Ten big Philadelphia projects that never happened

I was a teenager when I first saw the crater that devoured Market Street.

This was sometime in the late 1990s, and I was out with my father, who steered our car through Center City traffic until we ended up at Eighth Street. On the southwest corner rose a wall of cyclone fencing, and behind it, a pit of excavated clay that stretched one whole city block. It was there, my father told me, that the Walt Disney Co. was going to build a massive indoor theme park and arcade. I had an immediate, visceral reaction: No way.

Sure enough, the $150 million project languished. The crater became known as the Disney Hole. The hole became a parking lot. And Disney joined a long list of moguls, dreamers, and the occasional conman who promised to transform some neglected parcel of city land into a twinkling tower — the stuff, in other words, of fairy tales. With the Sixers seeking to build a game-changing Center City arena, here are 10 development projects that similarly aimed big, but never happened. Together, they offer a glimpse of a Philly That Might Have Been.

Skylink Aerial Tramway

Revealed: August 1998 Location: Penns Landing Demolition on a never-used tower known as “Philly’s Stonehenge.”

In 1998, politicians in Philadelphia and New Jersey sought to build along the Delaware River a $174 million entertainment complex that would include a Please Touch Museum, ice-skating rinks, and state-of-the-art laser shows. The cherry on top of this all-you-can-eat revenue buffet: a $23 million sky tram that would whisk tourists from Philly to Camden. Cement support arches for the air tram were erected in Philly and Camden for a reported $16 million. But then a developer backed out, and the project evaporated. The arches loomed over the waterfront until 2020, when they were torn down.

Greater Philadelphia World Trade Center

Revealed: March 2003 Location: North Columbus Boulevard

Philadelphia — ever conscious of the chip on its shoulder — was said in the early 2000s to be the only major metropolitan city in the U.S. without a world trade center. Enter developer Carl Marks & Co., which announced in 2003 a plan to build a “Greater Philadelphia World Trade Center” on land that stretched along Delaware Avenue, from Spring Garden to Callowhill. The development called for a 42-story luxury apartment building here, a 42-story office tower there, smaller towers filled with retail, and a “sky plaza” atop a massive parking garage. Neighborhood opposition and legal squabbles over height limitations for new developments resulted in repeated attempts by Carl Marks & Co. to retool its proposal, shrinking the scale and price tag of the project. The result: no world trade center.

Disney Quest Revealed: Location:

June 1998

Eighth and Market streets

A December 1998 news conference confirmed months of rumors: Disney — purveyor of iconic children’s movies, lord of profitable theme parks — would build Disney Quest, a windowless, five-story amusement box filled with rides and arcades at Eighth and Market streets. Then-Mayor Ed Rendell high-fived someone in a Goofy costume, and suggested the Quest would make “East Market the number one downtown street in America.” But construction deadlines were missed, and developers couldn’t lure other retail tenants to the massive site. Disney determined that no amount of wishing upon stars would make the project work, and pulled out of the project in 2000. Plans to build Quests in other major cities were also abandoned.

Phillies Downtown Ballpark(s)

Revealed: January 1998 Locations: Broad and Spring Garden streets; 12th and Vine streets and 31st and Walnut streets

Tired of drawing miniscule crowds to a national punchline — the decrepit Veterans Stadium — Phillies officials in the late 1990s finally sought to build a new ballpark. They swooned over downtown sites that could offer fans access to restaurants, theaters, and views of a shimmering skyline: the southwest corner of Broad and Spring Garden, 12th and Vine, 31st and Walnut. The Phillies were far less interested in remaining in South Philly, with its acres of barren parking lots. Then-State Sen. Vince Fumo fiercely opposed the Spring Garden site, which coincidentally was near his house. Chinatown residents and business owners rallied against the 12th and Vine proposal over concerns about traffic and further disruption of their neighborhood. The Phillies ended up building Citizens Bank Park for $458 million in South Philly.

City Tower Revealed: Location:

1960

1400 Arch St. Louis Kahn, one of the 20th century’s most celebrated architects, emigrated with his family from Estonia to Philadelphia in 1906, when he was a boy of 5.

