Symphony House

I STOPPED by the super swank Symphony House residences yesterday to have a chat with Richard Basciano about his killer building. "Is he expecting you?" the cranky concierge asked. Well, I didn't know if the owner of the crumbling building that flattened a neighboring Salvation Army thrift store was expecting me . But he should've been expecting someone - like officials from the city seeking answers about his choice of a discount demolition crew, for starters. Basciano's company paid some insta-demolition crew $10,000 for a job demo experts said should have cost closer to $250,000.

Except to those who resolutely averted their eyes during construction, it won't come as news that Symphony House is the ugliest new condo building in Philadelphia. The 32-story mixed-use tower flounces onto venerable South Broad Street like a sequined and over-rouged strumpet. Sheathed in a sickly shade of pink concrete, the building resembles, as one blogger wittily observed, a giant Pepto-Bismol bottle. If only it were possible to look away! When architecture is this bad, it's all too easy to pile on, or move on. But the lessons Philadelphia takes away from Symphony House will determine what shape this aspiring "Next Great City" assumes in the 21st century.

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.

There's been a situation brewing on Broad Street - excuse me, make that the Avenue of the Arts. Amid the beautiful Kimmel Center and the welcoming Suzanne Roberts Theater, ugly has surfaced. No, I'm not talking about that towering monstrosity, Symphony House, which my colleague, architecture critic Inga Saffron, called "the ugliest new condo building in Philadelphia" when it opened three years ago. I'm talking about a different kind of ugly. Because for more than two years, the 32-story Symphony House, the new kid on the block, has been embroiled in a pitched battle with the venerable Jamaican Jerk Hut, the popular eatery two blocks away that has been a South Street mainstay for more than 20 years.

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.

Who says there's a pent-up demand for luxury condos in Center City? Carl E. Dranoff. A week before the sales office opened for his 31-story Symphony House at Broad and Pine Streets, Dranoff says, he had already sold 45 of the building's 163 condominiums - though they won't be ready for at least 22 months. These decisions to spend between $458,000 and more than $1.4 million were based on pictures and drawings and a five-minute video shown at the Dranoff Properties office in University City that focuses as much on the neighborhood - the Kimmel Center is 100 steps from the high-rise's front entrance - as it does on Symphony House's art-deco style.

IT'S BEEN ONE of those weeks where I read the news and can't stop yelling, "Where's your accountability? Stop whining!" Exhibit A: Kobe Bryant. For years, the 34-year-old former Lower Merion basketball phenom and current NBA star stored his crap at his parents' house here. Maybe there wasn't enough room in his $4 million California mansion for his sweaty old high-school jerseys, trophies, jockstraps and whatever else athletes are reluctant to part with, let alone launder.

Philadelphia City Council gave preliminary approval Wednesday to a bill that would cap the 10-year tax abatement on new residential construction at $500,000 of value. The cap would go into effect in July 2015. The committee took a rare roll-call vote on the divisive issue, and the bill passed by 9-7, with Marian B. Tasco absent. The bill, sponsored by W. Wilson Goode Jr., could receive final approval on June 20. During testimony on the bill, Goode and Symphony House developer Carl Dranoff had several testy exchanges on the merits of the current tax abatement, which does not have a cap. The abatement has been credited with sparking a building boom - mostly in Center City and surrounding neighborhoods - but has been derided as an unnecessary tax credit to rich homeowners.

When Philadelphia's big real estate developers find a neighborhood they like, they really dig in. Bart Blatstein has made himself the virtual lord of Northern Liberties with factory-style lofts and hip hangouts. Now Carl Dranoff is firmly on his way to becoming the boss of South Broad Street. Dranoff conquered two key corners there during the boom years, with the pink-hued Symphony House at Pine Street and the deco-inspired 777 at Fitzwater, and has plans for a development at Spruce Street.

I awoke this morning to discover that my company had joined the ranks of some of the greatest architects and developers in America who have been criticized by Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron ("Nightmare on Broad Street," Oct. 26). Many great buildings, including our own City Hall and Art Museum, faced severe criticism when first unveiled, but Saffron's review of Symphony House went beyond criticism. It was a one-sided, mean-spirited, malicious rant. Am I to imagine that all of the many sophisticated buyers at Symphony House have bad taste?

IT'S BEEN ONE of those weeks where I read the news and can't stop yelling, "Where's your accountability? Stop whining!" Exhibit A: Kobe Bryant. For years, the 34-year-old former Lower Merion basketball phenom and current NBA star stored his crap at his parents' house here. Maybe there wasn't enough room in his $4 million California mansion for his sweaty old high-school jerseys, trophies, jockstraps and whatever else athletes are reluctant to part with, let alone launder.

