History
In 1999, class A office vacancy in the city was at 6.6%, leading developer Willard Rouse to envision a new tower. Eventually the developer settled on the location where the building resides today, a 2-acre (8,100 m2), $288 per square-foot parcel owned by Equitable Life Assurance Co. In 2000, architect Robert A. M. Stern began working on a design for a skyscraper being planned by Liberty Property Trust in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 2001, Liberty Property Trust announced its plan to build the 52-story One Pennsylvania Plaza in Center City. Anticipated US$400 million, One Pennsylvania Plaza was to be 750 ft (230 m) and made of kasota stone similar to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The site for the future skyscraper was at 17th Street and John F. Kennedy Boulevard, a site occupied by a building that housed the Defender Association of Philadelphia and a parking lot. Demolition of the building began in 2002 and ended in 2003.
Cable company Comcast had been looking for possible new headquarters space in anticipation of the end of its lease in Centre Square in 2006. Comcast was looking for more than 400,000 square feet (37,000 m2) of office space and developers were actively courting the company for their developments. Comcast was the only employer in the city with major expansion plans at the time. Comcast was considering staying in Centre Square, while also contemplating moving their headquarters to the new Cira Centre building or One Pennsylvania Plaza. Comcast was spread out over 10 floors in two buildings at Centre Square and wanted space on contiguous floors. In January 2004, Liberty Property Trust unveiled a redesign for the building. The redesign turned One Pennsylvania Plaza into a 60-story, 962 feet (293 m) tower, making it the tallest building in the city. In the redesign, the kasota stone was changed to a lighter granite and a short pyramidal roof was added. The redesign was a result of discussions that had begun in 2003 with Comcast about moving into the tower.
Read more about this topic: Comcast Center (Philadelphia)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)