As honest Abe once said, I cannot tell a lie. I am no different and therefore I must share the truth with you. Here is a personal characteristic of myself. I love being the best at everything I do (at least I love trying). Some would call it an arrogant trait but to me it’s an athletic drive. I am revealing this inner secret because I want to announce my excitement over the new plans for the American Commerce Building of Philadelphia! As a real estate advocate and irresistible fan of economic growth I was elated to hear plans to bring the tallest sky scraper in the United States to Philadelphia.
With any project of this magnitude, much debate will follow of whether such a project will be prosperous or a bust. I am an advocate of the building, most likely because I want to see Philadelphia have the tallest most innovative sky scraper around. I suppose the building will give me a good bragging right for living in Philadelphia; a city bashed earlier this year as the ugliest city in the U.S. (I still hear about it every time I return to Lancaster). But stepping away from the criticisms of the city itself, let’s look at the very few arguments against the future American Commerce Building.
SkyScraperForum is a general blog where people can post opinions about the city’s skyline. Most of the comments are positive creating a community backing for the project to become a success. I searched for sometime looking for negative feedback. One of the only arguments I could find failed to hold much water. The argument was from some long standing citizens of Philadelphia whom commented that they hated to see the old rule of “no building taller than William Penn’s hat” not being enforced. Ok, this is not Lancaster County, it’s Philadelphia, and the year is 2008, not 1908. With all due respect, and I mean with all due respect, get over it. That rule was broken some thirty to forty years ago. I’m sure that person doesn’t hold grudges.
Some fun facts of the building include the following
• 1500 ft tall (525 ft taller than the Comcast Center)
• Retail, Office, Hotel Space Plus a Movie Theater
• 4th tallest building in the world
• Rooftop Gardens
• Another Green Sky Scraper (Comcast Bld. is the Greenest building in the world)
I could go on for pages with facts about the building but then I would be taking away from all the great articles written, and that just would not be right.
Philadelphia will be happy to know they have my approval! That’s right; a 21 year old college student approves an $800 million dollar project. Yay.
Kyle Sawdey
The Fox Den