When the Kimmel Center was built at Broad and Spruce Streets in 2001, the city decided to sell off the parcel it controlled at Broad and Pine Streets.
The Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp., which owned the land on behalf of the city, put it up for bid and selected developer Carl Dranoff, who wanted to re-create the romance and glamor of the 1920s, when South Broad Street was at its height as the financial and cultural epicenter of the city.
Tonight, Dranoff will unveil the project that has been five years in the making: Symphony House on the Avenue of the Arts.
"It's my greatest masterpiece," Dranoff said of the 31-story luxury condominium tower that dominates the southeast corner of Broad and Pine.
Dranoff calls the building his "mini-Time Warner Center," where culture, the arts and fine dining meet high-rise luxury living.
Gov. Rendell, Mayor Street and other public officials who pushed to develop the Avenue of the Arts along Broad Street will be among the first to get a glimpse inside Symphony House.
"When we first suggested creating the Avenue of the Arts, this was part of the result that we had hoped for," Rendell, who was mayor when the Avenue of the Arts was christened, said of new construction such as Symphony House.
According to those involved in condominium sales, Symphony House has the distinction of being Center City's first luxury condominium high-rise built from the ground up.
Over the years, several luxury condo projects have been started only to be foreclosed on. Most luxury condos in the city are in buildings that have been converted from rental apartments or other uses. Another luxury condo that has been built recently is Waterfront Square Condominiums & Spa, where two of five towers planned for a site on Columbus Boulevard just north of Spring Garden Street have been completed.
"The Symphony House is viewed as a real bellwether project because it is the first high-end luxury new construction project in Center City," said Kevin Gillen, an economist from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School who specializes in residential real estate and public policy. "You have Waterfront Square, but that's not core Center City. There are other new luxury conversions, but they are not new."
Built at a cost of $125 million, Symphony House is also the priciest of the new condo projects.
