Phila. high-rise ruckus sign of the times

In New York, fights over real estate are common fodder for lawsuits, headlines and cocktail chatter. Waking up to read that Walter Cronkite has sued Donald Trump for blocking his view, as happened a few years ago, simply delivers an extra jolt with your morning coffee.

But Philadelphia is not used to having a wealthy class living high above the rest of us in multimillion-dollar condominiums. We're a city of rowhouses, not penthouses.

Or so we thought until Unisys Corp. proposed hanging its corporate logo in 11-foot-high red letters two thirds of the way up the Two Liberty Place building, where buyers are snapping up new multimillion-dollar condominiums, and the penthouse is for sale for $16 million.

"This is a Philadelphia coming-of-age story. It's welcome to the grown-up world of real estate," said Steven Gaines, author of The Sky's the Limit: Passion and Property in Manhattan. "Very rich men are probably willing to share their wives, but not their views."

In the Unisys case, residents aren't fighting for their views, exactly. The sign would hang on the 38th and 39th floors, which are unoccupied. Instead, the condo owners, who include former mayoral candidate Tom Knox and Bon Jovi bandmate Richie Sambora, are saying that a corporate logo doesn't belong on a classy building. In other words, they are arguing that the landed gentry should not have to become the branded gentry.

In letters to Philadelphia's Zoning Board, many of them said they do not want to live in a structure that, if the sign is allowed, will become known as the Unisys building.

And when people with money don't want something, their weapon of choice is cold, hard cash. The Falcone Group, the building's developer, has hired, Richard Rubenstein, president of Rubenstein Public Relations, Inc., a New York public relations firm that also has represented Donald Trump and Alex Rodriguez.

"When choosing The Residences at Two Liberty Place, I was attracted by the opportunity to own something unique and luxurious in Philadelphia," Sambora wrote in his letter.

Knox, in his letter, said he was so taken with the building that he decided to buy three condominiums and turn them into one with 5,550 square feet of indoor space and 2,100 square feet of balcony on the 46th floor.

Carl Primavera, a lawyer and veteran of many zoning battles who is not involved with this one, said he is not surprised by the storm the sign has caused.

"Signs are like a Rorschach test," he said. "Some people see the Unisys sign and see growth and jobs. Other people see corporate control."