Old City is its Own Worst Enemy

You don't need to be a history buff to know that Old City was once Philadelphia's central core. From the city's beginnings as the second largest in the British Empire to our last days as an industrial powerhouse, Old City housed everything from commerce to manufacturing to shipping to residents - both wealthy and not. 

Between its final days as a slum and its rebirth as a haven for moderately wealthy New Philadelphians, Old City essentially sat dormant, essentially suffering a Cold War identity crisis. In the 80s and 90s, the birth of the yuppy gave renewed purpose to Old City and similar neighborhoods throughout the nation. Young urban professionals bought affordable homes in struggling neighborhoods chock full of the ample parking they enjoyed in the suburbs. With commerce and industry relocated to the far ends of freeways, the concept of urban living in Philadelphia's most urban address began to shift again.

Over the last three decades, our most historic neighborhood has been adding to its ongoing historic narrative, evident in the fact that Old City is home to some of the city's most argumentative and seemingly misaligned advocacy groups. 

A modest, 6-10 story residential project has been proposed on Arch Street near 2nd, technically on Arch and a small street called Little Boys Court. In any other neighborhood, such a proposals would be humble, and residents might even be asking for more. Even in the small streets of Washington Square West and Rittenhouse, neighborhoods consisting of much greater architectural and historic cohesion, Stephen Varenhorst's collection of lofts would be an end concession, not a point of contention. 

If it weren't a rendering, you'd assume it had been there all along.

But in Old City, its residents still clinging to the Thirty-Somthing era in which they set down their carpeted bags, any development without 1:1 parking is bad development. I typically don't delve into the comments section below articles, but PhiladelphiaSpeaks' Cro Brunham lifted a gem from a recent Philly.com article on this proposal that really exposes the hypocritical mindset of some of Old City's most absentminded residents. 

One Philly.com user asked, "Where are these people supposed to park?" continuing, "Someone needs to put in regulations similar to...the suburbs...Philadelphia is starting to look like a hodgepodge of crappy looking buildings. All of the historical aspects are going away."

Sure, the author can't be personally faulted for an off-the-cuff remark made in the comments below a Philly.com article. But the comment echoes a common theme throughout neighborhoods riddled with suburban theory. In any city, the first question should never be about parking. But for these people, it's not a question of parking, it's a question of change. People go to parking the way readers go to the comments section: they want to complain but they're not exactly sure what to complain about. They want to be heard, but they're not quite sure what to say. They know they don't like the impending change, but they're not yet sure why.

Does the naggingly irrelevant question of parking rear its head in other Center City neighborhoods? Of course it does. But even in more congested neighborhoods like Market East, Washington Square West, and Rittenhouse, the conversation has begun to evolve. From the redevelopment of the Boyd Theater site to East Market and East Chestnut, the discussion of style and design has finally begun to trump the tired parking debate. But where other Center City residents learn to embrace the urban life they chose, Old City residents refuse to acknowledge the fact that they are at first, Center City residents, opting to fight for ample parking and to stagnate any change, however progressive. 

City living is a compromise. For those who want suburbanized concessions, the suburbs exist exclusively for those who enjoy the luxury of isolation. But the city is as much a melting pot of people as it is of ideals, and your opinion will - or should - never carry the same weight beyond your front door as it does throughout a planned community in Cherry Hill. 

If you need a car to get to work, Old City has an abundance of parking garages. If you insist on parking on the street and need to get to King of Prussia by 9am on Monday, rent a space in a garage. If you can't afford it, look for another neighborhood. Philadelphia is growing, especially Center City, and it will continue to do so. As it grows, its' economic demographics will change, the cost of living will rise, and its build environment will evolve. 

What's perhaps most unnerving about the Old City parking debate is that Old City is not a low-rent neighborhood. Second only to Rittenhouse Square, Old City is one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Center City. We're not talking about the Gayborhood or Chinatown where people are spending $750 a month for a studio in a converted brownstone, we're talking about a neighborhood building new $850,000 brownstones for one family.

For those spending $2000 a month in rent or mortgaging a million dollar condo, what parking crisis are they talking about? It's entitlement, plain and simple. They have it all but want perfection, as they see it, and that is exactly the suburban mentality. But - perhaps with the exception of those living along Delancey Street or in penthouses overlooking Rittenhouse Square - entitlement has no place in an urban environment. And even Philadelphia's oldest money seems to understand that parking comes at a cost. 

