Changing Skyline | On N. Broad, two more needless condemnations

When two protected historic buildings were razed in June at Front and Chestnut Streets after years of flagrant neglect, the case was seen as an aberration: Philadelphia's preservation officials and building inspectors were outmaneuvered by a couple of canny developers.

But today, an almost identical sequence of events is unfolding just one block from City Hall, on North Broad Street. And this time, the perpetrator isn't a developer. It's the state.

Like that unfortunate Chestnut Street pair, the condemned Broad Street buildings are modest in stature but anchor an important block. They sit midway between Arch and Cherry Streets, a stretch that will soon become the front door for a greatly expanded Convention Center.

One is a five-story neoclassical office building. The other, its modernist sidekick, was designed as an addition by architect Romaldo Giurgola, who belonged to a path-breaking 1960s movement dubbed the Philadelphia School. Because these buildings set the scene for their more famous neighbors - Frank Furness' Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and John McArthur's City Hall - Convention Center officials gave them a reprieve from demolition and incorporated them into the new facade's design.

Yet just like the developers who razed the Chestnut Street duo in Old City, the state-controlled Convention Center Authority has now managed to take a routine building-code violation and pump it up into an emergency situation it says justifies immediate demolition of these important National Historic Register structures.

After these venerable office buildings were rated "unsafe" in August by city inspectors, the state interpreted the designation as a mandate for demolition. "Our understanding is that they cannot be saved," said Joe Resta, a deputy secretary at the state Department of General Services.

But a citation for unsafe conditions isn't the same as ordering its execution, countered Licenses & Inspections Commissioner Robert D. Solvibile. While the term "unsafe" sounds ominous, it is the least bad of the city's major code violations and is often used to encourage owners to stabilize their structures.

Yes, "there are holes in the roof," Solvibile explained, but "I've never testified that it's not fixable. . . . Anything can be repaired."