That's correct, Lew: I don't have all the facts. I am gathering them as
I go. Whenever I get facts, I share them immediately with curious neighbors.
I remember that Hilton Hotel well. It was not an extended-stay hotel but
a standard model with a parking garage, restaurants, room service,
meeting spaces, etc. So it does not make a meaningful comparison. In
fact, its failure suggests dimly that the real hotel need in the
HUP/CHOP area is not for more expensive, short-stay rooms and this would
be a very unlikely way to "recycle" the project.
If such a hotel failed and was converted to offices or a short-stay
facility (or condos?), its users would soon discover there is *no*
reliable possibility of finding on-street parking for several blocks
around, without a permit-parking sticker (or even with one). It would be
like people working in or visiting an 11-story building at 20th &
Chestnut; very few of them try to get by solely by feeding the meter all
day long. Any future users of this 40th & Pine building would face
similar pressures. Most of those who drove would pay to put their
vehicle on a lot, I 'spect.
I suppose, in such an eventuality, the owners could buy up a few
neighboring lots and try to replace them with a parking garage. My magic
eightball says this move would probably get shot down.
-- Tony West
Lew wrote:
So, like the rest of us, you don't have all the facts either.
Hilton HAD a hotel on campus with a ped bridge to CHOP and a
parking lot that is now offices. Is there any chance that the demand
for extended stay rooms has been miscalculated and some of the rooms
will "need" to be converted to short-stay rooms and/or offices to
avert a financial hardship? If such a change is a possibility, will
these added guests, office workers and clients also be provided with
free valet parking to a nearby Penn lot, or will they be circling the
neighborhood looking for a parking spot, dialing their cell phone to
say they're late for their appointment and parking in some resident's
driveway? Or will they be directed to make a left onto Baltimore into
the Vet School grid-lock. Can we get a commitment that this hotel
will always have a required minimum stay and that is the only use it
will ever have during the zoning process? My magic eightball is a
little fuzzy, but I think it says, "Unlikely."
----
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the
list named "UnivCity." To unsubscribe or for archive information, see
<http://www.purple.com/list.html>.
