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PHILAPHILIA Dead-Ass Proposal of the Week: 1777 JFK
This bitch-bastard's downfall caused a 20-year empty lot. 1777 JFK was a bold skyscraper proposal that attempted to work off the momentum of the late '80s, early '90s West Market building boom, but failed... miserably.
PHILAPHILIA Dead-Ass Proposal of the Week: 1777 JFK
A weekly series of foul-mouthed investigations into empty lots, dead-ass proposals and other design phenomena in Philadelphia. Find more stories like this at Philaphilia.blogspot.com.
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| Conjectural rendering inserted into an aerial photo from its time period. Original image from Google. |
1777 John F. Kennedy Blvd. -- This bitch-bastard's downfall caused a 20-year empty lot. 1777 JFK was a bold skyscraper proposal that attempted to work off the momentum of the late '80s, early '90s West Market building boom, but failed... miserably. Though the site of this proposal is now home to the plaza in front of the city's (and state's) tallest building, the addition of 1777 JFK would have solidified the immediate area much earlier.
As I talked about two weeks ago when I highlighted the Corestates Financial Center, the late 80's and early '90s were like a skyscraper-building marathon for Philadelphia. That mega-boom created the skyline we all know and love today, kicking the short-lived Bicentennial-era-skyline's dirty concrete ass. A leader among the many developers responsible for this period of ultra-construction was Richard I. Rubin & Co., Inc.
Richard I. Rubin, namesake of the company, was one of the biggest badasses to ever hit Philadelphia. Born in Russia and raised in Philadelphia, this South Philly High grad went from being the son of a Reading Terminal Market vendor to the largest office landlord in the city. He was like those Gilded Age self-made bazillionaires that I often write about, but lived in the mid 20th century. He could often be seen riding around the city in a Rolls Royce, with, no doubt, another Rolls Royce behind it carrying his enormous granite balls.
Rubin's real estate company was one of the pioneers that set sights on bringing Center City back to glory after the Penn Center revolution of the 1950s/'60s faded away. By the late '80s, your company was an asshole if you weren't in one of Rubin's buildings. Even when signs started to show that the West Market mega-boom was subsiding, Rubin & Co didn't give a fuck. In 1988, the developer purchased the defunct Philadelphia Centre Hotel (built as the Sheraton Penn Center Hotel in 1957) and demolished the shit out of it, knowing a new modern skyscraper would one day be placed there.
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The Sheraton Penn Center Hotel in the year that it opened. Image from the Athenaeum of Philadelphia. |
In December of 1989, the announcement of the crappy old hotel's replacement was finally made. It would be called 1777 JFK due to its location on the 1701 unit block of John F. Kennedy Boulevard. It would be 730,000 square feet and 34 stories tall. In a way, it would be a sequel to the developer's greatest masterpiece, the Mellon Bank Center, which was under construction across the street. In fact, the new building would share many commonalities with that skyscraper. It would have the same developer (obviously), the same architect (NYC's Kohn Pedersen Fox), the same financier (Equitable Real Estate Management), and would feature a similar street-level base of granite and marble.
Much of the new office construction in the West Market mega-boom was due to law firms. Between 1983 and 1990, no less than 16 of the city's law firms left their Sesquicentennial-era office buildings and moved into new glass-walled digs. 1777 JFK would be no different. Even though lots of space was available in all the new skyscrapers being built, the historic Philadelphia law firm of Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen committed themselves to 12 floors of the proposed building, giving it the impetus to move construction forward. The law firm's lease at the Packard Building at 15th and Chestnut was due to expire in September 1993, almost exactly in line with 1777's anticipated completion date.
Though the construction was largely financed by Equitable Real Estate Management Inc, more monies to get the fucker done were going to be needed and never came. Besides Wolf Block, no other company seemed to be interested in leasing space in this tower, especially since brand new offices that were already constructed were sitting empty in brand new skyscrapers nearby and were being offered at low low prices. By the time the expected construction start-date came in the Spring of 1991, Wolf Block pulled the fuck out of the deal, unconvinced that the building would ever be built. They ended up moving into 1650 Arch Street and stayed there until going out of business in 2010.
Once Wolf Block was out, the proposal was dead. The site of the 1777 JFK would be a shitty surface parking lot for the next 16 years, when finally replaced by the Comcast Center, or, more specifically, the plaza out front. This site is also the location of another proposal, but this one's not quite dead... the companion tower to the Comcast Center.
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"Remember me?" |
Back when the Comcast Center was first proposed, a companion tower was part of the plan. It was kind of a neat design, meant to complement Suburban Station more than it does the Comcast Center. The street-level facade and crown of the new building were meant as an homage to it — not a bad idea. I call this one an Undead-Ass Proposal because it still might actually happen, but I doubt it will look the same. Oh well.
Had 1777 JFK been built, the dominoes of skyscraper development in the West Market area would have been very different. Where would the Comcast Center be built if 1777 never died? Think about it.
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