When Kevin Flynn moved his business to a former taxi
garage north of Center City's office district in 1983, his was one of just a
few occupied buildings among blocks of vacant lots and abandoned warehouses.
That was fine with Flynn, a property broker, investor,
and developer of Harrah's Philadelphia Casino & Racetrack in Chester, among
other projects.
He had relocated what is now the Flynn Co. to the area
northwest of Broad and Vine Streets - remembered by some as the site of the
1970s' mostly unrealized "Franklintown" development scheme - because
its little-trafficked streets made it easy to hop onto nearby highways to visit
suburban clients.
Now, Flynn is preparing to bid those open streets
goodbye, as a wave of development promises to fulfill Franklintown planners'
largely forgotten dream of a vibrant northern extension to Center City.
"You'll be bumper-to-bumper trying to get out of
here," said Flynn. "The roads will be jam-packed."
On the vast parking lot that fronted Flynn's two-story
building - an eccentric warren of cigar-shop Indians, mounted hunting trophies,
and ephemera recalling the 76-year-old's stint as a Marine - now rises a
32-story apartment building.
The 277-unit tower, the Alexander, is being built by
Property Reserve Inc., the development arm of the Mormon Church, which unveiled
its soaring Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple about a block away in August.
About two blocks to the east, on the southwest corner of
Broad and Callowhill Streets, Philadelphia's Parkway Corp. and a partner are
developing a 239-unit, six-story apartment building as the eastern wing of
their Hanover North Broad project.
Community College of Philadelphia, meanwhile, plans an
11-story complex beside its Spring Garden Street complex, with 500 student and
nonstudent apartments.
And this month, to the south, PMC Property group plans to
begin removing the concrete facade of GlaxoSmithKline's former 24-story
headquarters in a bid to convert the long-vacant building into a glass-skinned
office-and-residential tower with 360 housing units, to be called One Franklin
Tower.
Those cumulative 1,376 new units will nearly double the
1,500 dwellings tallied by the U.S. Census in 2010, the most recent year data
are available for the area between Broad and 18th Streets, from Race to Spring
Garden.
And even more housing could be on its way, with the
Archdiocese of Philadelphia set to present conceptual plans to community
members next week for a possible development that could include residential
buildings.
The interest in the area comes as developers seek to
capitalize on its location near core Center City - where there are ever-fewer
spots left to build - and the museums and parks along Benjamin Franklin
Parkway.
"Pushing a couple of blocks north of the main
business district provides great walkability, not only to the offices and jobs,
but also to all the great amenities that line the Parkway," PMC executive
vice president Jonathan Stavin said.
The activity in the area largely picks up on the
never-fully realized Franklintown development scheme of the 1970s, which aimed
to stem the loss of population from Center City with a new district of office
towers, residential buildings, and hotels.
With the city's backing, area landowners - including the
predecessor companies to GlaxoSmithKline and Peco Energy Co. - pooled their
properties and cleared them for development.
But while the plan saw construction of the Glaxo
headquarters tower, a hotel (most recently a Sheraton), and other buildings on
the site's western half, it largely fizzled as it approached Broad Street to
the east.
Paul Levy, president of the Center City District business
association, said today's turnaround comes after the construction of the Barnes
Foundation museum on the Parkway and the Mormon Church's moves to develop a
large swath of vacant land into its apartment tower and temple complex.
"The result is a very positive connection that is
being forged between the [central business district] and adjacent
neighborhoods," Levy said.
But at the center of all this development, broker and
developer Flynn expects the peace he's long enjoyed in his neighborhood to be
upended by the coming wave of new residents.
Gone already are the days when cheap land let him enlarge
his offices into a compoundlike state that includes the full interior - wooden
wall panels included - of a since-demolished Kensington tavern and a big
parking lot that doubles as a basketball court for Thursday night staff games.
Still, the real estate entrepreneur plans to leave the
property intact for now.
"I'm not interested in making money off real estate
here. This is our office," he said. "Where else are we going to put
our basketball court?"
Source: Philly.com
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