Philadelphia 2035 (Penn: financing, sell, students)

[taha-nj]

Originally Posted by asiandudeyo

A very discouraging reality check for us. OH well, what can we do? If the rental cost of the condos in my area starts rising, I would start b****ing about it too.

A reminder from Toll Brothers that Philly is not New York - and neither is New York | Philadelphia Real Estate Blog

Thanks for sharing, interesting article. It cannot be denied, of course, that there isn't enough demand for mix-use high rises in Philly...to state the obvious, more people should be moving into the city from the metro area, and that will only happen when/if [1] the public schools improve, [2] there is less property crime (I think most people realize that violent crime will not affect them unless one's in the drug business, but the number of residential burglaries is worrisome)

[Cnote11]

Originally Posted by asiandudeyo

LOVE IT! And I love the color!

I quite like it too. My favorite current project is that new hospital going up on Penn's campus. So colorful and fun looking! Perfect for a hospital.

[drive carephilly]

Originally Posted by taha-nj

Thanks for sharing, interesting article. It cannot be denied, of course, that there isn't enough demand for mix-use high rises in Philly...to state the obvious, more people should be moving into the city from the metro area, and that will only happen when/if [1] the public schools improve, [2] there is less property crime (I think most people realize that violent crime will not affect them unless one's in the drug business, but the number of residential burglaries is worrisome)

That article is garbage. It's Toll Bros. telling us why Toll Bros. only builds boring projects . . . then they point to the Murano and Waterfront Square . . . those projects were both mid-build when the GFC hit. The last 5 years has been the worst time for retail and real estate in general since the Great Depression.

It's ridiculous to try to say with any degree of confidence that "oh, those projects don't do well because Philadelphians don't like them."

. . . but anyway, more people from the metro area, the country and the world have been moving to Philadelphia over the last decade and with increasing speed. In the last two years Philly gained as many people as in the ten years before.

[asiandudeyo]

Originally Posted by drive carephilly

That article is garbage. It's Toll Bros. telling us why Toll Bros. only builds boring projects . . . then they point to the Murano and Waterfront Square . . . those projects were both mid-build when the GFC hit. The last 5 years has been the worst time for retail and real estate in general since the Great Depression.

It's ridiculous to try to say with any degree of confidence that "oh, those projects don't do well because Philadelphians don't like them."

. . . but anyway, more people from the metro area, the country and the world have been moving to Philadelphia over the last decade and with increasing speed. In the last two years Philly gained as many people as in the ten years before.

taha-nj: Yes. One of the charm why some people pick Center City to live compare to MAnhattan is its lower price of rental housing. So basically I can still experience the ambiance of urban living minus the cost (plus MAnhattan is not too far away). Once the cost of the housing increases, it's going to be Manhattan 2.0!

drive carephilly: You might be into something. It is the case of Toll Bros defending Toll Bros! Let's just hope that Toll Bros is wrong!

[asiandudeyo]

Originally Posted by Cnote11

I quite like it too. My favorite current project is that new hospital going up on Penn's campus. So colorful and fun looking! Perfect for a hospital.

OH! That's right!
Good to help cheering up the people coming in and out from the hospital!

[taha-nj]

Originally Posted by drive carephilly

That article is garbage. It's Toll Bros. telling us why Toll Bros. only builds boring projects . . . then they point to the Murano and Waterfront Square . . . those projects were both mid-build when the GFC hit. The last 5 years has been the worst time for retail and real estate in general since the Great Depression.

It's ridiculous to try to say with any degree of confidence that "oh, those projects don't do well because Philadelphians don't like them."

. . . but anyway, more people from the metro area, the country and the world have been moving to Philadelphia over the last decade and with increasing speed. In the last two years Philly gained as many people as in the ten years before.

I think you might have misread the article. The argument being made against such projects is not that Philadelphians don't like them, but that there aren't enough Philadelphians! It is simple economics, if there was enough demand, the prices would reflect it, but they don't, so these high-rises aren't profitable in the end. Look at NYC, where even at the height of the GFC, there were a number of high rises going up, and now there's a building boom in almost every borough again.

[kidphilly]

Brandywine Realty, Campus Crest plan really big dorm in Phila. - Philadelphia Business Journal

[kidphilly]

Brandywine Realty, Campus Crest plan really big dorm in Phila. - Philadelphia Business Journal

[drive carephilly]

Originally Posted by taha-nj

I think you might have misread the article. The argument being made against such projects is not that Philadelphians don't like them, but that there aren't enough Philadelphians! It is simple economics, if there was enough demand, the prices would reflect it, but they don't, so these high-rises aren't profitable in the end. Look at NYC, where even at the height of the GFC, there were a number of high rises going up, and now there's a building boom in almost every borough again.

highrise ≠ mixed use

midrise ≠ boring

High rise still sells here but this isn't a city of high rises. It's a city of townhouses. If you want highrise you go to Manhattan or Miami. It's hard to convince a lot of people here to spend $700k on a condo when they can have a townhouse with a private garage and backyard for the same price.

I didn't misread the article. I read Toll Bros. making excuses for doing really boring projects that are highly profitable for them but, in the long run, not great for the neighborhoods that they're in.

It's really not impressive to say that high rises were still going up in NYC - it's 5x the size of Philly - they never stopped going up here either. I would hope NYC could muster more than us.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by drive carephilly

highrise ≠ mixed use

midrise ≠ boring

High rise still sells here but this isn't a city of high rises. It's a city of townhouses. If you want highrise you go to Manhattan or Miami. It's hard to convince a lot of people here to spend $700k on a condo when they can have a townhouse with a private garage and backyard for the same price.

I didn't misread the article. I read Toll Bros. making excuses for doing really boring projects that are highly profitable for them but, in the long run, not great for the neighborhoods that they're in.

It's really not impressive to say that high rises were still going up in NYC - it's 5x the size of Philly - they never stopped going up here either. I would hope NYC could muster more than us.

Author of the Brian Emmons interview here, and no fan of Toll Brothers' development style.

The thing is, while the article is indeed Toll Brothers' apologia pro vita sua, I've seen enough of the things Emmons cites as reasons for Toll developing as it does take place to give the company a little benefit of the doubt.

Interesting, architecturally distinctive mid-rise mixed-use projects still draw sharp objections from near neighbors, while neighbors further away often support them. This dynamic delayed Stamper Square in Society Hill to the point where, once the project had all the needed approvals and had cleared all appeals, financing for new housing construction had dried up. Toll's 410 S. Front St., a safe, low-rise, mostly residential development on that site, sailed through the SHCA and ZBA by comparison.

Something similar is going on with 205 Race in Old City, which currently is stalled somewhere in the pipeline as its ZBA day of reckoning keeps getting postponed.

I will allow that other factors probably contributed to the failure of the various high-rise projects cited in the interview: timing in the case of the Murano and 10 Rittenhouse, location in the case of the Murano and Waterfront Square. But perhaps to underscore Emmons' point, consider that a few residential projects along the Delaware waterfront did succeed in the years after Waterfront Square was completed, including that hokey cruise-ship apartment building at Pier 34, while that project continued to languish sales-wise. Now that the market is recovering, the big high-rise projects that had been proposed for the north central Delaware riverfront all seem to be either still dead or gestating very slowly.

Toll's business model - build lots of 'em and sell 'em fast - is not conducive to the type of development I suspect most of us here would like to see. But it makes their stockholders happy, and they're the first people the company has to answer to.