The guys behind West Philly's new high rise
Ted Rollins and Jerry Sweeney talk about their 33-story student project on the Penn-Drexel border
The guys behind West Philly's new high rise
Joseph N. DiStefano
The $158 million, 33-story Grove high-rise, planned for 850 Penn and Drexel students, adjoining the two campuses on a Penn-owned property at 2930 Chestnut St. in Brandywine Realty Trust's Cira South development, will stand out among East Coast college housing projects.
For one thing, it's taller. Boston University boasts a landmark 26-story dorm with spectacular views. New York University cancelled plans for a 38-story tower after Greenwich Village neighbors and architect I.M. Pei protested. Penn's three 25-story undergrad dorms have anchored "Superblock" ("an architectual conceptual disaster," according to this 1999 Pa. Gazette review) on the west end of campus since the 1970s. Temple's new Morgan Hall dominates the view to Center City from 21 stories above North Philly.
Also, like other Penn student housing projects in recent years, Grove is a private effort, though on a bigger scale: It will boast its own health club and pool, Internet and cable, and rents starting above $1,300/month for a single (there'll also be suites with up to three bedrooms.)
The project's backers hope it will reverse the long flow of graduate students into West Philly's mixed residential neighborhoods and booming Center City and slowing growth to the student ghetto locally dominated by outfits like Michael Karp's University City Housing Corp. and David Adelman's more upscale Campus Apartments (home of the Beige Blocks).
Grove rents will start above $1,300/month for a single. (In yet another sign that apartments >> offices in today's Philly real estate world, the University City Science Center is also planning a 27-story housing project a few blocks away.)
What are they thinking? I asked two of the partners behind the Grove at Cira deal. Ted Rollins is head of Campus Crest Communities, the Charlotte-based firm that will run the building.
Up til now, Crest has built and run dorms in mostly Southern and Western states, mostly in small towns or suburbs.
Yet Rollins says the UCity tower is like coming home: He grew up in Delaware, the son of the late business mogul John Rollins, who defied the powerful du Ponts to build the tallest office tower in suburban Wilmington (looming over their country estates and golf clubs; it's now home to AstraZeneca's US operations), built a publicly-traded trucking empire and the Dover Downs NASCAR speedway, developed a chunk of Jamaica for tourism, and saved what's now the state's largest bank, WSFS, from the S&L debacle, among his other investments.
"As a kid, my grandmother would take me to Philly, I'd look up and see the high rises and think, wouldn't it be great to build one some day!" Rollins told me, laughing. Now he gets his chance. (One of his sisters, Annie Prickett, is a Penn veterinary-school alumna.)
What does Crest do special? "We do things a little differently. We focus on resdential life," and student amenities," which Rollins promises will be "very competitive" with private rentals in town.
What does Crest know about high rises? "That's why we're partners with Brandywine," Philadelphia's dominant high-rise landlord, Rollins told me. The two were brought together by Scott Schaevitz, managing director at Barclays Bank, which has funded projects by both companies. "All the stars aligned."
"They have a fully comprehensive approach for student living that will be very attractive to grad students in University City," Brandywine boss Jerry Sweeney told me.
Brandywine, a publicly-traded Real Estate Investment Trust company, used to own office campuses in suburban clusters from here to California; lately it's concentrated mostly in Center City, buying high-rise towers from disappointed investors and planning apartments in what used to be office zones; in suburban Philadelphia, where it's joined other REITs that are selling aging buildings as rents fall; and in the Washington, D.C. area, where defense contractors who used to be reliable tenants have been cutting back.
Brandywine, as Sweeney noted, knows about both high rises and "doing business in Philadelphia" -- its building contractor, Keating, uses union labor, and has already lined up building permits.
Sweeney says his market research shows a lot of Penn and Drexel students do want to live a short stroll from the two engineering schools -- which each adjoin the Cira site -- as well as their business, medical, and other complexes a few blocks further away.
After all those years of students displacing resident families in West Philly and, lately, packing into Center City's fringes, "we anticipated growth would shift in this direction," Sweeney added.
