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I find it surprising that anyone thinks Philly is close to Chicago or ever will be in decades. It has very narrow streets and is quite dark and dirty IMHO not to mention having many really cruddy streets near the main streets in Center City. The city still has to subsidize building with tax breaks, certainly not a sign of a building boom.
Philly is definitely not on par with either SF or Boston either. There are hundreds if not thousands of housing units being built in Boston and Cambridge right now. There are numerous mixed use, office, apartment, condo, and lab buildings going up. The Seaport district is being built out and there are a number of places on the waterfront that didn't exist 10 years ago. If you want to see which places are the most desirable just look at rents for housing and commercial space. NY, Bos and SF are much more expensive in both categories, even though they each have much more commercial space than Philly .
I find it surprising that anyone thinks Philly is close to Chicago or ever will be in decades. It has very narrow streets and is quite dark and dirty IMHO not to mention having many really cruddy streets near the main streets in Center City. The city still has to subsidize building with tax breaks, certainly not a sign of a building boom.
Philly is definitely not on par with either SF or Boston either. There are hundreds if not thousands of housing units being built in Boston and Cambridge right now. There are numerous mixed use, office, apartment, condo, and lab buildings going up. The Seaport district is being built out and there are a number of places on the waterfront that didn't exist 10 years ago. If you want to see which places are the most desirable just look at rents for housing and commercial space. NY, Bos and SF are much more expensive in both categories, even though they each have much more commercial space than Philly .
I dont think the DT on scale is the size nor will be with Chicago, Philly does have a very vibrant DT, in some ways especially at night surpassing the peak ares of Chicago but not the scale, nor will it be in our future.
On housing units; I suggest you look a little deeper at Philly, there are ~4,000 unit in Center under construction today, the population has grown by large strides in the last 20 years. Commercial space is another issue though there are some adds. On the comparison to research space, there is currently 2 million sq ft in Unniversity City under construction with another 1 million about to break ground. Also the prices in Center City are not as cheap as you might suggest, Philly on the metro averages is definately less (not cheap by national standards) and in Center isnt that much cheaper than Boston actually.
I dont think the DT on scale is the size nor will be with Chicago, Philly does have a very vibrant DT, in some ways especially at night surpassing the peak ares of Chicago but not the scale, nor will it be in our future.
On housing units; I suggest you look a little deeper at Philly, there are ~4,000 unit in Center under construction today, the population has grown by large strides in the last 20 years. Commercial space is another issue though there are some adds. On the comparison to research space, there is currently 2 million sq ft in Unniversity City under construction with another 1 million about to break ground. Also the prices in Center City are not as cheap as you might suggest, Philly on the metro averages is definately less (not cheap by national standards) and in Center isnt that much cheaper than Boston actually.
Not to say Philly isn't a great city, the question is about its DT and I believe it is not close to Chicago or Boston or SF. Just my opinion.
class A office rent approximately - check at Colliers.com:
SF $39/sqft
Boston $65/sqft
NYC $68/sqft
Philly $26/sqft
Philly city population
1990 1,585,577
2012 1,526,006
Philly gained approximately 8,500 people between 2000 and 2010.
Also I agree Philly needs to do a better job with commercial real estate but to me is better than Boston as an example on food/restaurants and nightlife, also to me more vibrant overall and I love Boston. I honestly see Boston/Philly/SF as all very similar with their pluses and minuses and Chicago a different form and NYC just vastly larger and on a scale not comparable to any others. Chicago is closer to these three than to NYC that is for sure (Love Chicago too). But PHilly is probably changing for the better more rapidly still than any of these (it also fell harder even in the core)
Not to say Philly isn't a great city, the question is about its DT and I believe it is not close to Chicago or Boston or SF. Just my opinion.
class A office rent approximately - check at Colliers.com:
SF $39/sqft
Boston $65/sqft
NYC $68/sqft
Philly $26/sqft
Philly city population
1990 1,585,577
2012 1,526,006
Philly gained approximately 8,500 people between 2000 and 2010.
Chicago lost over 200,000 people between 2000 and 2010. That doesn't change the fact that Chicago is still a great city, so what's your point in bringing up Philly's population statistics?
Not to say Philly isn't a great city, the question is about its DT and I believe it is not close to Chicago or Boston or SF. Just my opinion.
class A office rent approximately - check at Colliers.com:
SF $39/sqft
Boston $65/sqft
NYC $68/sqft
Philly $26/sqft
Not sure how office rents are directly correlative to the best downtowns. Sure, there is a general indication of the most expensive downtowns, which as to do with demand -- but it does not necessarily reflect downtown "tiers."
Philly is definitely not on par with either SF or Boston either. There are hundreds if not thousands of housing units being built in Boston and Cambridge right now. There are numerous mixed use, office, apartment, condo, and lab buildings going up. The Seaport district is being built out and there are a number of places on the waterfront that didn't exist 10 years ago. If you want to see which places are the most desirable just look at rents for housing and commercial space. NY, Bos and SF are much more expensive in both categories, even though they each have much more commercial space than Philly .
1. New York is an entirely different animal, with a ridiculous magnitude of real estate investment on a world scale. So, comparison to any other cities than London, Paris or Tokyo is extremely off-base.
2. Both San Francisco and Boston both have similar scenarios of being pretty land-scarce cities. High rents and widespread revitalization of both cities is very highly related to the fact that both cities are extremely small by land area.
3. Even developers in New York count on incentives to attract buyers and marketability, so let's be fair, here.
Especially for being a much more recent post-industrial city, Philadelphia has performed remarkably well and also continues to attract a lot private development. One thing that I foresee making Philly even more attractive to developers in the future is that it has a lot more develop-able land near its strongly-performing core than cities like Boston and SF.
In other words, it's not necessarily something to brag about if your office rents are cost-prohibitive to growing businesses. That is something that Philadelphia will definitely be able to capitalize on in the future as the economy recovers, particularly as a critical transportation/logistics/business hub in the middle of the financial and political capitals of the US.
Tier 3:
- Seattle
- Atlanta
- Boston
- Denver
- Houston
- Dallas
- Miami
Tier 4:
- Minneapolis
- Portland
- Charlotte
- Austin
- New Orleans
- Phoenix
Tier 5:
- Cleveland
- Nashville
- Indianapolis
ect
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