PHILAPHILIA Dead-Ass Proposal of the Week: 101 Sky

A weekly series of foul-mouthed investigations into empty lots, dead-ass proposals and other design phenomena in Philadelphia. Find more stories like this at Philaphilia.blogspot.com.

Is this fucker even dead? This staid-looking asstower has been promised for the last eight years and still hasn't seen a stick of construction. 

This location, on the 100 block of Spring Garden, isn't all that historically exciting. Spring Garden Street didn't even exist here until 1923. Spring Garden used to start at 6th Street and was later expanded to 5th. In classic Philly fashion, it took five decades of preparation for the extension all the way to Delaware Avenue. After it was finally done, the piece of Spring Garden that was brought into this area cut across the pre-existing grid in such a way as to render several blocks disfigured. The site of this project was where Spring Garden collided with Green Street, which was the original major thoroughfare for this neighborhood. The result was an extremely wide-ass section of Spring Garden Street. Even today, Google Maps labels the block as both Green Street AND Spring Garden Street.

The buildings on this site didn't last much longer after the extension and were replaced by a small industrial building. In the late 1940s, it was converted into a union hall for Teamsters Local 107. After they moved out five decades later, the building sat around doing nothing for years. 

The lot was purchased in December 2004 for $2.2 million. The new owner demolished the shitty old Teamsters Local 107 building that was falling apart at the site and surrounded the property with a chain-linked fence. A new proposal suddenly appeared for the site. The name of it was 101 Sky, presumably after its address, 101 Spring Garden Street. So why not call it 101 Spring Garden (even though I also hate buildings being named after their address)? The sky isn't an address!!

The new building was to be twenty-one stories, 230 feet tall. A luxury skyscraper for elite people who want to live in a No-Man's Land in between a gas station, I-95, and the city's shittiest shopping strip. Units were to have hardwood floors, "luminous walls" (whatever the fuck that's supposed to be), gas fireplaces, walk-in closets, designer shelving, and a balcony. The bathrooms were to have a granite double-vanity and marble floors. Other building amenities like high-speed elevators and a fitness center were also promised.

For the elitest of elite motherfuckers, two super-luxury penthouses were planned for the top two floors. These units would be the largest of all in the building, 1500 and 1700 square feet. That means for the low low price of $900,000, you could have a unit about the same size as an average Philly rowhouse! So where the fuck is it? All that stands at the proposed building's site is a shitty trash-filled empty lot surrounded by Jersey Barriers (or are they Ontario Tall Walls?) The owner owes over $100k in property taxes, so this isn't just an empty lot, its a tax delinquent pile of shitfuck. 

The lot as it appeared this last September. 

Wanna know the most fucked up part of all this? Though the building does not actually exist, you can still schedule a tour of it on three different websites. One of them says Occupancy: Immediate. How the fuck is that possible? Are you supposed to move all your stuff onto that garbage empty lot? Maybe that's where all the trash came from. I thought those websites were outdated until I saw one real estate company's Facebook page post a brand new ad for 101 Sky on March 24th! Of this year!!!

What the fuck is going on here? Is this dead or not? When can I get a tour? Oh well, fuck it. The design, by Zimmer Associates, is boring as hell. It looks like a shitty knock-off of 1706 Rittenhouse. Also, why the fuck would anyone want to live at this spot? I know its very close to the Spring Garden El stop and some good NoLibs stuff, but otherwise, who cares? What are you gonna do here? Pump gas into your face? Run back and forth between your condo and Delilah's Den across the street? Camp out in the dark 280-foot-wide tunnel down the street created by I-95? Have a good time in your not-building.