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Jill Porter: I'm willing to trust the Planning Commission on this

IT'S THRILLING. Or reckless. It will rivet international attention and help Philadelphia emerge as a world-class city. Or it will consign nearby residents to a sunless, congested hell, and overpower a charming low-rise neighborhood.

IT'S THRILLING. Or reckless.

It will rivet international attention and help Philadelphia emerge as a world-class city. Or it will consign nearby residents to a sunless, congested hell, and overpower a charming low-rise neighborhood.

It will make us more like Manhattan. Yay!

Or it will make us more like Manhattan. Boo!

So it went yesterday, as a proposed Center City skyscraper - the city's tallest - was debated before the City Planning Commission. The rhetoric was fittingly extreme for the 1,500-foot American Commerce Center, at 18th and Arch streets, which would be one of the tallest buildings in the world.

"Positively unique," "precedential," "world-class," said project attorney Peter Kelsen.

"Fool's gold," "ridiculous," "atrocity," said state Sen. Vince Fumo, who announced that Gov. Rendell would help him smother the proposal by denying developers tax breaks and state financial aid.

But the most significant words spoken at yesterday's hearing were uttered by an attorney representing residents of the nearby Kennedy House - who packed the room and overflowed into an adjacent one to express their displeasure.

"I trust you," Joseph Beller told Planning Commission members.

Wow.

It is, indeed, a huge relief that a project of this magnitude - and controversy - is being considered by a newly empowered Planning Commission under a new administration.

Beller's vote of confidence reflects Mayor Nutter's promise that city development will no longer proceed on political pull, but on merit; that buildings will no longer be approved in piecemeal, random fashion, but will be part of a master plan.

Imagine what an obscene feast this project would have been for political parasites like Milton Street and Ron White, who symbolized the pay-to-play culture that plagued the previous administration. Those days, we're told, are gone.

This project will no doubt confirm or refute that promise.

Certainly, it's a beguiling proposal. The ambitious use will include a hotel, office space, and retail, with plazas and gardens, on a site that has been vacant for 30 years and used as a parking lot. The design is novel. The height is seductive.

And the neighborhood opposition is to be expected, said architect Eugene Kohn.

"I don't know of any building that doesn't cause negative reaction," he told the commission.

Parisians, he noted, opposed construction of the Eiffel Tower in 1898. But it became "the image and inspiration " of the city, Kohn said, suggesting similar benefits to Philadelphia for the American Commerce Center.

After all, who ever heard of Kuala Lumpur before it built the world's tallest building to symbolize its - successful - effort to become "one of the powerhouses of Asia," Kohn said.

Still, while Philadelphia's rejection of anything groundbreaking and bold can be tiresome, the neighbors had reasonable objections.

The dense development with a footprint that will cover the half-block site will ruin the character of the low-rise neighborhood, they said, as it inevitably invites similar skyscrapers.

"Why must our neighborhood submit to a future of skyscraper canyons when we could just as easily be the next SOHO or great urban village in America?" said Fran Pollock, who spoke for Kennedy House residents.

Beller, their attorney, said their objection wasn't a knee-jerk NIMBY reaction.

The proposed building is absolutely beautiful, he said, but it belongs elsewhere.

"It just doesn't fit," he said.

"I can't fit my size-10 foot into a size-8 shoe. It may be pretty, but it will make me and everyone around me miserable," Beller said.

Yesterday's hearing was informational and no decision on the project was made. And - like Beller - I trust the Planning Commission to do the right thing. No matter what that turns out to be. *

E-mail porterj@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5850. For recent columns:

http://go.philly.com/porter