Nearly 50 years later, he was in the midst of fine-tuning the design for City Tower, a project he was desperate to see built at 1400 Arch St., across from City Hall. Kahn described the zigzagging 30-story structure, composed of eye-catching tetrahedrons, glass and precast concrete, as “an exploration into the nature of a high-rising structure.” It’s not clear, though, that Philadelphia officials had much interest in trying to turn Kahn’s proposal into a reality. In 1960, City Tower was featured in an exhibit called “Visionary Architecture” at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Two years later, the city opened the brutalist Municipal Services Building on the grounds of the Arch Street site that Kahn favored.

Silver City Studios Revealed: Location:

July 1998

Broad Street and Washington Avenue

A pair of desolate parcels and four light towers greeted visitors who arrived at Broad Street and Washington Avenue, the starting point for the growing Avenue of the Arts. Desperate for some attention-grabbing development, city officials in 1999 explored donating or leasing the lots to Treyball, actor Will Smith’s real estate company, and pledged to help the company secure $150 million in financing to build stores, restaurants, and apartments on the west side of Broad, and a movie soundstage and a studio for Fox29 on the east side. By 2001, City Councilman Frank DiCicco — a chief supporter of the development — announced that it was on “life support.” Fox29 decided not to move to the site from Fourth and Market. Smith wasn’t able to land other tenants, and the project fizzled.

Philly Live! Revealed:

July 2009

Location: 11th Street and Pattison Avenue

Then-Flyers owner Ed Snider and the Baltimore-based Cordish Co. announced in 2008 a plan to layer 350,000 square feet of shops, restaurants, and hotels on top of the asphalt grave of the Spectrum. The $100 million project, called Philly Live!, would have directly connected the Wells Fargo Center to Citizens Bank Park through an enclosed corridor. In the 30 months that followed, the developers failed to attract a single tenant. The project was downsized to just one attraction, Xfinity Live!, which consists of five bars and restaurants and an outdoor stage area at 11th Street and Pattison Avenue.

Rittenhouse parking garage/movie theater

Revealed: April 2000 Location: Rittenhouse Square

In 1997, the Philadelphia Parking Authority, along with a handful of other developers, sought to build a $35 million 600-car garage, along with a subterranean, eight-screen movie theater, and an “art deco” steakhouse run by Striped Bass owner Neil Stein at 1911 Walnut St. The project would have risen on a lot left empty by a fire, and required demolishing the 1904, 1906-1916, 19181920 properties on Sansom Street, all of which were historic. A coalition of neighborhood groups vehemently opposed the PPA’s plan, and a Common Pleas Court judge later revoked the agency’s demolition rights for Sansom Street. After years of additional, doomed proposals, the Walnut Street site was recently developed into The Laurel, a 48-story luxury condo and apartment tower.

River City

Revealed: 2006 Location: Schuylkill River to 23rd Street

Ravi Chawla, then-president of World Acquisition Partners, announced in 2006 a 15-year, $3.5 billion project that called for the construction of 10 towers — some soaring 1,000 feet high — on an L-shaped parcel that ran east from the Schuylkill River to 23rd Street, from JFK Boulevard up north to Cherry Street. The development would have included just about every amenity imaginable: townhouses, apartments, offices, a shopping mall, an ice-skating rink, a 3,200car garage. Logan Square residents objected, arguing that the wall of skyscrapers would have plunged surrounding neighborhoods into darkness. Chawla was convicted in 2009 of federal wire fraud and conspiracy charges; he was accused of plying Christopher Wright, the chief of staff to then-City Councilmember Jack Kelly, with a free apartment and money, in exchange for help with real estate and zoning issues.

Trump Street Casino

Revealed: April 2006 Location: Nicetown In 2006, Donald Trump — then just a reality TV star, and a casino mogul with a history of bankruptcies — teamed with Keystone Redevelopment Partners, whose investors included former Philadelphia 76ers owner Pat Croce, to propose a $350 million slots parlor on the grounds of the former Budd manufacturing plant in Nicetown. Renderings showed a narrow tower and a low-slung building that would have housed a “Mummers Buffet” and a Boyz II Men-themed bar. Asked by a reporter why he wanted to build in Philly, Trump responded: “It’s a place I know. I know the streets.” Pennsylvania’s Gaming Control Board didn’t buy Trump’s pitch.