Building has already been transformed into Tower Place. With 50% of Post Brothers' Goldtex units rented before their building is even complete, they've given Bart Blatstein the fire he needs to begin converting his nearby Inquirer Building.

Still, Goldtex is unique. Philadelphia is not a transient town. Most renters ultimately want to buy, and are often willing to settle for standard amenities with modest rent in the mean time. Over time the Post Brothers may find themselves regretting the decision to use stainless steel appliances and lavish amenities, amenities that need to be maintained and replaced throughout the years.

Luxury rentals aren't easy to sustain, and where they survive, they're paired with a premier address. Still, while we leap to 18th and Walnut when we think of that premier address, luxury rentals have helped transform Northern Liberties and University City into mighty fine addresses.

Callowhill's grit has always been baffling considering its proximity to Center City. It's dynamic and urban unlike emerging areas of South Philadelphia much farther from City Hall and public transportation. It may take just one, wildly publicized and successful building to remind people how close the neighborhood is to everything.

Post Brothers warn renters: Don't Rent at Goldtex

What? That's right. Post Brothers are warning renters not to rent at their Goldtex Apartments. Why? Because you won't want to leave.

In a fun twist in marketing, Post Brothers have turned the union protest signs along Vine Street into their own advertisements, holding their own "Do Not Rent Here" rooftop party.

L&I had been holding Post Brothers' event permit for a month, prompting Matt Pestronk, co-owner of Post Brothers Apartments to state, “If they don’t give it to us, it’s because they’re corrupt.”

The permit came through and the event went on as planned, along with the standard protesters with their mold mannequins and "Do Not Rent Here" signs. Post Brothers couldn't have hired better actors to work their party on the street. Many party attendees likely believed the protestors were just part of the show.

L&I made an appearance at the event just to make sure everything was on the up and up. You know, because L&I has been so dutiful in their response to complaints about shoddy construction sites.

When the party was over the party was over. The few union protesters left with their tails between their legs in defeat, off to drag their tired inflatable rat and worn rhetoric to the next site where developers now know they're not needed.

Trade Unions: Strategize or Disappear

As trade union members still protest at the site of Post Brothers' Goldtex Apartments, things are getting a bit, well, sad.

They've clearly switched from targeting the construction crew and general public to targeting potential renters. Their latest stunt has included a couple mannequins in white decontamination suits with signs suggesting that the site is infested with mold.

Of course without proof this might be considered slanderous, but why bother? The fact that the unions are trying to deter renters means they've ceded to the notion that the building will be rented.

At this point, what is their end game? What resolve will satisfy the few who continue to protest?

The media has dragged the Post Brothers' names through the mud, L&I has repeatedly halted development for investigations, City Council and the Mayor's Office have proven where their allegiance lies, and the project is still active.

If any misconduct is taking place at Goldtex it would have been revealed by a media or government at the unions' beck and call for the past year. Yet the Post Brothers are still succeeding.

What would make the cheerleaders happy? Do they want jobs at Goldtex? Do they want the project abandoned? Do they want to bankrupt Post Brothers? Do they think they can?

At the beginning their message was clear: Post Brothers didn't hire a union crew.

But what's left?

The unions lost this battle, but there are countless other projects throughout the city worthy of their inflatable rat.

They continue to peddle a lost message at Goldtex, one that has proven to be ineffectual, and a protest that no longer does the unions any favor. Without focus they look like grown toddlers throwing a temper tantrum, hurting whatever credibility they had left by focusing their attention on one lost cause.

What's even worse for the unions than their reluctance to cede this battle is that they've learned nothing from the loss. Their strategy is unchanged. They launched a 21st Century turf war with fifty year old rhetoric.

When inflatable rats and poorly worded banners don't work, you don't drag your rat and worn commentary to the next protest. You regroup and strategize.

As our city grows more and more tired from union fatigue, they've become the white noise of a dying movement.

Where's their PR manager?

Their message appeals to a working class mid-century America, not to the diverse crew of Post Brothers' workforce and certainly not to anyone with the means to rent a $1400 apartment.

