Comcast’s New Vision Will Redefine Downtown
A brief six years after Comcast staked a claim on the city’s tallest building, it has announced plans for something even bigger. A glittering glass tower will dominate the downtown Philly skyline, boasting almost sixty stories and over a million square feet of mixed-use space – an ultra-modern “vertical urban campus” that city leaders are hoping will drag the city out of its economic and job-related torpor and into the ranks of national innovators like Silicon Valley.
The new center will rank among the top ten tallest buildings in the US, and dwarf the current Comcast Center, which will remain next door. The city and state have pledged a cool $40 mil towards the project, which is expected to carry a whopping final price tag of $1.2 billion. Comcast has pledged fifteen hundred new local jobs within the tower, and that’s in addition to what’ll come in with the large amount of space the company is renting to the city.
A gorgeous projection of what Downtown Philly will look like when the glass Comcast Center is added to the Skyline.
The building (to be named the Comcast Innovation and Technology Center), as planned, will be gorgeous.
The Four Seasons will relocate from Logan Square to the top floors, and a proposed restaurant would offer 360-degree views of the city through floor-to-ceiling glass panes. The proud architect, Norman Foster, designed the Center to meet or exceed every current standard for environmentally-friendly construction. Indeed, the building will be made entirely of glass – a feat accomplished by constructing the vertical core along one side, instead of in the middle as is the case with traditional skyscrapers. The end result will be an edifice that epitomizes everything new and fresh… a building that’s “alive.”
The Center will be so much more than a pretty face, though. Within its numerous loft-like think centers, Comcast hopes to employ some of the country’s leading talent in the field of telecommunications: engineers and designers chief among those. With unconventional, wide-open work spaces, these smartypants will work in unity to produce technical advances far beyond anything that currently exists. Comcast is aiming for a future in which customers can access any service from any device they wish: the ultimate in Digital Age accessibility. The great glass monolith on Arch Street will shine a beacon into that future, while also heralding a new age of sophistication for Philadelphia as well.
Additional photos of the planned project:
Initial designs for the glittering glass tower that will dominate the downtown Philly skyline.
Detailed rendering of the new Comcast Building. Click this image to examine it in detail!
A gorgeous night-time skyline to rival other big cities when the Comcast Innovation and Technology Center is finished.
It’ll be years before it’s finished, but already it seems many Philly residents are behind this new skyscraper. What do you think of the new addition?
(All photos owned by Comcast Center and its affiliates).