UCity-based Drexel, Penn and Children's Hospital have all expanded across the Schuylkill into Center City in recent years, surrounding Brandywine's Cira project (which also includes the Cira One tower north of 30th Street Station, the rebuilt Post Office that now houses the IRS, and a neighboring parking garage).
Brandywine still wants to build a taller tower, for offices, at 2930 Walnut St. just to the South. Penn has agreed to be a major tenant, but the project depends on landing private occupants as well, Sweeney said. And that still hasn't happened.
Morgan Hall is 27 stories according to your link.— damnels- For additional coments see: SkyscraperPage.com
Well folks it looks like we have been cheated again with the Brandywine dorm. Compare this to the oval dorm at the edge of Drexel's campus. We went from a sleek modern office building at 30th street to something out of the 1950's with catoonist cut outs. The base of the building looks like the state office building and the tall thin rectangular shape with a roof that looks like it was plopped down on top looks like something that you would see in the old USSR or industrial cities of the old Red China. There is very little here to get excited about. It is highly visible from the highways I-76 and I-676 and real black eye to our skyline.
— mjkfisher - Brandywine limited their building options here due to that hulkish space eating parking garage which by the way could use some attractive modern sheathing.
The design of the Grove tower? Ive seen the rendering also and imo its very uninspiring and even a tad bit garish but its tough to gauge from a few renderings. So I am keeping an open mind. I think you keep it simple, elegant, classy that thing is a little noisy and too busy looking for my tastes.
Lastly where are all these people coming from to fill these thousands of new housing units going up in Center City?— argonne - Lastly where are all these people coming from to fill these thousands of new housing units going up in Center City?
i wonder this as well. philly is getting too dangerous for retirees and austerity is gutting any decent paying jobs. are there that many trustafarians? 
Whats exciting is the JOBS!- What Grad student can afford $1300 for a single?— Pelti
- flabbergasted there arent more comments about the 1300$ a month rent... say what?— raynesrock
- Dude its a spanking new $160 M project. What did you think you were going to get in there for $650 a month? If thats your price range you need to be looking for a 1 BR in a 100 yr old row home at 12th Wharton.
What flabbergasts me is that there are so many new apartment complexes going up. I just dont see how the market can digest it all. I'm glad this tower is going up a and Cira Grove and all the other new complexes will eventually fill-up but it is going to turn the Center City rental market upside down.
— argonne - 1300? They are out of their tree~— dawn7974
- Looks like this will prevent West Philly from the resurgence that has been seen in Northern Liberties and Fishtown.— KINGOFZED
- KINGOFZED if it means that the everyday working people, older folk, disabled, etc. can afford to live in the neighborhood then guess what, that's fine and dandy with me. Especially with AVI and ridiculously inflated home prices if you happen to live in the Penn Alexander Catchment area for example. That affects and impacts everyone, even those who don't have or never had children. If the smaller landlords aren't being taxed to death, maybe they won't have to charge so much. And if the students flock to Center City, there will be empty apartments here which could create more of a renter's market or homeowner's market for affordable living that's still very convenient. — annoyed
- $1300 is not expensive for a city high-rise. I get that many of us are on budgets but many of the Penn/Drexel students have parents with plenty of money too spend. If the dorms are empty prices will come down (supply and demand).
To the writer who suggested this glass/curtainwall structure can compare to the declining communist buildings, well get your head out of your ^ss.— KINGOFZED - Another boondoggle for delvelopers. Where is affordable housing in West Philly??????— farhorizons
- @farhorizons, If you find out where affordable decent housing is, please let the rest of us who are searching know? Right now there isn't any. There's a person down the street renting out single rooms (no pets, shared bath and kitchen with strangers) for over $700 a month. It's insane! Now try it on a fixed income and being disabled and it's even more fun.
I for one am sick and tired of all these "luxury" and "high end" lah de dah places charging obscene amounts of money that if I had I wouldn't want to spend on rent. And you know the developer is getting some kind of good deal from the City so that rent? there's a whole lot of profit happening.— annoyed
