Looks like we'll get our first peak next week at the entertainment complex developers are planning to build once the Spectrum arena comes down.

UPDATE: (As several readers remind me, the developer's Web site has had renderings and "virtual tour" of the project up for months. So it's hardly a first look. But if we've learned nothing from the stalled slots parlor development process, these plans can change ... a lot.)

The Philadelphia City Planning Commission's agenda for its meeting on July 21 lists an information only presentation on the Philly Live! Entertainment Complex on the 1100 block of Pattison Avenue in South Philadelphia.

Comcast-Spectacor, which owns the Spectrum, has hired Baltimore's Cordish Development Co. to develop what has been billed as a "retail, entertainment and dining center." Will it look like Cordish's other developments on the Inner Harbor or Atlantic City? We'll soon see.

Demolition of the Spectrum could happen by year's end.

Also notable on the planning commission's to-do list is an effort to amend a zoning bill passed last December covering the American Commerce Center superscraper planned for the 1800 block of Arch Street. The amendment would require City Council approval of the plans.

Given the state of commercial real estate and the rising office vacancy rate in Center City, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the first shovels to arrive for a tower expected to cost more than $1 billion and soar 1,500 feet.

Here's the full agenda (with the exception of the approval of the minutes and executive director's update):

 

 

3. ZBA Case 8559: 2116-32 Chestnut Street (Developer: The John Buck Company; Presented by Paula Brumbelow).

4. Zoning Bill 090472: Amending Zoning Bill 080588 (approved 12/22/08) by requiring City Council approval of the Plan of Development for the American Commerce Center site on the 1800 block of Arch Street (Presented by Martin Gregorski; Introduced by Councilmember Clarke on June 4, 2009).

5. Zoning Bill 090517: Remapping the area bounded by Walnut, 42nd, Locust, and 43rd Streets (Presented by Paula Brumbelow; Introduced by Councilmember Blackwell on June 18, 2009).

6. Streets Bill 090468: Revising City Plan No. 55 by striking Duncan Street from Aramingo Avenue to the Delaware Expressway, and placing a drainage and public utility right-of-way within the lines of the stricken Duncan Street (Presented by William Erickson; Introduced by Councilmember Krajewski on June 4, 2009)

7. Review and Comment: Tudor East Falls Historic District Designation (Presented by Jonathan Farnham and Erin Cote, Philadelphia Historical Commission).

8. Information Only: Stormwater Design for Midvale Avenue (East Falls) (Presented by Joy Lawrence, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society).

9. Information Only: Philly Live! Entertainment Complex, Spectrum site/1100 block Pattison Avenue (Developer: Cordish Development Company).

10. Information Only: Lower Italian Market Revitalization Plan (Presented by Karin Morris and Nicole Hostettler, Passyunk Square Civic Association).

The United States is in the fourth year of its housing slump, and the commercial building sector is down as well.

So why does DuPont Co. think now is the right time to open its first design studios, including one in Philadelphia, to showcase its Corian solid surfaces?

It’s hoping to create buzz - and new business - for a 42-year-old product primarily known for its use in countertops. To that end, the Wilmington chemical giant has opened studios in Milan, New York and now Philadelphia to show designers and architects how Corian can be used as a design material.

DuPont and its partner behind the studio, C.H. Briggs Co., a Reading-based building products distributor, will open the Philadelphia studio today.

Milan and New York are certainly style capitals. Why Philadelphia?

Thomas F. Schuler, general manager of DuPont Building Innovations, said Philadelphia has its own professional community that pushes the envelope on innovative and sustainable building and interior design.

So the 2,500-square-foot studio in the Marketplace Design Center at 2400 Market St. incorporates Corian into undulating ceiling lighting, textured exterior panels, and decorative window screens that were etched to show the cityscape outside.

And it’s hard to miss the massive conference table that looks like a piece of white gum that’s been pulled apart. That’s the handiwork of West Chester-based MacLaren Fabrication Inc., which executed a concept by New York interior designer  Harry Allen.

Jeff McPhie, general manager of MacLaren Fabrication, said the table was made from 100 pieces of Corian that were heated until pliable and formed around a wooden base. Bolted to the floor, the table curves through a circular opening in a glass wall.

Corian, an acrylic polymer, is not just for kitchens and bathrooms, Schuler said. In fact, half of its sales come from the commercial sector, where it’s used in office lobbies, hospitals, retail stores and educational settings. Construction activity in some of those industries has held up pretty well, he said.

With $30.5 billion in 2008 net sales, DuPont doesn’t break out results for its individual brands, such as Kevlar and Tyvek. Corian is part of the DuPont Safety & Protection segment, which had 2008 sales of $5.7 billion, up 2 percent from the previous year.