Philadelphia City Council gave preliminary approval Wednesday to a bill that would cap the 10-year tax abatement on new residential construction at $500,000 of value. The cap would go into effect in July 2015. The committee took a rare roll-call vote on the divisive issue, and the bill passed by 9-7, with Marian B. Tasco absent. The bill, sponsored by W. Wilson Goode Jr., could receive final approval on June 20. During testimony on the bill, Goode and Symphony House developer Carl Dranoff had several testy exchanges on the merits of the current tax abatement, which does not have a cap. The abatement has been credited with sparking a building boom - mostly in Center City and surrounding neighborhoods - but has been derided as an unnecessary tax credit to rich homeowners.

I STOPPED by the super swank Symphony House residences yesterday to have a chat with Richard Basciano about his killer building. "Is he expecting you?" the cranky concierge asked. Well, I didn't know if the owner of the crumbling building that flattened a neighboring Salvation Army thrift store was expecting me . But he should've been expecting someone - like officials from the city seeking answers about his choice of a discount demolition crew, for starters. Basciano's company paid some insta-demolition crew $10,000 for a job demo experts said should have cost closer to $250,000.

Here are some of architecture critic Inga Saffron's blog posts from the last week. You can see others at www.philly.com/philly/blogs/changing-skyline . Workplace squatters at Glaxo I went down to the Philadelphia Navy Yard yesterday [March 21] to take a look at the architecture of the new GlaxoSmithKline building, but what really caught my eye were the desks, er, workspaces. Glaxo's new offices are organized around the concept of hoteling, where employees aren't assigned their own desk or cubicle.

Osage Partners of Philadelphia, Greycroft Partners of Los Angeles, and MissionOG of Devon, say they have invested $3.2 million in Center City-based PeopleLinx , a firm that helps companies give their workers' LinkedIn accounts a standard corporate look and uses LinkedIn data to boost sales. PeopleLinx, which counts FMC Corp. , Firstrust Bank and Prudential among its clients, was set up by LinkedIn veterans Nathan Egan and Patrick Baynes . It will use the new cash to add to its staff of 13 full-time employees and about 25 contractors, says Egan, a Cornell grad and onetime specialty chemical salesman.

Developer Carl Dranoff came late to bicycling. Growing up in Philadelphia's Oxford Circle, no one rode bikes, he says. They walked to school and afterward hit the basketball courts for exercise. Dranoff didn't get on a bicycle until it became a matter of pride: His young daughter was learning to ride a two-wheeler. Why couldn't daddy? He was 35 at the time. Now 63, Dranoff still isn't exactly steady on a bicycle, even when he's pedaling one of the porker-class Dutch models that belong to his company's new bike-sharing program.

OK, this is really getting ridiculous. When last we polished off a plate of oxtails at the Jamaican Jerk Hut, the venerable Caribbean eatery at 15th and South, owner Lisa Wilson was still waging a David-and-Goliath battle with residents of Symphony House, a 32-story luxury condominium complex at Broad and Spruce. Never mind that the Zoning Board of Adjustment and Common Pleas Court had both ruled in the Jerk Hut's favor: Namely, that Wilson could play live reggae music for her customers on the lot next to the restaurant on weekends in spring and summer.

It was the quintessential Philadelphia neighborhood story. Even more delicious than the flavorful meatballs handmade by Gabe Marabella or the chicken and mango salsa served up by Lisa Wilson was the friendship that developed between the two small-business owners, who on paper were supposed to be adversaries. The story began during a Welcome America event at Penn's Landing last month. Marabella, the legendary meatball maker, found himself operating a vending stand right next to Wilson, owner of the Jamaican Jerk Hut. You know the Marabella name.

When Philadelphia's big real estate developers find a neighborhood they like, they really dig in. Bart Blatstein has made himself the virtual lord of Northern Liberties with factory-style lofts and hip hangouts. Now Carl Dranoff is firmly on his way to becoming the boss of South Broad Street. Dranoff conquered two key corners there during the boom years, with the pink-hued Symphony House at Pine Street and the deco-inspired 777 at Fitzwater, and has plans for a development at Spruce Street.

Nine months after winning the seventh season of Bravo's Top Chef , Kevin Sbraga has signed a lease for his own restaurant. The upscale casual Sbraga is pegged for this fall at 440 S. Broad St., in the Symphony House space at the corner of Broad and Pine Streets that last housed Chew Man Chu. "I call it a personal rendition of American food," says Sbraga, who lives in the Willingboro house in which he grew up. "I learned during ...