No urban neighborhood from Old City to Passyunk Square to North Broad Street will ever indefinitely exist in a vacuum. Old City lived in that vacuum throughout its' mid-20th Century identity crisis and no one but the slumlords and the pawnshops wanted a piece of it. Old City's suburban crusaders are no different than the land hoarders who fought to keep their property values low enough to avoid inspection, only today's residents are fighting to preserve another kind of blight: the suburbanization of Philadelphia's most urban address.

Philadelphia's First Velodrome?

Okay, first of all, what's a velodrome? Well it's an arena for bicycle racing.

I have to say, from the Rocky Balboa Run to Yoga on the Steps to Paine's Skatepark, I think it's great that America's once unhealthiest and most obese cities is truly investing in exercise. 

Project 250 has proposed a velodrome for South Philadelphia's Stadium District. But unlike Lincoln Financial Field or Citizens Bank Park, the velodrome wouldn't just be a place to host competitions, it would be a place for cycling enthusiasts to learn and practice. 

Unfortunately its public accessibility has placed it in a realm governed by the city's authority over public spaces, landing it on four acres of Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park. 

Common sense puts any new South Philadelphia arena on one of the seemingly endless supply of surface lots surrounding the stadiums and the upcoming Live! Casino. 

If the $100M project happens, Project 250 will convert a four acre parking lot across from FDR Park into additional green space. It's a worthy concession but one that doesn't make a lot of sense. If Project 250's velodrome becomes the World Class venue it aims to become, it will require parking, parking that will likely be provided on its four acre parcel within FDR Park. 

Why not share parking at the asphalt prairies that surround the stadiums, and add one more world class gem to our collection of world class stadiums? The district is growing along with the city, and it's become apparent that we don't understand the difference between static and dynamic parking. 

In a neighborhood that should be thinking vertically, Project 250's velodrome needs to find a place inside the city, not across it. And there is plenty of room on the east side of Broad Street.

What's Next for the Shirt Corner?

Four months after the dust settled at the site of Old City's Shirt Corner fire at Third and Market, we finally have our sidewalk back. 

Great. 

But the question now is, "what's next?"

The restoration and reconstruction of the Suit Corner across the street was supposed to help the corner transition into a handsomely quaint Old City intersection. 

But the end result of the fire has traded cheap yellow suits at one corner for scorched abandonment at another.

Despite Old City's pricy lofts and upscale restaurants, the neighborhood is no stranger to abandoned buildings and empty lots. It may be some time before this property changes hands, but the soon-to-be vacant lot entered the real estate market by accident. When derelict property vanishes in Philadelphia, the fallout often makes way for a surface parking lot.

But six decades into Old City's love affair with parking lots, can we finally know better? Old City has been one of the most vocal voices when it comes to opposing new development, but when it comes to screaming "Not In My Back Yard," parking lots are rarely mentioned until after they've been laid. 

Six decades later, the city still looks at parking lots as an acceptedly interim use for vacant land, but six decades in we know that "interim" is defined by a parking corporation's bloated asking price. 

Sadly, in Philadelphia, it costs less to level a building to build something new than it does to acquire a ready-to-build parking lot for the same project. 

Just look at the Disney Hole at 8th and Market. 

In a city full of bike lanes and park improvements, residents are telling City Hall, "we don't need more parking." Old City has fought tooth and nail to stop the development of a vacant lot at 2nd and Race citing shadows and traffic. Pressuring property owners to smart-sell their vacant land is long overdo. Basically, find someone with a plan to build or be burdened with the property tax until you do.

Unfortunately neighboring voices tend to be reactionary. They'll oppose development but won't proactively seek an alternative. This mentality is detrimental to the growth of any city, not because it stymies development, but because it settles for the status quo. And in Center City, the status quo is a parking lot or a vacant building.

It's interesting that those actively advocating against potential development are doing so in what they perceive to be their neighborhood's best interests, while not actively seeking ways to make their neighborhoods better. Old City in particular, full of new residents, shouldn't be a neighborhood saddled with Negadelphians who assume the worst in every proposal.

It may seem odd that I'm harping on NIMBYs because community activists haven't said one word about the future of the site of the Shirt Corner. But that lack of involvement is exactly why I'm harping on those allegedly invested in their neighborhoods. 

Where are they?

Anyone concerned with the future of Old City should be actively trying to block the sale of the Shirt Corner site as a surface lot now, not after a deal is in place. But that's the flaw in Philadelphia's abundance of neighborhood organizations and their reactionary approach. It's easy to throw a wrench in the development of a building we'll see, but a noble effort would include a voice that attempts to groom a growing neighborhood into what it should be through developing vacant land. 

