This would be a great use if a) the artist is paying for this museum with private funds and b) the school district saves money both capital and operating on the new buildings as well as not losing value on the land they own.

I doubt either (a) or (b) are satisfied so this is probably a horrible plan.  Large gobs of (local) public money should not be used for this.  I hope they get their historical preservation tax credits and whatever else but beyond that they should make something that will pay for itself.

I can’t really speak to if this makes sense for the schools operationally, but I would be hard pressed to envision a scenario where the School District would not benefit financially from this type of deal.  In general, the operating costs for the newer buildings should be much less than the three separate, older buildings that now exist.  And all three would be prime candidates for residential conversion, and as such should be worth a good to amount to any developer. 

I WOULD like to hear more about plans for the DL itself though.  It’s a very big building for a nascent contemporary art museum, and would need a lot more use to justify the cost of renovating it.

This is quite honestly one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard.  Schools are separated for a reason.  This is just asking for more problems than these people can handle, putting high schools that have not been unified and are probably rivals this close to each other.  It’s also basically saying to those neighborhoods “we don’t think you deserve your own campuses”.  It never ceases to amaze me the way that a growing city that was already the 5th largest in the US continues to run itself like a mid-sized city and downsize.

Also not a fan of the Divine Lorraine idea.  It should be either a boutique hotel or nice apartments/condos.  That is the only thing that’s worthy of using a building like that.  “Contemporary art” in a building that’s a symbol of better, more prominent days for that area?  How does that make any sense?

Yes, everyone wants to see the property rehabbed and the adjacent land developed. This, though, is a HORRIBLE idea all the way around, maybe the worst (short of tearing the building down completely).

Don’t forget about the added security they will most definitely need though.  Either way, that’s not the way any city, let alone one that is already the 5th largest and is growing, should be running their school district.  Consolidating schools (which is exactly what this is, whether they want to be sneaky about it or not) does much more harm than good. A school can anchor a neighborhood and ensure that people live there, but not when one neighborhood that a consolidated school serves gets better while the others don’t.  Then they all stay down together, no matter what.  Even one bad neighborhood of a consolidated school, no matter how many neighborhoods that school may serve, will hold down every neighborhood that the school serves because the problems that school deals with will make it a place that the other neighborhoods don’t want to send their kids to, which will ensure that those other neighborhoods never fully come back, even if they come back temporarily.

Once you do this, there is no going back and none of these schools can ever be improved unless they’re all improved together, which we all know flat out does not happen… ever.

According to the article there is no confirmation that Blumenfeld is the mystery developer with the agreement on the hotel.  From these “plans” it also doesn’t sound very likely to be the case.  There are way too many hurdles to get all the schools to agree on that part of the concept, and it wouldn’t happen any time soon.  
I can’t see Masterman parents getting on board with this because there is no clear advantage to sharing space with any other schools. 

agreed.  and it needs complete approval from the SRC which sounds unlikely at best.

You realize these are magnet schools (and good ones, at that), with the exception Benjamin Franklin? I actually think it’s an inventive idea, though I’d leave Ben Franklin out of the mix, simply because it isn’t a magnet school. Build a 3 school campus, and frankly, close Franklin. It’s way under capacity anyways.

It could be extraordinary, honestly. Let the developer build the schools at no cost to the district and give him the school plots to redevelop as he wishes. Seems like a win-win to me.

The only question is…what to really do with the Divine Lorraine. I would think at a minimum, you’d want a significant portion of it to become residential. 

The William Penn High School further up North Broad was the same idea. It was a massive failure. 

The plot of land behind the hotel is the most valuable part of the parcel.  It’s a blank slate without any of the restoration costs associated with the hotel.  The only reason Blumenfeld would put schools there is because he’d rather have their current buildings on Broad.  

None of this outlines a feasible project for the hotel.  Like I’ve said here before, several developers were unable to figure out a viable market rate project, either condos in the condo boom, or market rate apartments after that.  Then even with historical tax credits, LIHTC, and 3.8 mil in CDBG funds the last developer was unable to make a mixed senior/market rate development work.  They still couldn’t make it work just converting half the building to senior housing with the subsidy and mothballing the rest until they figured out how to do it.

With that said, how the hell is a museum going to work there?  A new museum dreamed up by a 29 year old with no development experience, not even an established museum expanding with funding from Lenfest or Pew.

