It
was what Brian Roberts described as a journey.
Comcast
Corp.’s CEO was working with John Gattuso, senior vice president and regional
director of Liberty Property Trust, on a second Center City skyscraper for the
cable giant.
So
many variables were in play. Among them were how many square feet should it
total, where would it go, who would be the architect, how much would it cost,
and how could rents be kept at the same rate as Comcast Center.
“That
process can be fraught with low points,” Roberts said. “We hit some low
points.”
At
one of those moments, a design of what is now referred to as the Comcast
Innovation and Technology Center was shown to Roberts. It looked great but
there was a problem and Gattuso had to break some bad news to the Comcast CEO.
The building at that design cost too much. Frustrated, Roberts questioned why
Gattuso would even show him a rendering if what was presented too expensive and
not feasible.
“In
his own perfect way, John said: ‘Be patient. I know what you want,’” Roberts
said. “He never loses his cool and there isn’t that emotion. In the end, we got
something a lot more special and it was achieved in a way that I thought wasn’t
possible. He’s a real secret weapon for Comcast when it comes to this space, to
designing and creating our home.”
Gattuso
may also be one of Philadelphia’s secret weapons.
He
and his team at Liberty are profoundly changing Philadelphia’s built environment
and pushing the city in a direction that is not only altering the skyline but
helping it shed some of its inferiority complex one building at a time.
“I
think he is a Philadelphia treasure,” said Graham Wyatt, a partner with Robert
A.M. Stearn Architects who worked with Gattuso on Comcast Center and
GlaxoSmithKline’s building at the Navy Yard, among other projects.
“I
think there are a lot of people in this business who treat this as a job,” said
Glenn Blumenfeld of Tactix Real Estate Advisors, which represented Franklin
Square Capital Partners in a lease with Liberty at the Navy Yard. “John has a
real passion for real estate and changing the landscape. I think he lives and
breathes this. He takes a lot of pride in driving around the city and seeing
how he and Liberty have changed the landscape.”
A
*%£#&! genius
Described
as modest and self-deprecating, smart and fair, passionate and, by one person
as a *£%#&! genius,” some have made comparisons between Gattuso and his
mentor the late developer Willard G. Rouse III for the impact he is having on
Philadelphia.
It’s
a comparison that makes Gattuso cringe not because it’s not a compliment or
flattering, it’s just that Gattuso really is modest in spite of the
significance of his accomplishments.
“Bill
was my mentor and a mentor for a lot of people in the company,” he said,
emphasizing that Liberty has a deep bench of employees who are very talented
and doing great work all over the place. Gattuso is also quick to give credit
to the team of people he works with out of Liberty’s offices at Eight Penn
Center.
Even
so, his work is not only leaving a mark on the city but helping to push it
forward.
“John
has the capacity to think and see things that aren’t necessarily there today
and move toward those things,” said John Grady, president at the Philadelphia
Industrial Development Corp., which oversees the development of the Navy Yard.
“He’s not just building a building to create a profit. He’s trying to create in
Philadelphia a new generation for the city in terms of buildings and work
environment and continued vitality for the city.”
Gattuso
briefly worked at PIDC after graduating from Washington University in St. Louis
and then joined what was Rouse & Associates, the predecessor to Liberty
Property Trust, in 1987 when he was 24 years old. It was the lowest paying
offer he got but he took the job any way for the opportunity to work with
Rouse.
He
started in the company’s Horsham office and plugged away, learning lessons from
Rouse that he still draws on in the work he does today. One was to look at the
world through the eyes of a child and with a similar sense of wonderment and
bigness. That sensation is captured in a childhood memory of Gattuso’s when he
would travel on the train with his mother. They would board in Glenside and
arrive to the grandness of Reading Terminal. Then, walk out to the streets
where he was greeted by the PSFS building and then the rush of the city.
“A
sense of entry affects perception of space,” he said. “Space matters,
architecture matters and can uplift us if done right and elevate us as human
beings.”
That
got translated into the design of Comcast Center, its lobby and connection to
the concourse and to the street, for example, and at the Navy Yard with the
scale of the new buildings, and how Crescent Drive was designed. It’s creating
a sense of arrival. It’s place-making. It’s programming. All of which is
important to the success of a building.
“He
sweats the details and that’s not just talking about the design of the
buildings but as they relate interpersonal relationships, what people want,
what motivates them,” said Wyatt, who has worked regularly with Gattuso for the
last 15 years.
After
a brief stint in Minneapolis for Liberty, Gattuso returned to Philadelphia in
1999 to establish the company’s urban development group. Up to that point,
Liberty had mostly focused on suburban office and industrial development.
From
TJMaxx to Comcast
Gattuso’s
first project in Philadelphia was not so sexy. In fact, it was far from it but
had real impact.
It
was back in 2000 and Liberty would be constructing a 1-million-square-foot
distribution center on 67 acres in Northeast Philadelphia for the company that
owns TJMaxx and Marshall’s. It generated more than 1,500 new jobs, which was
the largest single jolt of private-sector jobs the city had seen in more than
20 years and remains so today, more than a decade later.
Two
years later, Liberty committed to developing a corporate center at the Navy
Yard. Today, the former Naval base has 143 companies with a total of 11,000
employees and is considered a bona fide Philadelphia office submarket.
GlaxoSmithKline
is one of those companies. Gattuso was involved in the building of Glaxo’s
former building, Three Franklin Plaza. The pharmaceutical company had worked
with Gattuso for two years on 17 various space and building options when
Gattuso began to push hard for the company to move to the Navy Yard, said
Christian Bigsby, head of facilities at GlaxoSmithKline.
“He
wanted a game changer for the city and we wanted a game changer for our
business,” Bigsby said.
Both
got what they wanted.
Gattuso
nudged Roberts in a similar way with the Comcast Center.
“John
said this is both of our chances to do something we’re very proud of for
Philadelphia. That it’s more than business. That it’s to help your company and
the skyline,” Roberts said. “I had great respect for his broad vision.”
Gattuso
also convinced Roberts to put the Comcast Center at 17th Street and John F.
Kennedy Boulevard rather than at 1441 Chestnut St. where the W Hotel will be
constructed. It’s also the general area where Comcast’s new building will get
constructed.
“It
wasn’t the center of Center City in most people’s minds,” said Wyatt, the
architect. “John said Philadelphia is moving in that direction. In some extent
he saw it and was right but he also saw that and created it.”
In
talking about the latest Comcast building, Gattuso is excited about what the
impact of the cable company’s investment means to the city and the expansion of
its vertical campus. It’s also another opportunity for Liberty and Gattuso to
leave their mark on Philadelphia.
As
developers, “we recognize we are change agents,” Gattuso said. “We create and
we change places and given that responsibility, we have an obligation to
improve and leave a neighborhood or city better than it was before.”
A
CLOSER LOOK
Homemade
developer
John
Gattuso’s tastes range from Downton Abbey to the Grateful Dead.
Grew
up: Maple Glen
Lives
now: Malvern
High
School: LaSalle College High School
College:
Washington University
Major:
Urban Studies
Vacation
Spot: Venice
Restaurant:
Patio restaurant at the Hotel Cipirani in Venice.
Music:
Leonard Cohen, Brian Eno, Daft Punk and the Grateful Dead
TV
Show: “Downton Abbey”
Books
Reading Now: “Before the Big Bang — the Prehistory of the Universe” by Brian
Clegg; and “Ed Bacon — Planning, Politics, and the Building of Modern
Philadelphia” by Gregory L. Heller.
Family:
Wife, Patti; daughter, Maryanna, 14; and step-son, Michael, 34
Source:
Philadelphia
Business Journal
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