Towering Infernal

by Daniel Brook

As far as the lawyers are concerned, the construction of a 12-story high-rise apartment building at 108 Arch St. in Old City is a fait accompli. But the neighbors are still fuming over the project which they say is out of scale with their neighborhood. On the evening of May 15, residents gathered at a nearby building to give the developer and the architect an earful.

When the pair pulled out a blueprint that showed the building dwarfing the colonial townhouses on either side, the meeting attendees gasped. "It's like a hippopotamus moved into your neighborhood," said Old City resident Harry Sweeney.

While the current zoning regulations in Old City limit heights to 65 feet, the 108 Arch site was approved for 160 feet before those regulations went into effect. Currently there is nothing on the site but a surface parking lot.

"[It] was a challenging meeting," admits Charles Jefferson, who represents Montgomery County-based developer Jeffrey M. Brown Associates in its spat with the articulate, creative and opinionated Old City residents. In what other neighborhood would a local resident -- an architect by trade -- write an eight-page diatribe calling the building a 160-foot-tall "phallus stabbed into the heart of Old City"?

But Jefferson says strong feelings are par for the course. "Real estate development projects in general evoke strong emotions. My goal is to as much as possible listen to folks." Jefferson notes that the developer has been willing to compromise on almost every aspect of the project except height. But height is the sticking point with the community.

Jefferson did not help his case during the meeting when he defended the building's exemption from the new height limits by saying, "It's just like many laws that go into effect after crimes are committed." When the crowd hooted, he conceded it was a "bad analogy."

Old City Civic Association member Ellen Curry, who organized the meeting, was more accommodating than some. "We might not like this building but it's going to be in our faces so we might as well try to have input," she said.

Others said they would continue to fight the building altogether.