The Pyramid Club, a dining, social and meeting spot at
the top of 1735 Market St., is slated to get a $2 million to $3 million
facelift.
The members-only club has occupied 21,000 square feet on
the 52nd floor of the Philadelphia office tower since 1993 and due for an
upgrade. The company that operates the facility, Club Corp, recently renewed
the Pyramid Club’s lease for 10 years and that made it an ideal time to move
forward with the project, said General Manager Rick Winland.
It's becoming increasingly more common for private clubs,
whether country and golf clubs or city clubs, to launch major renovations as a
way to stay current and relevant as well as retain members and attract new
ones. Locally, the Union League of Philadelphia went through a $24 million
series of improvements aimed to not only make parts of the building state of
the art but also reinvent certain aspects of the club that had become
antiquated. The Racquet Club of Philadelphia also went through a recent round
of renovations.
At the Pyramid Club, the renovations seek to accomplish
several goals among them making the space more appealing visually as well as
efficient, Winland said.
“Logistically, the layout now doesn’t lend well or
consistently to member space,” he said.
If there is an event going on in one room, sometimes
lunch is shifted to another dining space, for example, and that can complicate
things. To solve that issue, some walls will be knocked down to create a
single, large community room that will have all-day dining and a bar. A
community table will have self-serve beer taps, a perk that will likely become
popular. There will be separate, dedicated spaces for meetings and events and
will hopefully cut down on some of the logistical problems it now faces on
occasion.
“Another layer is modernizing it,” Winland said. “The
club hasn’t done a major renovation since 1993 and while it has held up, we’re
looking to refresh the look. We want to make it a little more modern but still
conservative and have more appeal to younger members.”
While the views from top of the tower never get old, the
interior space is showing its age. It's dated with cherry woodwork, heavy
carpeting, brass lamps and upholstered wing chairs. The new furniture and
design is contemporary and even has some industrial overtones that hark back to
the city’s manufacturing past.
The redesign will also create more business meeting space
and incorporate more glass enclosed “touch down rooms” that members can book.
This is in response to members increasingly using the Pyramid Club as an office
away from the office to meet clients, hold interviews or meetings. Space for
that type of use is now limited.
“That is going to be a huge appeal for members,” Winland
said.
The club has about 1,000 members, which it grew to after
being down during the recession. The renovations are not only seeking ways to
accommodate existing members but also attract new and younger ones. “We have a
lot of room for growth,” he said.
Work is expected to being in early January and be
completed after three months.
The club is operated by ClubCorp (NYSE: MYCC), a
Dallas-based company, that owns and operates country and golf clubs as well as
city-based clubs.
Source: Philadelphia
Business Journal
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