FMC Tower taking serious shape

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The FMC Tower at Cira Centre South is taking shape in what is an evolving skyline in University City.  The stage of construction that the project is in finally allows reality to meet what was once just a conceptual drawing.

FMC Tower under construction.

The porte-cochère, the lobby of the building, FMC Corp.’s new headquarters — it’s all there and, though in various stages of construction, is getting closer to the end. The project at 30th and Walnut streets broke ground in May 2014 and is on schedule to be completed this summer.

I took a tour of the project with Jerry Sweeney, CEO of Brandywine Realty Trust, and Steven Rush, who is vice president of leasing at the company. It’s apparent while in the building that the Schuylkill River isn’t the barrier it once used to be. The shift in perspective on the river excited Sweeney, whose company has invested and will continue to heavily invest in the University City neighborhood.

"You don't see a river," he said. "You see one connected skyline."

Sweeney predicts that as development continues in University City and on the Center City side of the river, the Schuylkill will eventually come to be viewed as an amenity that connects rather than separates the two neighborhoods.

Considered to be Philadelphia’s first vertical neighborhood, the 49-story FMC Tower totals 870,000 square feet and is a $385 million investment.

It will bookend Cira Green, a 1.2-acre park on top of a parking garage, on one side with Evo, a student housing tower that Brandywine constructed in a joint venture, situated nearby.

Erdy McHenry Architecture design Cira Green while Pelli Clarke Pelli designed the FMC Tower.

Source:  Philadelphia Business Journal