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Inga Saffron: planning starts for downtown casino

mgolas — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:39:08 -0500

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Nov. 14

From Inga Saffron's Changing Skyline blog

The Nutter Administration isn't wasting any time in laying the planning groundwork for a Center City casino. No sooner did City Council approve the creation of a Market Street entertainment district yesterday, then the Planning Department and the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. posted advertisements seeking five separate consultants to help the city prepare for the expected arrival of a Foxwoods slots parlor in the western end of The Gallery.

The job with the greatest implication for the city's future is the one listed third, calling for a firm capable of developing a strategic plan for the Market Street East corridor, from the Convention Center to Independence Mall, Chinatown to Wash West. The big reason that a Gallery-based casino has drawn such wide support is that many are convinced it will be the catalyst for new development on that tired street. Writing in the Center City District's Fall newsletter, Paul Levy argues that the casino will enable the city to use a special financing mechanism called a TIF to pay for infrastructure, transit and streetscape improvements, which would presumably make the street more attractive to hotels, retail and other development. It's astonishing how that once great shopping street has been allowed to languish. Poor Strawbridge & Clothier has been waiting for a suitor for well over a year. Which, of course, is nothing compared to the lifespan of the empty lot at 8th and Market - over 30 years. In the last few months, the number of empty storefronts has been increasing at an alarming clip.

Ideally, the development of the city's strategic plan will be accompanied by a vigorous public debate about how Market Street should evolve, similar to the open and lively conversations that occurred during the Penn Praxis study of the Delaware waterfront. Several people, including Levy in the Center City District newsletter, have been floating the idea of turning Market Street into Philadelphia's answer to Times Square, and allowing the same kind of exuberant lighting and signage. Just recently, the head of the Redevelopment Authority, Terry Gillen, who has been advising Mayor Nutter on the casinos, raised the possibility that SugarHouse may ask the city for a Market Street location - the obvious choice being the big empty lot at 8th and Market.

While Nutter says he strongly opposes a second downtown casino, it's not too early to start worrying that he could reverse that position. One casino, located on the third floor of the Gallery's anonymous box, is something, I believe, the area could absorb. But add a second, purpose-built casino and you start to create a gambling district. Better to talk about other uses that could be compatible with Foxwoods, like hotels and shops. It's not even unreasonable to imagine someday - after the current bust subsides - some residential towers creeping onto Market Street.

Posted by Inga Saffron at 12:48 PM

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Mark Alan Hughes: energy intensity a decisive competitive factor among regions in the future

mgolas — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:39:31 -0500

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Nov. 07

By Mark Alan Hughes
For PlanPhilly

See Hughes' piece in the Daily News, 4 November 2008

“We don’t shovel sunshine down here.” Twenty years ago, a counter clerk in Dallas teased me with that line as I paid him to ship presents back to Philadelphia after a Christmas visit.

The line has ever since epitomized for me the competitive challenge facing Philadelphia as a region in which to live and work. Sunbelt triumphalism has guided investor psychology for half a century.

In an era where energy and water were perceived as almost too cheap to meter, there was no way that Philadelphia could compete with Charlotte and San Diego.

When people routinely commute 30 or 40 miles from home to work and when goods routinely travel hundreds or thousands of miles from origin to market, Philadelphia is essentially obsolete. It’s cheaper to build new cities than to adapt the old ones.

Sure, public policies like defense spending and mortgage subsidies and new technologies like air-conditioning accelerated our obsolescence. The fundamental cause, however, was a world of cheap and falling energy prices.

But now, for the first time in six or seven decades, the big changes in the world are increasing rather than evaporating the value of the assets we’ve inherited. The main change is rising energy prices and the key asset is a metropolitan infrastructure that was built for high energy prices.

Our regional network of dense local places (think Center City, Germantown, Frankford, Doylestown, Bryn Mawr, and Upper Darby all tied together by rail and each surrounded by housing and schools within walking distance) is the perfect urban form for the future.

The very best evidence of this is the attempt underway by Atlanta and Phoenix and Denver to reinvent themselves into the kind of city and region we already are.

It’s been a hundred years since anyone walked down the streets of Philadelphia and concluded, “yes, this is the future.” But imaginative folks are doing just that these days. Our challenge is to turn imagination into reality.

So, I have a notion. Sustainability can reposition Philadelphia as a city and region of the (and with a) future. It’s our best chance since the building of the interstate highway system to recapture a larger share of American prosperity.

But I’ll be frank with you. I don’t have the time I once had to read and think and discuss. I don’t have time to test my notions as fully as I need to. These days, as I attempt to drink from a fire hose like all overwhelmed public servants, I’m a consumer not a producer of evidence and arguments.

So I need help with this notion and I want to use this great forum to invite that help.

I propose that energy intensity will be a decisive factor in the competition among regions in the coming decades. By energy intensity, I mean the full costs (money, carbon, climate, etc.) associated with living and doing business in a place. Energy intensity implicates access to food and water, the structure and cost of energy utilities and regulation, the vulnerability of housing stock and infrastructure to rising prices and changing climates, and so on.

The question I offer for debate in this region, is there anything to this idea? Can we orient a new economic development strategy in Philadelphia around the idea of reducing our energy intensity and marketing our lower energy intensity to potential employers and residents?

Such strategy would potentially change the way we perceive and use our assets. For example, SEPTA isn’t just our public transit system; it’s a critical element in our ability to lower and sustain our competitive energy intensity. Investing in SEPTA’s capacity to lower the region’s energy intensity would become a fundamental economic development decision not a public transit decision.

I speak in public forums two or three times a week and I release requests for proposals for new initiatives every other week. But on this big idea, I want to invite the broadest possible discussion and response.