In order to advertise their cause they need to sell it to yuppies shopping for a cushy loft or understand why "scabs" exist. People who buy $90 bottles of olive oil take one look at your typical union picket line and think, "geez, if they don't want me to live here it must be swank."

More Heat for Post Brothers

Post Brothers are receiving heat again with claims from the city's unions, aided by a hackneyed investigation on the part of ABC's Wendy Saltzman.

I have to give it to Saltzman for doing her job. After all, the mainstream media is in the business of running stories that accumulate comments that translate into advertisement, not peddling that annoying little thing called journalism. Nothing gets people talking in Philadelphia like unions, and any reporter in Philadelphia worth her words has a Google alert set for "Goldtex Apartments."

The tactics to derail Post Brother's Goldtex project have become increasingly tedious and technical as the building nears completion, however this time the claims are not completely erroneous.

Although the blueprints were approved years ago by L&I, the city's firefighter's union president, Joe Schulle has filed a legitimate concern.

Unions stick together, but the recent complaint filed with L&I may not be part of our unions' mafia-like solidarity that tends to bring construction to a halt.

So what's the problem? Well, that's not entirely clear.

The plans approved by L&I show the building's studio units with lofts above the bathroom and closet. Access to the loft is by way of a pull down staircase that blocks the unit's only entrance. Plain and simple, it's a fire hazard. When L&I approved the plans the loft space was strictly designated as storage or utility space.

Unfortunately, Goldtex Apartment's sales reps are selling the space as extra living space. Let's be realistic here, that's what they were going for all along and how any tenant would use the space. L&I might not be in the business of marketing apartment units, but they should have a rigid set of guidelines that dictates that any space, utility or otherwise needs to be easily escapable.

It was shortsighted of L&I to approve this configuration, but also shortsighted on the part of the architects. Access to the loft could be easily configured to the right or left of the apartment's entrance. L&I should have pointed that out when they reviewed the plans, and the Post Brothers and their architects should have complied.

At Post Brother's eleventh hour it poses a last minute headache that would be minimal to any other developer. But for developers embroiled in an ongoing battle with the city's trade unions, and now the firefighter's union, the media has turned an easily addressable issue into breaking news and stalled construction.

The stairs will either stay or get moved, but our trade unions' dream of a vacant Goldtex Apartment Building and a bankrupt Post Brothers won't happen. The positioning of the stairs is certainly a valid concern, one which should have been addressed before construction began.

But the outcry from the trade unions and their supporters, and the media's overreaction on their behalf is only making them appear less credible and relevant to a much larger and rational public that already views these unions as petty and outdated.

It's a shame because in this particular instance the firefighter's union is actually doing what it was designed to do, but the trade unions have done such a good job at crying wolf that when any union actually does its job, only the union members and muckrakers seem to care.

Residential Development and the Status Quo

Carl Dranoff is no stranger to scrutiny. It's not surprising. While his designs are often unassuming and sometimes ridiculed, his firm is also synonymous with Philadelphia residential development.

While many have criticized the bland tower that rose from the site of the Sidney Hillman Medical Center, few have dropped the name of its developer, the John Buck Company, because it isn't a household name.

But both developers share the same struggle: appeasing lots and lots of tenants.

Dranoff's proposed One Riverside Park won't win any awards. Even in the design phase, we know it never will. Dranoff's bland designs are deliberate. Symphony House and 777 South Broad are his most unique, but they still echo tested design.

He's not a visionary, he's a businessman. Instead of hiring award winning firms that design iconic buildings, he hires ones that design buildings that rent quickly.

Heaving the weight of this reality on Dranoff's firm isn't entirely fair. There are plenty of developers in Philadelphia scarring our city with lesser architecture, or worse, bulldozing our history for parking lots from their mansions in New Jersey.

Dranoff is just the most visible because, perhaps, he's the most ambitious.

He's leaving a legacy on the city he loves. Respectably, he stands behind his properties in the face of criticism, deserved or not, and most of his buildings aren't significant enough to be ugly.

Dranoff is no Frank Furness, and perhaps that's where people get confused. He isn't an architect. He's a developer catering to families and suburban refugees looking for comfort and amenities, the kind of people we see jogging the Schuylkill Trail at 5am as we weirdos return from the all night clothing optional rave in Baltimore.

