December 12–19, 1996

city beat

Suites Revenge

With a supermarket plan dead, the troubled NewMarket complex may become a hotel.

Only weeks removed from heated debate over a plan to open an outdoor cafe on Head House Square, area residents now are faced with two new and unrelated possibilities for the historic site: a hotel and a small stage for live performances.

Michael DiPaolo, owner of the NewMarket complex on Second Street between Lombard and Pine, confirmed last week that he has been negotiating with hotel chains interested in operating on the currently vacant site.

"It's been identified as the best location for a suites-type hotel," DiPaolo said. Marriott is one of several companies DiPaolo is considering to run the hotel, which he expects will house 150 suites and cost about $15 million to build.

A hotel is a permissible use under the site's current zoning, provided new structures do not exceed the height limit of 35 feet. DiPaolo says he will not seek a variance to build higher than that.

Financing has not yet been secured.

Developer Hal Wheeler reportedly has abandoned the supermarket proposal he pitched — a proposal neighbors vehemently opposed — in September, because SuperFresh wants a larger location. An article in Monday's Inquirer said he is looking at other options, including a hotel, but DiPaolo said last week he hadn't heard from Wheeler in about a month.

"I would still talk to him," DiPaolo said. "I don't have to, but I would talk to him." Wheeler did not return City Paper's calls.

Rumors of a NewMarket hotel have circulated for a few months, and while perhaps not all neighbors are pleased, the idea certainly isn't generating the hostility the supermarket did.

"Let's face it, something's going to be there," said Melvin Buckman, president of Society Hill Civic Association, "and a hotel is a more benign use than the derelict shopping center that's there now or a mega-supermarket."

"It's in the interest of the neighbors to develop this concept," said Elliot Fields, member of NewMarket Neighbors, an ad hoc committee formed in the wake of the supermarket proposal. DiPaolo has sought the group's input, Fields said, and seems willing to address whatever concerns they may have.

South Street Neighborhood Association (SSNA) president Fluffy Palmer and Queen Village Neighbors Association (QVNA) president Alan Hunter both said they expect favorable reactions from members, though neither group has held meetings on the issue.

The stage is another story. Reactions appear mixed, to say the least.

The South Street-Head House District's (SSHD) proposedStreetScape Project calls for two "festival plazas" — one where the square meets South Street, another on Passyunk Avenue between South and Bainbridge — and extensive streetscaping on South between Front and 11th streets, all part of an effort to link the strip to Penn's Landing, via the South Street Bridge, "in an unbroken ribbon of entertainment."

The Penn's Landing Corporation already is on board. The two groups plan to coordinate events year-round, and SSHD expects to lure 5 percent to 10 percent of Penn's Landing's visitors to the South Street corridor, beginning in 1998. City officials already are mulling SSHD's request for $1.4 million for the festival plazas and streetscaping, which represent the first phase of a long-term plan to link South Street to several nearby shopping districts and tourist attractions.

The Head House Plaza, according to the proposal, "will accommodate medium to large audiences for concerts, street dances, food festivals, and all manner of games, fairs and shows."

The Passyunk Avenue Plaza, already the site of the Tuesday Farmers' Market, will be used for smaller, more "family-oriented" events like sidewalk sales and puppet shows, according to the proposal. Both will include "secure, self-cleaning lavatory facilities."

But the whole idea has at least some neighbors on edge. Pine Street resident Alan Halpern said, "They're concerned that weekends will be one continuous amplified rock concert."

According to Palmer, SSNA members have expressed "general approval" of the idea. "I think it's desperately needed," she said. "We would love to see it happen." Palmer, incidentally, was a member of the committee that fleshed out the project.

But Liz Eaby claims most neighbors are outraged. "The residents were in shock," she said, when the plan was pitched at a November meeting. "They don't want any of those plans."

Personally, Eaby is most distraught over the possible displacement of the Creative Collective Craft and Fine Arts Fair, which set up shop in the Shambles 14 weekends last summer, its 28th season. A longtime organizer of the fair, Eaby says the Passyunk Avenue festival plaza would not be a viable alternative to the Shambles.

QVNA president Hunter said he hadn't yet studied the SSHD proposal, but would encourage Queen Villagers to consider the project carefully and with open minds.

"You get so used to saying no, sometimes you forget to say yes when something's positive," Hunter explained. "Why couldn't it be the beginning of a good idea? Even if it's not perfect, it's moldable clay...We need to try to be the escorts of good ideas rather than the guards at the gate all the time."

But Fields expects NewMarket Neighbors and most homeowners from blocks surrounding Head House to view the project as negatively as they do the Shambles cafe.

"The neighbors are cast in the light of being opposed to everything," Fields said. "But [the backers of these plans] would do the same thing for the same reasons if they were in our position."