The Building Innovations unit is little more than three years old, created to bridge the information gap between DuPont’s labs and architects’ studios. “This is the first time we’ve given the architectural and design community the … opportunity not only to be inspired but also to help others be inspired as well,” Schuler said.

However, the new business unit, which employs about 1,000 people, was assembled at the crest of the nation’s building frenzy. It’s been largely downhill for builders, developers and architects since.

DuPont, Schuler said, has not wavered from its longer term vision for this business. “A downturn is actually a great opportunity to accelerate that vision, not slow it down,” he said.

So DuPont has focused on making its Web site better, because its surveys show that 79 percent of consumers search the Internet first for information about countertops, Schuler said.

Countertops are fabricators’ bread and butter. McPhie said MacLaren, with 50 employees, is a little smaller than it was two years ago. Lately, it’s won more work on high-end residential projects, including a major installation on St. John, the Virgin Islands.

Over the years, MacLaren has worked with many artists who use Corian as their medium, McPhie said. He hopes the new Corian studio will help designers better understand how versatile the product is.

Manufactured in Tonawanda, N.Y., Corian may be available in more than 200 colors worldwide, but the most popular tends to be white, Schuler said.

Case in point: The Seeko’o Hotel in Bordeaux, France, which opened in 2007. Architect Jean-Christophe Masnada chose to clad the exterior of the hotel using white Corian panels.

Now there are 35 buildings under development in Europe that are incorporating Corian as exterior design elements, Schuler said.

Less than 10 years ago, SAP America Inc. moved into its 400,000-square-foot headquarters in Newtown Square. Today, executives will snip the ribbon on a 200,000-square-foot expansion.

Back then, the businesssoftware maker had 1,100 workers in Delaware County. Today, headcount tops 2,000.

If the design of the original structure sought to reflect the changing role of the office in the 21st century, the new one embodies SAP’s embrace of “corporate sustainability.”

Yes, it’s another “green” office building.

Engineered to cut energy use by as much as 49 percent compared with conventional structures, SAP’s building aspires to that loftiest state of greenness: the platinum level of the U.S. Green Building Council’s standard known as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

Locally, only one building has attained it, according to the council’s Web site: Liberty Property Trust’s One Crescent Drive at the Philadelphia Navy Yard Corporate Center.

SAP America president Rob Enslin described how all building materials came from within 500 miles of Newtown Square. Wood used for the huge structural ribs inside the glass exterior wall came from trees felled to make way for construction.

New York’s FXfowle Architects pulled out all the recycled stops for this project:

The requisite grass roof helps reduce the urban heat island effect. Rainwater gets collected in a 50,000-gallon cistern for use in flush toilets and landscape irrigation. A hybrid air-conditioning system makes ice in storage tanks at night when energy demand and electric rates are low. There are geothermal wells, “daylight harvesting” and more.

SAP wouldn’t disclose how many greenbacks it took to attain this level of eco-consciousness.

Asked why tech firms seem to lean green more than others, Enslin quibbled: “SAP is not really a tech company. We’re a business company.”

Having helped other companies become more efficient and reduce waste, SAP understands the benefits of operating in a sustainable manner more than most, he said.

To Enslin, the green building is as much about SAP following its own advice as it is about being a good corporate citizen.

Corporate annual reports began flooding into the Securities and Exchange Commission last week.

If you own shares in a public company, you really should read the document it files with the SEC called a Form 10-K.

Federal rules require many companies to file their annual reports within 75 days of the end of their fiscal years. Given that most companies use Dec. 31 for their year-end, today is Day 75 for them.

Form 10-Ks are the basis for beginning to understand what a company does, how it fits into its industry and a ton of numbers that describe its financial condition.

You can also look at the annual reports of a company over time to see how it has evolved, or devolved. Rising unemployment has been the story over the last few months, so I looked at seven local companies that filed their 10-Ks last week to see how their workforces had changed year over year.

The smallest was Fox Chase Bancorp Inc. with a workforce of 151, down by two people.. The largest was MedQuist Inc., a medical transcription company, with 6,380 employees.

In all, the seven companies employed 13,107 people, according to their most recent annual reports. That’s 15 percent lower than the 15,443 people a year ago.

MedQuist shed the most jobs, cutting 1,132 people. But A.C. Moore Arts & Crafts Inc. wasn’t far behind, eliminating 1,068 positions at its stores.

The Blackwood-based A.C. Moore has been restructuring its operations under its current management. It’s cut full-time and part-time help alike. Still, the number of employees who work in its corporate offices rose to 168 as of Jan. 3, from 149 a year ago.

