Category reuse

New music venue proposed for the Waterfront

Not just a music venue.

Michael Samschick, who has been buying up property along the Delaware River Waterfront for the last 4 years, is planning a multi-use building while reusing a historic structure.

Here’s the plan so far:

  • 3,000 Seat Music Hall
  • Bowling Alley
  • Distillery
  • New Restaurants
  • Country/Western Live Music Establishment

The first 4 items above would all be located in the former Ajax building on the corner of Frankford Ave and Delaware Ave. One of the buildings next door (44 Richmond St) will host the Country/Western idea.

This kind of development is great for Philadelphia. It builds on the waterfront master plan, reuses an old/historic building, brings more entertainment venues to our city (which in turn brings more restaurants, stores, and people), and capitalizes on the multi-use concept.

Thumbs up from me.

Philadelphia’s police department may be moving west

Not the West Coast, I’m talking about West Philly.

In my own personal opinion, this totally makes sense. You get to save a historic building, sell extremely valuable Center City real estate (where “The Roundhouse” currently sits), and you combine 3 city organizations into one central location: 1) PPD, 2) Philadelphia Health Department, and 3) The city morgue. Not to mention the fact that The Roundhouse was built in the ’50s, so my guess would be that it’s due for some updating.

No one knows for sure what will become of the extremely valuable land that the PPD’s headquarters currently sits on, but I do know that developers will be salivating over attempts to reuse it. It’s a well thought out business plan to discuss this move, so my hope is that everyone (who needs to) gets on board.

Let’s see if this move pans out first before we jump the gun. As you can see from Inga’s linked blog post above, this idea has been tossed around for years. It’s now up to Mayor Nutter and Commissioner Ramsey to make this thing happen.

School Reuse

The schools of old in Philadelphia, such as the Nathaniel Hawthorne School shown above, are architectural wonders. Hardwood floors, large windows, and detailed exteriors have allowed some of Philadelphia’s past/present learning institutions to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Fast forward 100 years to today…
The Philadelphia School District recently calculated that they now have 70,000 empty seats when looking at their entire collection of schools as a whole. Now that they know, what should they do? There are options, some of which are included in this article.
The real question is, what would you do if you were the one making the decision for the school district? Please feel free to share your ideas.