Dranoff talks up tower at Broad & Spruce

Carl Dranoff is still a few weeks short of jawboning everyone he needs to convince so he can confirm detals of the "game-changing project" he says he's preparing for the east side of Broad St. below Spruce in Center City Philadelphia, across from the Kimmel Center. Dranoff says he's already met with city planners; he has a review lined up for the Washington Square West civic association's zoning committee, when he'll unwrap more details; if all goes well, he plans to present the proposal publicly sometime after Dec. 8. Dranoff says there's no historical restrictions on knocking down the former Philadlephia International Records (Gamble & Huff) offices on the site, damaged and empty since a 2010 fire, or a second low-rise across the narrow Cypress St. alley, currently braced to keep it from collapsing.

Phila. Business Journal's Natalie Kostelni wrote about the project back in October, here, and Hidden City Philadelphia's Brad Maule yesterday noted the building is projected at 40 stories, hotel plus apartments, here. This would be the tallest tower on South Broad, though Dranoff won't confirm he's heading that high.

Dranoff is also busy with One Ardmore Place, 121 apartments, three levels of parking, on Cricket Ave., which recently won consent from the Lower Merion Commissioners as part of their slow-moving suburban-retail-renewal project; and his Military Park proposal for central Newark, NJ, which just won $33 million in state Economic Development Association Urban Hub tax credits; and his high rise west of Fitler Square and south of his earlier factory-loft conversions, which has won city zoning approval but faces a resident's appeal that Dranoff hopes will be decided "in a couple of weeks." And he's still pitching units at Ten Rittenhouse, where condo-space buyers reportedly include Comcast boss Brian L. Roberts, see Wall St. Journal here.

-- Joseph N. DiStefano