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PHILAPHILIA: Dead-Ass Proposal of the Week: Kimpton-Monaco Hotel and Boyd Restoration
This cool-looking hotel tower wasn't just going to be a fancy hotel in a neighborhood sorely in need of new some new shit. ... This was also going to be a restoration of Center City's last surviving old time theater palace, the Boyd. Despite the appearance of being a go, circumstances got in the way and this proposal is now as dead as a dead dog's dick.
PHILAPHILIA: Dead-Ass Proposal of the Week: Kimpton-Monaco Hotel and Boyd Restoration
A weekly series of foulmouthed investigations into empty lots, dead-ass proposals and other development and design phenomena in Phlladelphia. Find more stories like this at philaphilia.blogspot.com.
1910 Chestnut Street: This could have been cool.
It's a shame this one never got built. This cool-looking hotel tower wasn't just going to be a fancy hotel in a neighborhood sorely in need of new some new shit. ... This was also going to be a restoration of Center City's last surviving old time theater palace, the Boyd. Despite the appearance of being a go, circumstances got in the way and this proposal is now as dead as a dead dog's dick.
If you don't know what the Boyd is, fuck you. In short, it's a 1928 movie theater from the lost age when movie theaters were on par with performing arts theaters in terms of opulence and appointment. The Boyd is the LAST survivor of such theaters in Center City, which at one point boasted one of these in some form every few blocks. After a shitload of ownership changes and horrible re-brandings, the latest incarnation being the Sameric Theatre, the Boyd closed in May of 2002.
Once it was slated for demolition, citizens got together and formed the Committee to Save the Sameric, which eventually became Friends of the Boyd, headed by Philaphile Howard B. Haas. Three years later, they found some success. Clear Channel Communications purchased the Boyd and started to do some restoration work. The theater was in such bad shape that they gave up only one year later. Despite all that, by August 2008, the Friends were successful in getting the building placed on the Register of Historic Places and made it more well known among the Philaphile community.
On Sept. 9, 2008, developer Harold "Hal" Wheeler of ARCWheeler, the people behind 10 Rittenhouse, signed an agreement to purchase the theater from Live Nation (Clear Channel's parent company) and proposed a restoration that was better than anyone could have expected. A $135 million, 28-story, 320 foot-tall megahotel with frontages on three streets. Part of the deal would be a full restoration of the Boyd that would connect to the building. It wasn't going to be just any hotel, but a Kimpton-brand Monaco Hotel, the third Kimpton hotel to be opened in Center City.
The design, by Martinez and Johnson Architecture, was pretty cool. A multi-colored curvy side that faced east with a flat side that faced west. Though set back from two streets, it would still connect through the Boyd on Chestnut and through a thin little curvy entrance on 20th Street. Ironic that the high-class Aldine Hotel once stood on the same spot, demolished for the Boyd, and now would be replaced by a high-class hotel 90 years later.
Plan from Chestnut Street.The Aldine Hotel's old addition is on the right.
Philaphiles from far and wide went nuts over the idea, forgetting about 2008's other star proposal, the American Commerce Center. This would be the plan that could (finally) bring back Chestnut West. By the middle of 2009, the project was COMPLETELY approved and had funding lined up from various public and private sources. This was a relief for Wheeler, who had fought a 15-year World War N with community NIMBYs over his 10 Rittenhouse condo project ... and won! This one, with approvals and funding right out of the gate, was going to be a piece of cake!
The wild-looking 20th Street entrance to the hotel.
By the end of 2009, even as other Philadelphia development proposals remained questionable, this one was understood to be a winner ... after that horrible debacle over 10 Rittenhouse, Wheeler couldn't lose! Then, circumstance fucked everything over. Hal Wheeler died in January 2010, before the purchase of the Boyd was even complete. What a drag. The proposal more or less died with him.
What a shame... had this project not floundered, that Monaco Hotel would just be finishing construction now. As far as the Boyd goes, it's still sitting there, collecting dust. Chestnut West, however, is on the edge of a renaissance. The 2100 block is in the midst of construction of an apartment building taller than this hotel would have been, and the 2000 block is about to fix up its biggest piece of blight. This is the perfect time for a Boyd restoration. All the approvals and plans are in place for this project ... any developer with enough money and balls should get off their ass and make this shit happen. This is one Dead-Ass Proposal that doesn't necessarily have to be dead.
The Boyd as it looks today... like crap.
Not pictured: Building.
Correction: Clear Channel pulled out because they decided to sell ALL their theaters. The Boyd is in as good shape as many other historic buildings that have been restored.
But GroJLart is correct in that someone else could chose to resume this project!
More at www.FriendsOfTheBoyd.org where you can sign up for free weekly updates. Also please "like" our Facebook page— HowardBHaas- Thanks for the info, Howard. We should get together and pimp this project out to every millionaire we can find! — GroJLart
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