Halstead Property

City's Center Seeing A Rebirth

Condominiums in downtown Philadelphia Selling Quickly

By CHRIS DOLMETSCH
Bloomberg News

Philadelphia

developer Craig Spencer is making the biggest wager yet on a resurgence

in the city's housing market with a $250 million luxury condominium

project across the street from City Hall.

Spencer,

an owner of the Philadelphia Soul arena football team along with rock

star Jon Bon Jovi, will start construction in November on a 44-story

tower on the site of the former Meridian Bank building, whose

burned-out shell sat vacant for almost a decade after a 1991 fire.

More

than 40 percent of the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton were sold within

three weeks, exceeding Spencer's six-month sales goal with just one

advertisement posted in mid-July. The units cost $400,000 to $12

million for the penthouse looking at the 37-foot statue of William Penn

that tops City Hall.

"The

buying has been fast and furious," Spencer, 44, said in an interview at

the Ritz-Carlton, a hotel he helped build that is adjacent to the site

of his new project. Spencer is counting on a continuation of the boom

in the Center City region that has added 6,400 housing

units since 1998, according to the Center City District, an

organization of property owners and businesses. Low prices, attractive

mortgage rates and tax incentives have spurred redevelopment and helped

blunt a four-decade population decline.

Housing prices in Center

City have more than tripled since 1984, to $525,960 last year, the

district said in a report. That's still less than half the average

price of a Manhattan apartment, according to New York-based Halstead Property.

"It's still a very affordable city," City Councilman Darrell Clarke said. "I just hope we can maintain the pace."

Other planned projects include Marina

View Towers, 25 stories of condominiums at the foot of the Ben Franklin

Bridge to New Jersey, and the nearby Waterfront Square towers, a $280

million, five-tower project next to the Delaware River. Commercial

construction is on the rise too, led by Comcast Corp., the largest U.S.

cable television operator, which is building a $500 million

headquarters on 17th street.

Friday, September 23, 2005