His demographic might cock their heads quizzically at the unique architecture popping up around University City, along New York's High Line, or even the Murano or the Residences at the Ritz. They're easy to appease, but easily turned off by the unfamiliar.

Basically, his market has a conservative eye. But that's where the money is. Dranoff knows this, and instead of trading potential tenants for unique design, he plays it safe and caters to the broadest market possible. Right now in Philadelphia that's the upper middle class ex-suburbanite who wants a home near the park, ample parking, and to live in something that blends into the background.

It's easy to call out other cities in comparison, but even New York is still churning out plenty of boring rectangular cubes to accommodate the status quo. New York and Chicago simply build so much that they have more gems to stand out.

Still, Dranoff's projects and weak design aren't entirely excused by this vast demand for the ordinary. Hilton Home2's developer citied construction costs to excuse his architectural disaster and he couldn't have been more knee-deep in bull ****.

It's true, it costs a lot to build in Philadelphia, but turning a building on an odd angle, adding unorthodox materials, or selecting a unique color palette doesn't up the construction costs.

Philadelphia is saddled with cost prohibitive situations, but that lies in construction, not design. There is no architecture union in Philadelphia that I'm aware of, and if there is, H2L2 and Erdy-McHenry aren't working against each other to produce the lowest common denominator.

Edgy and interesting design doesn't have to be cost prohibitive when it comes time to build, and Dranoff has the money to hire an architect with an eye for the unique. We know this because Post Brothers hired a firm to design a much more interested renovation at 12th and Wood and proved that Philadelphia's costly prohibitions aren't in themselves requirements, just a daily headache.

However Dranoff seems uninterested in ruffling the feathers of the city's unions. Post Brothers' renovations at the Goldtex, while visually unique, aren't structurally unique.

Dranoff could easily employ an edgy design firm to help him adorn the Schuylkill River, but that isn't what he does. Dranoff's reluctance to build an iconic high rise on the Schuylkill Banks is marketing, and a business move to sell his beds as fast as possible.

Post Brother's "Clap-Trap"

Post Brother's Goldtex Apartment building has been coming along remarkably despite months of daily protests wielding the union's notable carnival toy: a twelve foot inflatable rat, which in a slack jawed sense of 1950's "tough guy" symbolism, is now orange. I'm just guessing. I can't bring myself to research why it's orange, maybe it's just faded.

Assuming the building would near completion without anymore shady moves by the region's trade unions is kind of like hoping a giant turd disappears from a broken toilet in the middle of the night.

Well, they're back. Inga Saffron has the scoop.

According to Inga, Frank Keel, head of public relations for the Building Trades Council, stated that “concerned citizens (had) seen the incomplete state of the building, reached out to L&I." 

As a neighbor I have yet to meet one of these "concerned citizens," likely because most of those stalking the Goldtex site do so from a yellow tagged SUV and hightail it over the river before any of us are home.

Business Manager for Building Trades, Pat Gillespie, always unafraid of airing midcentury machismo called Goldtex a "clap-trap" which is "nowhere near ready for occupancy." Lucille Bluth, the matriarch of Arrested Development's fictional Bluth family, is the last person I've ever heard utter the phrase "clap-trap."

It's easy to look at Goldtex Apartments and assume it's not nearing completion, and Keel and Gillespie are playing right into this misconception. What neither understand is that no one cares. All seasoned Philadelphians see at 12th and Wood is an astoundingly iconic apartment building going up in record time. Consider our point of reference. We're used to corporations that spend three decades on environmental impact studies and design contests to build a park.

Public opinion for trade unions was already beginning to falter and these protests have managed to turn the tide. L&I will throw the unions a few more favors, but when Goldtex Apartments opens, Post Brothers will have proven to the business community that you can build in Philadelphia without union muscle.

At this point it's nothing but a game of face saving pride. Post Brothers have proven time and again that they're willing to dance. Unions are used to targeting Philadelphia developers, developers that routinely rely on kickbacks from the city or tax breaks. Their biggest misstep was targeting a developer willing to use their own cash. The desperate last ditch efforts to derail a project that will certainly open only proves the game is over.