Two of the seven companies added jobs, but we’re talking only 12 employees between them. Tasty Baking Co. had 883 employees as of March 1. Its full-time workforce declined as its part-time ranks grew. Abington Bancorp Inc. added seven employees, giving it 177 employees.

Marlin Business Services Corp., an equipment financing firm, slashed its workforce by 20 percent between 2007 and 2008. It employed 284 people as of Dec. 31, down from 357 the previous year. And the company is still cutting, disclosing in its annual report that it reduced its workforce by 17 percent, or 49 people during the first quarter of 2009.

The last company was Advanta Corp., which provides credit cards to small business. It too has been reducing its headcount in the tight credit environment. It had 841 employees as of Dec. 31, down from 914.

But bigger cuts came in this year. In January, Advanta said it would eliminate about a third of its workforce. In February, it filed notice with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry that it would eliminate 281 jobs.

No thanks

Count the parent company of First National Bank of Chester County out of the federal bank bailout program.

The U.S. Treasury Department had given approval to provide up to $25 million in capital to First Chester County Corp. The West Chester bank holding company had scheduled a special meeting of its shareholders for Wednesday to authorize the issuance of 30,000 shares of preferred stock to the Treasury.

Well, that meeting’s not going to happen now. First Chester County has become the latest bank to say “no thanks.”

CEO John A. Featherman III said in a statement that the rules and regulations of the federal Capital Purchase Program had changed in ways that “would restrict the way we support our shareholders, customers, employees and communities.”

That’s a polite way of saying what Sun Bancorp Inc. CEO Thomas X. Geisel said last week: The whole program has become politicized.

Where the Treasury Department had wanted to avoid stigmatizing banks who accepted taxpayer money and thus invited healthy banks to apply for its relatively inexpensive capital, various lawmakers have had no such restraint in demonizing bankers.

As the rules changed, changed and changed again, it clear that some bankers now view the federal program as more trouble than it’s worth.

Last call at malls

The retail sales numbers may have been surprisingly positive last week, but retailers and shopping centers they’re in aren’t ready to celebrate just yet.

Last week, Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, which owns a lot of the shopping malls locally, announced plans to reduce hours at some of them as of March 30.

The following malls will close at 9 p.m. rather than 9:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday: Cumberland, Exton Square, The Mall at Voorhees Town Center, Moorestown, Plymouth Meeting, Springfield and Willow Grove Park.

The Gallery at Market East in Center city will close at 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Currently, it closes at 8 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Open times for all the malls remain the same as do Sunday hours. The shopping mall owner said it’s been monitoring mall traffic patterns and has noticed a shift to earlier peak shopping hours.

Earnings

Today: BMP Sunstone, Stonemor Partners, SL Industries;

Tuesday: Hemispherx Biopharma, Royal Bancshares of Pennsylvania, WPCS International;

Wednesday: Charming Shoppes;

Thursday: InTest, PhotoMedex.

Quotable

A lot of banks were priced for Armageddon. When some of the names which were most under the gun say things are looking better, that’s certainly good news.

- Bill Stone, chief investment strategist at PNC Wealth Management in Philadelphia told Bloomberg News.
 

It’s moving day for Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney P.C.

The law firm is closed today so that all those leather-bound law books can be lugged from the 14th floor of 1835 Market St. to Two Liberty Place, 50 S. 16th St., a few blocks away.

On Monday morning, Buchanan Ingersoll lawyers and staff will have a new view of the world from their offices on the 31st, 32nd and 33rd floors. The firm signed a 12-year lease for 77,018 square feet in blue-glass office tower in January 2008.

Based in Pittsburgh, the law firm has 70 lawyers and government-relations professionals as well as 58 additional staff members in its Philadelphia office.
 

“The more you spend, the more you save.”
Who knew that that tried-and-true advertising line would become the preferred strategy for turning around the economy, bulldozing the housing crisis, and replenishing the banking sector?
While those crises have spawned progressively more expensive fixes, we’ve outdone ourselves this week.
President Obama signed into law the $787 billion economic stimulus plan. The automakers requested $14 billion more in federal aid. And yesterday, the president unveiled a $75 billion foreclosure plan and committed $200 billion more to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Shock and awe, for me. Aw, shucks, for the markets apparently.
But the economists and policy analysts I talked with, while applauding the Obama plan as “thoughtful” and “ambitious,” reminded me of the scope of the problem.
The Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan is designed to aid a maximum of 9 million households at risk of foreclosure. But housing prices continue to fall and credit standards continue to tighten.
Moody’s Economy.com estimates about 26 percent of the 52 million U.S. households with mortgages owe more than their house is worth.
Susan Wachter, a Wharton real estate professor, said she liked the Obama plan’s “systemic approach” in that it addresses the need to slow down foreclosures that are preventable.
Sharon Price, director of policy with the National Housing Conference, said the plan shows the federal government finally “leveraging the influence” it now has over the financial industry.
However, Joseph Brusuelas, a Moody’s Economy.com director, said he’d expected a “more aggressive plan” and that the amount committed was “not large enough.”
For my part, I’m glad to see more details in this plan than the vague trillion-dollar framework offered by the Treasury Department last week to aid the banking sector.
But I come back to the staggering amounts we’re committing to rescue everyone and everything. Even the world’s richest country can’t afford a “nothing can fail” strategy for too many years.

