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Will Philadelphia Stand Up For Itself, and Common Sense?
Submitted by Dan U-A on Fri, 08/15/2008 - 9:33am.
Has everyone been following the saga of Unysis? If you haven't the quick summary is that the company is supposed to relocate their headquarters from Blue Bell to Center City, but after signing leases and getting their name in the press for a couple weeks, they have now basically threatened to back out the deal. They will consider going elsewhere unless the city allows it to break out the Elmer's Glue and magic markers, and scrawl a big red "Unisys" sign on the side of 2 Liberty Place. Let us scribble and graffiti, suckers, or the jobs we promised are gone.
(See the proposed logo here.)
So, the hearings were held yesterday, and with so many people objecting to this, more will be heard. But, this is seriously one of the more ridiculous requests. Unisys is going to occupy less than 10 percent of the building, and no one else in there wants their damn sign:
"If we didn't get the signage, we'd have to re-evaluate how important visibility is to us in that decision," Kerr said of the move.
Unisys signed a lease in December to rent about three and a half floors - 7 percent of the building - for more than a decade.
Asked if the company would try to break that lease if the request for signs is denied, Kerr said: "I couldn't get into that."
Two Liberty Place's first major tenant, Cigna, opposes the signs.
"We feel that the signs on Two Liberty Place would mar and tarnish the building as well as the Philadelphia skyline," Cigna spokesman Chris Curran said.
Cigna has about 1,500 people working on 18 floors in the building. Curran estimated that, combined with the condo owners, that means 93 percent of the building's occupants don't want Unisys signs hanging outside.
Extortion really pisses me off. Obviously, we need more jobs in Philly, and certainly good paying ones. But, if the company is threatening to leave based on this, what are they going to demand in a year? Big tax breaks? That Mayor Nutter walks each employee to the train at the end of the day? And, of course, once we allow one company to scrawl on our skyline like a wobegone child, we know what is coming next.
A City with confidence would not roll over here. Here is to hoping that the City, through its zoning board, stands up for itself, for once.
'woebegone'
does not get used nearly enough in my opinion
Anyway, whatever, who wouldn't want to live inside Blade Runner?
this issue consistently surprises me
I can't get worked up about this issue. If Unisys wants to put a sign on the side of a building, let them. Whatever.
And I find it completely disingenuous that folks are trying to turn this into some slippery slope argument - that if we allow this sign, soon our entire skyline would be swallowed by corporate signage.
And even if the protesters are right and this is the first step towards some dystopian L.E.D. lit future, so what? Would that really be so bad? Perhaps some jobs would be generated installing all those LEDs.
I didn't think I'd ever say this word, but this whole thing strikes me as completely "bourgeois." Something you'd expect from folks out in Merion or Chadds Ford upset about a CVS or Starbucks moving into their quaint little town center.
I just can't see this issue as being about anything other than a bunch of rich people trying to impose their aesthetic sense upon some other people. And are we really rallying to defend folks who can afford to spend millions of dollars to live in a commercial office building in the sky?
That's not the point
I hate the expression "roll over,", but the point is this...there is a zoning law in place about signs as "bourgeois" as it may be. So why should the city let a company off the hook from the law?
And what has changed?
From the Unisys website in December of 2007:
Even if he can't get his dumb sign, where is he gonna go and get all those amenities? That is Dan's point: we have a lot to offer as a city and we need to recognize that internally instead of always giving away the milk for free...
"giving away the milk for free..."
Why do we have a mindset that we need to constantly shake down anyone who wants to do anything in this City?
It's not like Unisys and its employees aren't going to be paying taxes.
LOL
so twisted.
Where is my buddy Ayn?
In all seriousness Dewitt, I don't know how to argue with you here. It is pretty clear that the City isn't asking for anything whatsoever. Just because it is the CBD doesn't mean we shouldn't have zoning laws in the CBD.
Philadelphia's zoning laws
Philadelphia's zoning laws have been written so that a variance is necessary to do anything in this City.
Why is granting this variance any different from the countless other variances granted on a daily near daily basis?
Let's try to remember that this is Philadelphia's commercial district. This isn't Chadds Ford, or even Mount Airy or Society Hill. This is a use that is entirely consistent with what the land is zoned for. The folks who decided to move into this building did so with knowledge that they were moving into a COMMERCIAL office building in the center of Philadelphia's COMMERCIAL center.
If there is a dangerous precedent to be set here is that we are going to permit Philadelphia's commercial core to be bootstrapped into a residential district by the machinations of a few well-heeled residents who want to have Philadelphia protect their aesthetic sense.
Residents? Like Cigna?
Residents? Like Cigna?
And when we get a new zoning code, which I am 100 percent sure would not allow for people to simply put up whatever they want, what then?
The condo owners that made
The condo owners that made this an issue. But for them, Cigna would have likely never voiced its opinion.
As for the zoning code, my point is the need for a variance should not be in and of itself a reason to object. There should be some underlying policy that we are using the zoning code to protect us from.
I just don't see any merits in the underlying policy. In fact, as I said before, I think that enforcing the zoning code in this instance would set a bad precedent.
I'm pretty sure that when the offices were converted to condos, a variance was needed to permit the habitation of commercial office space. So now, because we previously granted a variance to allow folks to buy $1M condos in Class A office space, we are allowing those people to object to the granting of a variance that is more consistent with the intended use of the CBD than their own?
Only in Philly.
Only in Philly what?
You mean Philly, with one of the largest concentrations of downtown dwellers (including you), is the ONLY place where folks might complain about a gigantic red sign glowing all night long in view of their homes?
If your issue is with zoning, I am with you. If you want to take action, call Mayor Nutter and remind him of his campaign trail promises:
The number is (215) 686-1776.
In the meantime, for a company who made such a big deal about how cool it was to move to Center City and how much it would help their business, it sounds pretty lame that they are threatening to leave over a sign.
I agree that Unisys is being
I agree that Unisys is being somewhat irrational by suggesting the only reason why it wants to be in Philly is so it can hang its sign on one of our tallest buildings. Through some pretty bone-headed PR, they've successfully made themselves into the bad person in this whole thing.
But I also think the folks opposing the sign are being more irrational - and they, after all, started it.
Everyone is acting like children, and, of course, I'm the only adult in the bunch!!!
I was only half kidding about Blade Runner
I would also live in Times Square, but only this one.
Anyway I think the point is not aesthetics, it's contracts and bargaining and leverage.
I knew that there was
I knew that there was something funky going on here. It should also be noted that the only people moving in are top level managers. It's not like we are getting some cool IT company where the core of its workers will be in Philly (which would rock). It looks like having this sign there is the only thing that they really cared about. That PR line was complete and utter bullshit.
As far as I'm concerned, if the landlord approves the sign, then I have no problem with it. Hell, Wachovia can't even put a sign on its own freaking building. That, to me, is a little ridiculous.