Symphony House

Carl E. Dranoff, best known for converting old buildings into modern apartments, is putting the finishing touches on plans for a new 31-story tower on South Broad Street. A formal announcement is expected today. The $92 million project, called Symphony House, will have 160 residential condominiums; a 350-seat venue for the Philadelphia Theatre Company, which plans to present plays, lectures and film festivals; an upscale ground-floor restaurant; and a 395-car garage. Dranoff's partners in the venture are musician and developer Kenny Gamble and Walter Lomax, a physician and health-care entrepreneur.

The riddle of the moment for Philadelphia's developers, economists, real estate brokers who target high-end property buyers, and just the mildly observant is this: How many millionaires will it take to fill all of the glitzy condominiums being built in Center City? The list of existing, under-construction and planned towers flaunting fancy names and eye-glazing price tags seems endless. There's the Murano, 10 Rittenhouse, Symphony House, Residences at Two Liberty, 1706 Rittenhouse and the Residences at the Ritz Carlton Philadelphia.

Snow began falling as afternoon slid into evening. With the lights of Center City twinkling around and below her, Jane Miles stood by the vast expanse of windows that line one side of her new 27th-floor condominium in Symphony House, watching. "The snowflakes look so big up here," she said, more than a little awe in her voice. "With all the cars whizzing by in the streets below, it's like being in another world. " A world high above Philadelphia that, even a few years ago, Miles and her husband would have been very exclusive residents of. But as condo towers grow more commonplace in the city, taller, well-heeled buyers are choosing to feather their nests in the clouds - or as close as several hundred feet above street level can get them.

The developer of the Victor Lofts apartment building on the Camden waterfront has put off repayment of a $3 million loan to the Delaware River Port Authority because he's short on cash. The agency lent $3 million to Victor Associates in 2003, interest-free until 2009. The money was part of a $52 million financing package assembled by developer Carl E. Dranoff to convert the historic RCA Victor "Nipper Building" into 341 upscale apartments overlooking the Delaware River and the Philadelphia skyline.

Blue skies and a high of 62 degrees on Feb. 14 were hardly what one would have expected this winter, but they were definitely a treat for Marianne Harris. As director of sales, leasing, and marketing for Dranoff Properties, Harris and her boss, Carl Dranoff, had chosen that day for "the first annual Valentine's Day Progressive Luncheon," to show the developer's buildings in Center City and University City. "I can't believe how lucky we were," she said at the front door of 777 South Broad, Dranoff's newest luxury rental building, which opened March 25. Inside, real estate agents and brokers, many from Main Line offices, dined on bow-tie and tortellini pasta prepared to order, then toured the models, common areas, and fitness and storage facilities.

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.

Snow began falling as afternoon slid into evening. With the lights of Center City twinkling around and below her, Jane Miles stood by the vast expanse of windows that line one side of her new 27th-floor condominium in Symphony House, watching. "The snowflakes look so big up here," she said, more than a little awe in her voice. "With all the cars whizzing by in the streets below, it's like being in another world. " A world high above Philadelphia that, even a few years ago, Miles and her husband would have been very exclusive residents of. But as condo towers grow more commonplace in the city, taller, well-heeled buyers are choosing to feather their nests in the clouds - or as close as several hundred feet above street level can get them.

Developer Carl E. Dranoff speaks in fluent metaphor. There are the "pearls" . . . that would be the Symphony House condominiums his company built at Broad and Pine Streets and the $70 million "green" apartment project Dranoff Properties is building at Broad and Fitzwater Streets. Groundbreaking on 777 South Broad Street, a 146-unit luxury building with retail on the ground floor, is set for Thursday. Dranoff has his eyes on other pearly parcels along the string of South Broad Street known as the Avenue of the Arts.

The Borders Group said Friday it would close its 26,000-square-foot store at the corner of Broad and Chestnut Streets - a prime piece of Center City real estate - in May as the Ann Arbor, Mich., bookstore chain struggles with Chapter 11 reorganization. The store is one of 225 nationwide that Borders will close. Outlets in North Wales, King of Prussia, and Langhorne also will be shuttered, the company said. The first wave of closures was announced Feb. 17. Borders spokeswoman Rosalind Thompson said Friday that Borders had been given some time to "work with landlords on obtaining concessions on rent," but the company had been unsuccessful in doing so for the Center City store.

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 ...