Changing Skyline:

Take the State Office Building at Broad and Spring Garden Streets. It wasn't put there in 1958 because it was the cheapest spot to house state offices in the city, or because it was the most convenient location, or because parking was easy. That weary corner of North Philadelphia needed a boost, and the state had the ability to provide one. Pennsylvania erected an unusually jaunty International Style slab, with protruding square windows that bebop their way across a sugar-white marble facade.

Today, that corner pulsates with the comings and goings of students, office workers, subway riders, and residents of the evolving Loft District. Maybe the state can't take full credit for the transformation, but that hasn't stopped it from reaping the benefits. Last month, it sold the high-rise to developer Bart Blatstein for a cool $25 million.

So, now that Pennsylvania is again searching for office space to shelter its 900 Philadelphia employees, where would a new government building do the most good?

Unfortunately, that's a question nobody at the state is bothering to ask in 2008.

Even before the Spring Garden Street building went on the market last summer, the Department of General Services put out the word that it was looking for new offices. The guiding criterion, according to DGS spokesman Edward Myslewicz, was that the space should be cheap.

It appears the state has found its bargain rental in the obvious place: Center City. Once leases are signed, the state hopes to divide its employees between two buildings, the former Strawbridge & Clothier store on Market Street and a location around the corner on Arch Street. DGS boasts that the move will save taxpayers "a substantial amount of money over the next 20 years."

Obviously, it's a good thing when the state is frugal with taxpayers' money. But since when did saving money become government's sole objective? A state building isn't just a box to house employees; it's also a potential development tool for restoring and stabilizing neighborhoods.

It's not that the former Strawbridge's is a bad location. The building, where additional floors are being converted to offices, links conveniently into the regional transit system through Market East station. But the addition of those state employees will hardly make a dent in the life and fortunes of Center City.

Moving those 900 workers to North or West Philadelphia, however, would be immediately transformative.

The presence of state offices could single-handedly revive one of Philadelphia's hardscrabble commercial hubs. The state wouldn't even have to build something new. There are already plenty of architectural treasures waiting to be rescued, like the art deco Beury tower at the Broad and Erie triangle, or the colonial revival Provident Mutual Life & Trust building at 46th and Market Streets. They've been waiting decades for a savior.

It's a bit late in the process, but a group of North Philadelphia civic leaders is now hustling to make a case for the Beury Building, a lavishly sculpted 14-story tower that stands like an emaciated crack addict over the crossroads of Broad Street and Erie and Germantown Avenues.

Although the building has been empty almost 20 years and nearly every window is tagged with graffiti, the neighborhood fondly remembers it as the National Bank of North Philadelphia. Taller and grander than anything else in North Philly, it was built in 1926 as a statement of the area's new economic muscle. The tower marked the triangle as the gateway to Germantown.

State offices could be the anchor that makes the Erie Avenue commercial triangle a major gateway again, said Majeedah Rashid, CEO for the Nicetown Community Development Corp. The intersection remains a busy meeting place, with rows of quirky shops, small nightclubs, an impeccable neoclassical Citizens Bank building, and a stylish '60s-era library branch that was just given a sympathetic face-lift.

With support from the area's state legislators, Rashid is hoping to meet soon with Gov. Rendell to discuss the Beury. State Rep. Dwight Evans, who heads the powerful House Appropriations Committee, says he intends to raise the issue personally.

"It makes sense as smart growth," Evans noted, because the Broad Street subway and the Ridge Spur converge at Erie Avenue. It's not far-fetched to imagine the crossroads becoming the commercial district for Temple University's expanding medical complex, three blocks south. The Beury is also for sale, cheap: The listing price was $3.5 million a year ago. Obviously state workers would have to be persuaded to give up their trendy Center City lunch options.

For a building that has been burned and trashed for 20 years, the Beury is recalled with great affection. Web sites gush about its deco crown, colorful tiles, Gothic Revival arches, and Sullivan-inspired spandrels. Designed by William Lee, it's listed on the national and Philadelphia historic registers.

Of course, other neighborhoods can make compelling cases as a location for state offices. West Philadelphia's Provident building by Cram & Ferguson, also built in 1926, has been searching for a stable tenant for years. If Pennsylvania preferred to locate its employees in an edgier, loft-style building, there's the massive triangular Ford Motor Co. factory at Broad and Lehigh, better known by its last big tenant, Botany 500. Built in 1910, it's an industrial version of New York's famous Flatiron building.

The state is prudent to want to keep its real estate costs low. But real financial prudence often involves getting the most for your money. Why just seek cheap space when the same money can make you a catalyst for change?