City officials have added the white tower that formerly
housed the Inquirer and Daily News to a list of possible locations for the
Police Department's new headquarters, Mayor Kenney said Tuesday.
The surprise search, first reported by Philadelphia
Magazine online, comes even as renovations continue on a West Philadelphia site
first earmarked as a modern, high-tech police hub under former Mayor Michael
Nutter.
Kenney said Tuesday that rehabbing the stately Provident
Mutual Life Insurance Co. building at 4601 Market St. - initially estimated to
cost as much as $250 million - has been expensive, and that the property might
be better suited for a "health-related campus" or other use.
Since 1963, the police have been headquartered in the
circular, three-story Police Administration Building at 750 Race St., popularly
known as the Roundhouse. But the department long ago outgrew the decaying
building, and a new site was sought during Nutter's tenure.
Repurposing the old newspaper property at 400 N. Broad
St. would let the Police Department remain headquartered near Center City,
Kenney said, while also potentially allowing several surrounding district
headquarters to move in as well.
The iconic 18-story newspaper building at Broad and
Callowhill Streets, once dubbed the Tower of Truth, was completed in 1924 to
house The Inquirer. The Daily News moved into the building in 1965.
Both newspapers and their website, Philly.com, moved in
July 2012 to the former Strawbridge & Clothier building at 801 Market St.
Kenney said Tuesday that the Broad Street property
"is available and vacant. . . . It is large enough to do a bunch of
things."
But it could take about a month to determine whether
pursuing the building is financially feasible, Kenney said.
Developer Bart Blatstein, who owns the North Broad Street
property, did not respond to a telephone message seeking a reaction to the
mayor's comments.
City records show that Blatstein's company bought the
former newspaper building in 2011 for $22.65 million. After losing out on a
casino license in 2014, he began planning to renovate the tower as a 125-room
boutique hotel.
Developing a new police headquarters has been an
on-again, off-again goal of city officials for years.
Former Police Commissioner Kevin M. Tucker wanted to move
the headquarters and sell the Police Headquarters in 1988; Everett Gillison, a
deputy mayor under Nutter, was interested in a new headquarters in 2008. The
economic recession that year temporarily shelved the project, but Nutter and
Gillison revisited the idea in Nutter's second term.
In 2014, City Council approved up to $250 million in
borrowing to develop the 15-acre campus in West Philadelphia as a home for the
Police Department, the Medical Examiner, and other Health Department offices.
Also on the campus is the $110 million Philadelphia
Juvenile Justice Services Center, at 48th Street and Haverford Avenue. It
replaced the old Youth Study Center, on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, which
was torn down to make room for the relocated Barnes Foundation.
Gillison and others supportive of the West Philadelphia
plan said that it would benefit not only the agencies moving into a new,
state-of-the-art facility, but also the surrounding neighborhood, because
thousands of city employees would come to work in the area.
City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, who represents the
neighborhood, said Tuesday that she "certainly [wants] to see that land
developed for the betterment of the community," but that she was open to
hearing the Kenney administration's final plan for the area.
"I just want to see what happens," she said.
Mike Dunn, a spokesman for Kenney, said Tuesday that the
city has spent nearly $40 million on the project, but that the total cost would
depend on what the site ultimately is used for.
Kenney said that due to the amount of money already spent
on the West Philadelphia campus, Police Headquarters could end up there after
all.
"This is all up in the air," the mayor said,
"and we have not made any decisions yet."
Source: Philly.com
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