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PHILAPHILIA: Dead-ass proposal of the week - Residences at the Rodin
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PHILAPHILIA: Dead-ass proposal of the week — Residences at the Rodin
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.
See, it even looks dead in the rendering.
2100 Hamilton Street -- This is one of those dead proposals like the Aerial Tramway and Parkway22. Like those others, it pretended that it was going to be built but still managed to fail. The Residences at the Rodin was yet another pathetic-ass attempt to cash in on the mid-00s building boom. Had it actually been built, it probably would be sitting there emptier than it looks in the shitty rendering above.
This building would have been located just beyond the official edge of Franklintown, the underwhelming result of a shitbird 1970s revitalization plan that still isn't complete... home to dozens of Dead-Ass Proposals. The condo would have been placed above what is known as the Hamilton Triangle, a hole created by the old railroad tracks that run under Pennsylvania Avenue, right behind the Rodin Museum. It was named the Residences at the Rodin, which is kind of a misleading name ... the residences aren't AT the Rodin Museum!!
Proposed in 2007 by the PRA Development and Management Corporation, this wasn't going to be your typical condo. They were going for ultra high-end. There would be less than 50 units, some going for over $1 million. It would have deeded parking spaces, a grand rooftop pool/lounge, concierge services, and some big motherfucking domiciles with goofy names like "Laurent," "Bridgette" and "Monique."
The design for the building, created by architect Leonard Ciccotello, was rather unusual compared to similar types of structures being built at the time. It would be an L-shape with a circular tower imbued into the inside corner. Mansard roofs and a glass dome decorated the top. The outside corner of the building, facing the corner of 21st and Hamilton Streets, would have a gazebo-like abutment sticking out. All eleven stories would sit on top of a parking garage that would fill in the train tunnel below and rise above street level. This is one of those designs that looks great on paper (or computer screen) but could end up looking corny in real life, like the Symphony House.
Meh, it could be much worse.
The plan was so high-end that Kurfiss Sotheby's International Realty would handle the sale of the condos. Shortly after proposing the project, some construction actually began. The old rails were pulled up, concrete footings installed, and a hole was dug. A contractor's trailer sat on Hamilton Street for five months. No one seems to be sure what happened. Some believe that the appearance of construction was created to spur sales of the condos, others think they needed to begin construction to keep their permits. Either way, nothing further was built.
Kurliss Sotheby's attempted to sell the unbuilt condo units all the way up into late 2009, but the crappy economy and the stagnant sales of units in the nearby Tivoli (which is doing fine now) killed the Residences at the Rodin. They tried their damnedest to get the fuckers sold-- even going as far as putting up Youtube videos with 3D tours of the building.
The scars of this Dead-Ass Proposal are still visible. The Hamilton Triangle still has the concrete footings and building materials for the project lying around, covered in vegetation. The Ninth Police District uses the hole for parking. Though it probably looked like butt in real life, it would have been nice if the Residences at the Rodin was built. Anything is better than a hole.
Franklin Town had a whole bunch of new proposals and soon-to-be-built projects in the queue. It might FINALLY come to fruition here in its fourth decade. Hopefully the Hamilton Triangle will find itself filled sooner or later, if it doesn't become part of a proposed park that would follow the old rail tunnel.
The Hamilton Triangle today. Five years later, the footers still stand, and a bunch of construction crap lays about.
An overly-optimistic and speculative developer dug a hole and did nothing with it? Shocking.— thegreengrass- You know what be nice in that train tunnel? A train.— George Conn
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