Mark Alan Hughes is a Senior Adviser to Mayor Nutter and the City’s first Sustainability Director. Contact him at mark.alan.hughes@phila.gov

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Inquirer: Heavy cost of slots jackpot

mgolas — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:30:04 -0400

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Oct. 30

Inquirer Editorial: The heavy cost of Pennsylvania's slots jackpot

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Steinberg: How values, vision and dialogue can transform Market Street

mgolas — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:51:02 -0400

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June 18, 2008

Letter to the Editor

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to your June 3rd article regarding the development of the World Trade Center site, “Signs of a World Trade Center? Not Exactly.” We would like to address some inaccuracies in the article.

The site is owned by Waterfront Renaissance Associates (WRA), which is a Pennsylvania Limited Partnership. WRA’s vision is to develop a World Trade Center of Greater Philadelphia complex and make Philadelphia one of the 100 cities in the 305 city World Trade Centers Association with a major WTC. Located on Columbus Boulevard at Callowhill Street, the site has been designed to allow for the phased development of nearly 4 million square feet of residential, office, retail and parking. Its close proximity to the Market Frankford line would commercially bind the waterfront to the heart of Center City.

The demolition work described in your article was driven by the business considerations of WRA and the condition of the site. Contrary to the statements of unidentified neighbors, the partnership has not “promised” Senator Fumo to “clear and fence the site.” The partnership has had no contact with Senator Fumo since 2001. We noted that, pursuant to the regular inspections we’ve made over the years, a wall was subtly leaning on the east side of the primary building on the site at the corner of Callowhill and Columbus. This, and other considerations, made demolition appropriate at this time.

Contrary to Mr. Scorsone’s comments concerning a “rat infestation”, the City has a regimen for inspecting sites prior to demolition, in fact did so in this case, and found no such condition.

We learned of the unfortunate incident concerning Mrs. Scorsone in November, 2007. Upon learning of this, we immediately contacted the police. We then successfully addressed the possibility of transient activity by arranging for a private, professional security service to provide seven-day-a-week observation of the site. The site was, thus, trouble-free to the date of demolition.

Contrary to Mr. Scorsone’s representation that the lawsuit has been dismissed, on March 31, 2008 the Court ruled that WRA could proceed with the lawsuit, including its breach of contract claim against certain Civic Associations, including Rivers Edge Civic Association.

We will now address the issue of why development progress has not been made on the project. The World Trade Center effort, made possible and encouraged by nearly twenty years of City and State collaboration with WRA., provides for the phased development of nearly four million square feet of space. This is embodied in an agreement with the DRPA, the lead agency in the effort. The plan consists of a residential tower and three office buildings, at an estimated total cost of over a billion dollars. The design, amongst other things, adheres to the “best practices” of the Urban Land Institute for “place making” and how major mixed use projects accommodate, and not conflict with, important neighborhood needs. Design controls requested by certain Civic Associations were also incorporated to respect the residential nature of the surrounding area and provide visual and pedestrian access to the Delaware River. These design controls were embodied in a 1989 Zoning Covenant.

By 2006, WRA was prepared to commence development of the first two towers to be built on the site in the following sequence: 1) a twenty eight story high-rise rental residential building along Callowhill Street (approximately 400,000 square feet), and 2) an eighteen story office building, Tower One of the Greater Philadelphia World Trade Center (approximately 400,000 square feet) which would sit atop a nine-level parking garage to service the parking needs of the two buildings. These buildings would be physically and operationally linked together.

(A rendering of the two buildings and the garage is attached.) All of the planned space is in strict compliance with the site’s FAR controls and with the design controls embodied in the 1989 Zoning Covenant. However, the design was predicated on the absence of height restrictions, a factor which caused the City Planning Commission to recommend and support rezoning the site to C-4.

The site’s C-4 zoning was absolutely critical to the orderly development of the site because: 1) it provides the design flexibility to phase the project and build each building with infrastructure to support future buildings; 2) it allows for the design flexibility of the future buildings which is critical in responding to the needs of commercial tenants, and 3) it provides for the design flexibility in responding to considerations in an emerging market like the Central Delaware.

The Project was in the midst of construction permitting for its first phase when, in April of 2006, the City imposed a 65’ height restriction on the area without appropriate examination of its effect on sites on the waterfront. In encouraging the expansion of the height limitation the Civic Associations may have breached the 1989 Zoning Covenant.

WRA brought suit only after attempting to resolve the matter amicably with the City.

The height restriction has had the effect of destroying this $300 million, three building “first phase” of the project, because WRA is confronted with two conditions which are currently irreconcilable: 1) the first building is incorrectly designed if the adjoining office tower and parking garage cannot be built, and 2) the first building cannot be redesigned without losing its permit and subjecting it to the 65’ height limit.

We have a great deal of sorrow and disappointment over the way this matter has evolved over the past couple of years. WRA has been dedicated to bringing the World Trade Center concept to Greater Philadelphia for nearly twenty years, and co-founded the World Trade Center of Greater Philadelphia (“WTCGP”) with State and City agencies and officials. Since its inception in 2002, WTCGP has been responsible for the development of $228 million in exports and the creation of over 2400 permanent jobs. In an article dated June 6th, 2008 which appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Moody’s Economy.com concluded: “The key for Philadelphia is to make itself even more of a center for global commerce than it is today.” The success of World Trade Center of Greater Philadelphia to date is evidence that Philadelphia would benefit from and deserves a world-class World Trade Center complex.

Sincerely yours,

Vince Powers
Partner
Devine + Powers
vpowers@devinepowers.com

for Waterfront Renaissance Associates

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<p>Waterfront Renaissance Associates representative cites inaccuracies in June 3 article, details present state of the project.</p>