If anything ever happens with the hotel it’s going to be residential with commercial space on the first floor, and it’s either going to be a visionary developer of market rate housing with deep pockets and an appetite for risk, or an affordable housing developer with an amazing funding package, or a combination of the two.  Let’s just hope it doesn’t sit around long enough for Project HOME to work something out or we’ll be hearing the death knells of the short lived revival of North Broad.

1st No. No. No. No   The demographics of these schools are so different there’s a reason they haven’t consolidated.

2nd  Masterman is a nationally recognized high school with some very distinguished alumni i really think the powers that be will not let that merge.

3rd The real purpose of this so called brilliant idea from Blumenfeld is so he can aquire the property that houses the Franklin learning center because it is prime real estate.  He has been slowly acquiring property on ridge ave. with a grand plan.  The firm he has hired has done renderings of his vision of the area and is trying to shop it hard to the city and the planning commision with no regards for the neighborhood or the residents.

 They’re city schools.  Masterman is one of the few actually good city schools and they want to basically combine it with a bunch of other city schools.  It doesn’t matter what kind of schools they are.  These are city kids, and city kids live in city neighborhoods and have city problems.  That means fights, that means incidents, that means a whole host of problems that they won’t be able to deal with if three schools share the same campus.  Combining the few actually not sh*tty schools in Philadelphia is one of the dumbest ideas anybody could ever have.  It really, really, really, really won’t be even remotely extraordinary.  It’ll be a mess and a big F you to the separate schools and everybody who either lives near them or sends their kids to them.

Schools should be regional, not clustered like this.

 Exactly.  So are many other schools outside of the city that are some of the worst in the country except when compared to Philly’s schools.  It’s a permanent confirmation of the death of a community in response to a temporary problem of low enrollment or low funds or whatever else.  It’s never a good idea and along with the suburbanization of urban areas is one of the biggest reasons urban areas end up only coming back through gentrification or private developers.

How many under 25 year olds would this be in one spot? 

Yup. Here’s the EB master plan from a few years ago, though a tiny picture of it.

http://www.varenhorst.com/work/project/north_broad_street_district_masterplan

Here it is enlarged:
http://www.varenhorst.com/images/sized/images/projects/NBM/NBM04-WEB-859×700.jpg 

How much more waiting for something to happen? How many years of neglect has it been? Tooooo many. Density is needed here with retail, afterwards restaurants & of course all else will come into place. How can anything change or happen when the building DL and the acreage around it is still the “same”.

The area can and will sustain density easily with a major artery of transit (Broad St) subway, Temple to the north, center city to the south. It is a NO BRAINER just a matter of getting it done. Hopefully sooner than later.

Just the fact that you all hate the idea makes me love it. After all, NEGADELPHIANS are the least progressive populace in the country. If this were happening in NYC, you’d all be saying, “why can’t we do that here”?

I don’t think you know what a Negadelphian actually is.  A Negadelphian is somebody who thinks the city isn’t special or can’t ever be great, not somebody who points out how stupid and utterly counterproductive this idea is.  No part of this idea is either good or respectful to a symbol of North Broad’s former prominence.

Sorry buddy but I could give a f*ck what NYC does and having a sh*tty idea somewhere else doesn’t make me want to have it here.

What’s negative about wanting the highest and best use for a property on a major artery that’s begging for revitalization?  What’s progressive about throwing a bunch of schools together behind the DL?  

it was the Daily News

[...] yet another sign the North Broad Street corridor heading in the right direction. Let us hope that whatever path is ultimately chosen for the Divine Lorraine represents a similarly positive step. 0 COMMENTS Posted in Spring Garden | Tagged [...]

oldy but a goody

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-04-13-Taxcover_N.htm

The out of town students placed in the former Divine Lorraine will be fresh meat for the wolf-packs leaving the combined schools.

Now we know what you’d get if you put a realtor in charge of schools, and a maker of Banksyesque “contemporary art” in charge of historic preservation. Remember not to ask them next time. 

[...] may recall, Blumenfeld came forward earlier this year with a plan to convert the building into a contemporary art museum and rebuild four neighborhood schools in the [...]

If the exterior of the Divine Lorraine is modified to any substantial extent, I will–and this is not an exaggeration–be so upset that I will require weep for days.

The sign, in particular, must remain untouched.