And in a neighborhood with ample parking for both residents and visitors, that starts with derailing more designated private parking.

More Convention Center Surface Parking?

It's not clear what's happening here, but given the fact that the building is mid-block on a small street, it will likely become more surface parking. This is a block of Juniper Street between Race and Vine and the second building on this block to be recently demolished. 

It seems the powers behind one of Philadelphia's most nefarious purveyors of unsightly surface parking will not be content until their footprint is as big as the Pennsylvania Convention Center itself.

A word of advice thanks to the piss poor planners in my small hometown. When one property hoarder demolishes entire blocks or even neighborhoods for surface parking, a funny thing happens. Businesses flee and suddenly no one's left looking for parking.

Something to Vote For

Garages and surface lots throughout the city have been running a campaign that blames the high cost of parking on a 20% tax, asking voters to vote to lower it to 15%. These cretins have even created a Facebook page dedicated to their "plight". 

Don't be fooled. If anyone believes the price of parking will go down if taxes do, you're wrong. Surface lots in particular, have nearly no overhead. This means that after taxes your parking fee is nearly 100% profit.

Several garages throughout Center City charge as little as $5 a day. Lots that charge as much as $25 a day don't do so because they have to, they do so because you're willing to pay. 20% is a tax break compared to most major cities.

Lowering corporate taxes only means more profit. It means nothing to the consumer and never has. The only way to lower the cost of parking is to utilize our public transportation, convenient taxis, or to be a savvy consumer and seek out the competition.

Giving these slumlords a tax break will only encourage them to pave over more of Philadelphia until there's no reason left to park here. Ever been to downtown Houston? Do you really want to encourage more of this?

More Parking

At least this parking is going to be three dimensional and offer retail space. I'm not going to throw a parade for a parking garage even if it does look like Barbarella lives there. But it's nice to see another surface lot bite the dust.

City Council approved new zoning legislation that will allow the construction Dennis Maloonian's parking garage at Juniper and Arch. Someday someone will need to explain to me why every new project in this city needs new zoning legislation, particularly when this parking garage is around the corner from several identical pieces of property.

Even with the expansion, I find it hard to believe that the Pennsylvania Convention Center warrants any more parking. But people are lazy, and a garage within spitting distance of the Broad Street entrance to the PCC will undoubtedly succeed. I'm just hoping that these 500+ spaces will take business away from the half dozen eyesores scarring the blocks between Race and Vine.

Parking War

When it comes to the bricks, nothing hurts an urban landscape more than surface parking lots. They scar the skyline, make walking undesirable, and inhibit adjacent development. These asphalt prairies become even more noticeable at times like today, when big snow storms leave piles of snow and ice surrounding these blighted blocks and absent management companies refuse to plow or shovel their sidewalks, or plow snow into neighboring properties, leaving neighbors the headache of cleaning up after nonexistent owners.

Like a virus, surface parking lots cause neighboring properties to decline, often leading to demolition and thus absorption into the growing parking lot making a decreasingly desirable neighborhood even less desirable, leading to more demolition and so on, until you end up with what can be found in countless locations throughout the city. Not only does this type of anti-development cause neighborhoods to decline, it encourages an auto-centric mentality that can't possibly be supported in a city as dense as Philadelphia.

With lots and garages in nearly every block in Center City, if not every block in Center City, people still complain about parking. In most dense cities with a highly populated urban core - Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco - residents and even commuters wouldn't complain about having to walk five blocks or so, but in Philadelphia, even many Center City residents complain about walking, feeling entitled to the convenience of driving to the gym or grocery store.

A small portion of Center City with lots outlined in red...and that doesn't even include parking garages.

In the hierarchy of urban development, I put the owners of surface parking lots several notches below the worst slum lords. These pariahs sit on property with low taxes, have virtually no overhead, and see almost completely raw profit. It's no wonder most new buildings are developed by razing old ones. Owners of surface parking lots are free to extort developers. They are sitting on property that is nothing but profit. No matter how little they make or how unappealing it is, there is no incentive for them to sell, ever. There is no property usage tax in the city to motivate owners of undeveloped Center City property develop or seek development. What makes it even worse, is many real estate owners will raze their derelict properties in anticipation of potential development, but when development never comes turn their space into a parking lot, which never ever goes away.