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Lessons From Europe
Philadelphia should look to Madrid and Barcelona for ways to improve.
-Charles F. Thomson

October 31-November 6, 2002

cityspace

Go Low

by Daniel Brook

Local housing planners may have turned their focus to the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, but the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) is still transforming neighborhoods the old-fashioned way. In late November, PHA will be imploding the Mill Creek Apartments, one of the city’s last remaining 1950s-era high-rise public housing projects, to make way for a low-rise public development.

The Mill Creek towers, located at 46th Street and Fairmount Avenue in West Philadelphia, were built atop an underground stream. The unstable foundation caused the structures to weaken over time.

But the implosion of the towers is not a result of the structural damage. It has been a long-standing policy of the PHA to replace high-rise projects with rowhouses, part of a national trend away from high-rise public housing. Locally, the Southwark towers have been replaced with townhouses. The Martin Luther King towers along 13th Street, just south of South Street, are in the process of being replaced with low-rise buildings.

Good as New

In what could be the start of a new trend, developer NAI Geis Realty Group has spent millions on the renovation of a 1970s Center City office building, converting it into “Class A” space worthy of top-of-the-line tenants.

According to a report in the Philadelphia Business Journal, Duane Morris, one of the city's largest law firms, is considering a move from One Liberty Place to the former United Engineers building on South 17th Street, now renamed United Plaza.

If the move takes place and others follow, it could change the downtown commercial real estate market. With two new skyscrapers in the works, a move toward renovated older buildings rather than brand spanking new ones could present a problem.

Burb Blurb

Professor Robert Fishman, of the University of Michigan, will deliver the 18th Annual Urban Studies Lecture at the University of Pennsylvania at 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 4. Fishman studies the history of suburbs and has advanced a vision of urban-suburban cooperation for the future. Unlike many Urban Studies professors, Fishman doesn’t see a place like King of Prussia as a harbinger of death for the city. He sees it as a “techno-burb” which can “coexist and thrive” with a vibrant Center City.

And Fishman knows King of Prussia and Center City well. Before moving to Ann Arbor, Fishman taught for over 25 years at Rutgers' Camden campus. The lecture is free and open to the public.