Fwd: [UC] Historic Commission helps quash restaurant at Water Works on the ri...

[BruceWMcC]

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In a message dated 3/11/2004 7:10:02 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: For those who think that there'd be a Restaurant School at St Mark's and Walnut if the Historical Commission had its say about the original building. We'd probably still have an abandoned house there. Historically correct, but abandoned.   From today's Inquirer: Commission to try again for Water Works eatery By Stephan Salisbury Inquirer Staff Writer [. . . .] A previous plan for a restaurant called for construction of a glass addition to the Engine House. That idea, proposed by the operators of Catelli's Restaurant of Voorhees, was sharply criticized by preservationists and some members of the park commission and the Philadelphia Historical Commission. Last summer, the park commission decided to seek a new batch of ideas. Catelli's was invited to express its continued interest. Yesterday, Linda Catelli Rosanio, chief executive of the Star Marketing Group, which operates Catelli's in New Jersey, said the group was "currently looking at opportunities outside of the Water Works." She did not completely reject another try at the Water Works site but noted that after three years, her efforts had yielded little more than frustration and food for thought. Maybe the preservationists would prefer an empty building without changes to a changed building with a working restaurant, but you omit the fact that the possibility of a working restaurant in an unchanged building has not been tried yet.  The Inquirer article overlooks this fact too.   The Park Commission originally took proposals for a restaurant in the existing building.  After winning the bid on this basis, the restaurateur said, oh, we can't make this profitable without building a glass addition to the building.  The other bidders said, hey, our bids would have been better if we could have counted on the extra profit of more seating.  It sounded like an unfair premeditated plan to me and I think the Commission should have dumped the original bidder for such behavior instead of playing around with it for three years.  The "food for thought" should be "don't try to play the system," which admittedly is an unusual idea in Philadelphia.   Maybe the issue at the Waterworks eventually will be preservation versus economic reality.  To date, however, it has just been the lack of an open and fair bidding process.  I still hope to see a restaurant in the existing building.  The Waterworks site is beautiful and accessible now from the parking area behind the Art Museum; enter next to Lloyd Hall on Kelly Drive.   Bruce McCullough

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