Special-purpose acquisition companies were created as a way to raise money publicly and buy an operating company.
Often simply called by their initials, SPACs are increasingly finding their special purpose may be in not doing deals.
Last week, a Philadelphia SPAC said its shareholders voted to dissolve the company and liquidate. Dekania Corp. had wanted to buy BlueCreek Energy Inc., a Denver company that extracts and processes natural gas in the Rocky Mountains.
It was a key moment for the publicly held Dekania, which had raised $97 million from investors in 2007. Dekania was sponsored by Cohen Bros. L.L.C., an alternative investment firm based in Philadelphia.
Dekania’s units and other securities traded over what is now called the NYSE Alternext US market.
But time really is money when it comes to SPACs. Dekania had struck the deal to buy BlueCreek on Dec. 29, but needed shareholder approval to extend the life of Dekania beyond Feb. 7 in order to close the deal.
Its shareholders, which are largely institutional investors, overwhelmingly torpedoed that idea at a special meeting on Feb. 6. (Only 3,695 votes out of 9,647,695 were cast in favor of extension.)
Buying BlueCreek was actually Plan B for Dekania. It had struck a deal to buy Advanced Equities Financial Corp., a Chicago provider of annuities and other financial products, on Sept. 12.
But in early October, a majority of Advanced Equities shareholders rejected that offer. Dekania began talks with BlueCreek in November. However, Dekania’s investors had other ideas.
So two years after investors paid $10 per unit to buy into Dekania, they’ll be getting their $10 back. Which isn’t such a bad deal when you consider how much value has been destroyed in the stock market.
Dekania units actually rose 6 percent over the last year compared with a 40 percent decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
Given the lousy environment for mergers of all kinds, we’ll probably be seeing a lot more non-action by SPACs.
According to Thomson Reuters, 84 SPACs raised $16.3 billion in 2007 and 2008. Most of them have not made an acquisition. With only two years to make a deal, that means many more could liquidate this year.

Still a ‘Go’

Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker said last week one of his administration’s big priorities is to support a huge mixed-use residential and retail project that involves Philadelphia developer Carl E. Dranoff.
Called Two Center Street, the 40-plus-story tower would be adjacent to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. The arts center selected Dranoff Properties Inc. in January 2008 to develop what would be the tallest building in the North Jersey city.
“In partnership with [NJPAC CEO] Larry Goldman, we pledge to intensively move this project forward this year, securing the resources we need to make it a go into construction,” Booker said in his “state of the city” address.
Goldman was pleased that $225 million project was chosen after an objective selection process by a committee assembled by the Brick City Development Corporation. Goldman called the city’s backing “a booster rocket.”
What’s next? Dranoff Properties will begin the design process in earnest, Goldman said. The developer and arts center will seek approvals at the city and state levels for Two Center Street.
Goldman said the overarching goal remains to get some new residents and activity in downtown Newark around the arts center, which opened in 1997.

On the Spot

Howard Stoeckel, president and CEO of Wawa Inc., will be giving a speech titled “Wawa … Convenient Cult” as part of Montgomery County Community College’s Distinguished Lecture Series.
Stoeckel, who’s led the 570-unit convenience store chain since 2005, will talk about how Wawa’s business strategies could be applied to other companies.
The speech will be held in the Science Center Theater on the community college’s central campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell, at 12:15 p.m., today. Yes, the head Wawan will take questions after his address.

Earnings

Tuesday: Discovery Laboratories, Marlin Business Services;
Wednesday: Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, Brandywine Realty Trust, Comcast, NutriSystem;
Thursday: Harleysville Group, PMA Capital, West Pharmaceutical Services;
Friday: Campbell Soup, Dorman Products, First Keystone Financial.

Thanks to a CEO change, the Philadelphia area has picked up a new corporate headquarters.

