Bob Ford: Memories won't stand in way of progress

The Spectrum was a wonderful building in which to see a game or a concert - except on the off chance you needed to use the bathroom at some point. The intimacy of the place lost some of its charm then, particularly to the women who could not press the sinks into emergency service and instead stood shifting from one foot to the other in those long lines that snaked along the narrow concourse.

You can get as sentimental about the Spectrum as you'd like, and this is the week for that, but don't get more carried away than its owners. The Comcast-Spectacor folks are saying the expected things, and meaning them, but they're not going to let memories stand in the way of a potential development bonanza.

For its time, the Spectrum got the job done. At the age of 41, ancient by arena standards, it hosted the official announcement yesterday that - this time next year - there will be only rubble in its place.

As a comparison, the oldest operating NBA arena that has never had a major renovation project is the Nets' arena in the Meadowlands, which was opened in 1981. Even though the Sixers and Flyers have been out of the Spectrum since 1996, the place has kept operating and aging.

"There's nothing visible that's deteriorated from the fans' perspective, but the infrastructure would need money: plumbing, electrical and the like," company chief operating officer Peter Luukko said yesterday between memory-lane tours for the local television stations.

The reasons to keep the Spectrum open have pretty much disappeared, and it would be expensive to keep it going, so the time is right, from Comcast-Spectacor's perspective, to knock it down and make way for the commercial complex being designed by The Cordish Co. in Baltimore.

Cordish's plans for Philly Live! are still in the drawing stages, and there is no firm decision yet about whether a hotel will anchor one side of it.

There will be stores and restaurants and an enclosed mall and, if the artist's renderings are correct, a "Gateway Block" that lures customers into the complex from the corner of Pattison Avenue and South 11th Street. In other words, the open end of the funnel will be aimed at fans leaving Phillies and Eagles games. Pretty nifty, huh?

Satisfying America's insatiable quest for more Hard Rock Cafe outlets, packaging them in all-encompassing mall-like projects that happily fulfill all of the customers' entertainment, shopping and nourishment needs - if their needs are like everyone else's - is Cordish's specialty.

Philadelphia, when Philly Live! comes online late in 2010, will become a virtual franchise city, joining Indiana Live!, Power Plant Live!, Woodbine Live!, Daytona Live!, Paradise Live!, Fourth Street Live! and a bunch of others.

It will be very nice, probably, and it will have new plumbing, and somewhere they will remember to put a plaque that says something about the Sixers, Flyers and Billy Joel.

The statues of Kate Smith, Julius Erving and Gary Dornhoefer will have to be moved, though. "We'll find somewhere appropriate," Luukko said.

The only collateral damage is suffered by the Phantoms, but Luukko said they lose money anyway, and lots of cities would love to have an AHL team. The Kixx don't technically exist now - at least if you consider the league's shutting down to be a problem - so it's hard to displace them.

Ed Snider, the company chairman, was the one who gave the go-ahead for yesterday's announcement.

He and his partner Jerry Wolman built the Spectrum, and then the two men split into separate business entities, with Snider getting the Flyers and Wolman the building.

There are differing accounts about what happened next, but the Spectrum went broke, and Snider took over its operation, too.

He is sentimental about the place, but only to a point.

"It became inevitable," Snider said of the demolition. "It's something we've been reluctant to do, but at this point, the building has seen its best days. We'll always have the memories."

True enough. Knocking down the Vet didn't diminish the great seasons there for the Phillies and Eagles.

Losing the Spectrum won't change what happened there, either, just as no one seemed to mind when Convention Hall came down, taking the space that contained Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell along with it.

We move on. We change. We go to the new places. We walk past the parking lots where the old places used to be. We pause. We remember. And then we get a burger at the Hard Rock. What's so bad?