Capmark Financial Group Inc. is once again based in Horsham, where the commercial real estate finance company employs 650 people, according to spokeswoman Joyce Patterson.

Capmark was based in San Mateo, Calif., under chairman, president and CEO William F. Aldinger III, who resigned Dec. 4.

Jay N. Levine, the former CEO of RBS Global Banking & Markets, succeeded Aldinger at Capmark. According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, he will be paid a base salary of $5 million and will be eligible for bonuses.

Aldinger was based on the West Coast, so the headquarters moved to Horsham following Levine’s appointment, Patterson said.

The company owns the four office buildings it operates from in Montgomery County.

Capmark’s not a household name, but then again not many households need a commercial mortgage. The company was based in Horsham until three years ago when it changed its name and ownership. It became Capmark in March 2006 after several private-equity investors, led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., bought a majority of GMAC Commercial Holding Corp. from General Motors Corp. for about $1.5 billion.

That was when real estate was still bubbling.

Like others in the mortgage business, Capmark now writes its income statements using red ink. For the three months ended Sept. 30, Capmark reported a net loss of $89.4 million compared with net income of $26.6 million for the same quarter of 2007. Its global workforce is now about 1,900 people, down from 3,100 nearly three years ago.

And like other lenders, Capmark has submitted an application to the Treasury Department for capital under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. No decision so far.

Quotable

It’s like J.P. Morgan and Goldman. It is the old-school NFL.

- Joe Pisarcik, former quarterback for both the New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles and now a broker, in a Bloomberg News interview commenting on their rivalry as the teams prepare for Sunday’s playoff game.

Photographs of half-built, nearly empty subdivisions in California and other overbuilt markets may symbolize the four-year decline in the housing business.

And monthly data on new home sales and housing prices may document how far the industry has fallen. Mortgage defaults continue to rise, and some people are losing their homes.

But a review of some of the publicly held builders’ annual reports reveals another human cost - job loss in the industry.

Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., of Red Bank, N.J., filed its Form 10-K on Christmas Eve, disclosing employment of 2,816 people as of Oct. 31. That was down from 4,318 a year earlier, or a loss of more than 1,500 jobs.

Beazer Homes USA Inc., of Atlanta, had 1,444 employees as of Sept. 30, 2008. It cut 1,175 jobs since Sept. 30, 2007, or 45 percent of its workforce.

Regionally, Orleans Homebuilders Inc. reduced its headcount by more than 20 percent during its fiscal year ended June 30, to 544 people. The Bensalem company said between June 30, 2006, and Aug. 31, 2008, it slashed its workforce by more than 50 percent.

Toll Bros. Inc. , the nationwide luxury home builder, eliminated 1,169 jobs over its fiscal year ended Oct. 31. Its workforce of 3,160 is now smaller than it was during its fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 2003. Employment peaked at 6,147 as of July 31, 2006.

In filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, most builders simply provide a total employment figure. But Toll Bros., which filed its Form 10-K on Dec. 19, actually breaks down its employment by type of job. So you can track over time the change in the number of workers involved in various aspects of home building.

For example, Toll Bros. had 417 people working in construction as of the end of its most recent fiscal year. That’s down 69 percent from the 1,331 it employed as of Oct. 31, 2005.

Not a big surprise. If you’re not building as many homes, you don’t need as many construction workers.

But Toll Bros.’ architectural and engineering team got hit even harder. At 70 people now, that group is down 76 percent from the 294 employed more than three years ago.

The Horsham-based home builder has also cut more than 1,000 administrative and clerical jobs over the last two years. Its 1,231 back-office personnel account for 39 percent of Toll Bros.’s overall employment.

However, one part of its workforce continues to grow. Manufacturing and distribution now has 280 people, up from 258 as of Oct. 31, 2007. At factories in Emporia, Va., Knox, Ind., and Morrisville, Pa., employees make open wall panels, roof and floor trusses, and other building materials used in its communities.

Toll Bros. considers these operations crucial for increased efficiencies, cost savings and productivity. Still you have to wonder how long it can avoid cuts in those facilities given the worst housing market since World War II.

Who will buy?

It wasn’t that long ago that it seemed nearly every big company was in play, and private-equity firms were tripping over each other to buy them.

Now with the credit crunch and global recession forcing retrenchment everywhere, PricewaterhouseCoopers forecasts that 2009 will bring “mergers of necessity.”

“Troubled companies will look to align with larger, stronger players in order to survive,” said Robert Filek, a partner in the consulting firm’s Transaction Services group.

Thomson Reuters says the value of announced transactions in the United States was $1.1 trillion for the first 11 months of 2008, down from $1.6 trillion for the same period of 2007.