Re: [UC] Campus Inn

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 05:42:52 -0800

"there are so many alternative locations for this hotel in our area, that ANY feature of this hotel that you see in the 40th and Pine location is available elsewhere." 

Absolutely.  And for those who believe this is intended for hospital extended stays, they should consider the Penn tower hotel.  Penn had  a hotel across from Chop and HUP!   And directly west from the Penn tower hotel is the VA hospital.  There simply was no better location for hospital families, but Penn converted it!  The altruistic claims, about convenience for hospital families, are obviously false after we remember this Penn tower hotel.  Was it lack of hotel guests or just an uncaring profit maximizing decision?  Who knows.

(Guy, Mr. West's post is a classic appeal to the "shock doctrine"  which has been used so effectively to concentrate power by frightening our society.  Of course, the job loss scare is complete nonsense, as you correctly point out.  Thanks) 

Real Problem:   Building Campus Inn at the 40th and Pine location, Penn and the developers need to completely destroy the standards of historic preservation and destroy the existing major zoning rules for a residential neighborhood.  Since these developers refuse to engage the community honestly, we must  assiduously and sagaciously analyze their motivitations, as so many of our neighbors have done.  (Mayor Nutter's vesting of power in an unaccountable PCPC indicates to me that all corporate giants will soon be exused from any and all rules for little businesses.  Campus Inn seems to be a precedent for smashing rules across West Philly)

Reality:   The university is "landbanking" the parcel at 40th and Pine so that it owns the lot forever.  Using the principal of economic rent seeking, the university wishes to maximize profit on the parcel without effort for an extended period of time.  Because "conflicts of interest" have become the major guiding principal at modern corporate universities, the insiders wish to also maximize the profits of cronies.  Tom and Campus apartments are partners with penn real estate on UCD, BID, rule of city gvernment, etc.  That is why the "17 or 18 proposals" which went before Esaul Sanchez, (before development of the site was known pulicly) never had a chance of turning the parcel into a reasonable development project.  (As someone with deep ties to the university when it was a center for research and education; I am offended at the way the power brokers rejected the 17 or 18 proposals to maximize the profits of real estate cronies)

Guy, I believe you pointed out in testimony that while Penn has been unofficially claiming a financial hardship during all their presentations, they have refused to open the parcel for bids.  You are absolutely right to challenge this failure and the hardship claims.  Also, they have to date refused to transparently show  the "17 or 18 proposals" they received internally, so that we could analyze their claims that nothing else can possibly develop that site within or close to existing rules.

 Penn could be building an additional hotel on the postal lands, and either a bed and breakfast or academic department couuld be rehabbing 40th and Pine right now! (the two projects employing a larger number of workers).

Thanks for shedding light on this latest appeal to economic fear using the shock doctrine!

Glenn 



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
Sent: Dec 22, 2008 3:47 AM
To: [email protected], [email protected]
Subject: Re: [UC] Campus Inn

Tony,

Thanks for clearing up some of the confusion around the question posed by SH.

I have one question about the facts in your post:  your last paragraph contains the core mis-conception about this Hotel-  that if this project is not built at 40th and Pine that it will never get built.  In addition, the mis-conception is that there will be jobs lost and families will have no where to stay while their loved ones are at extended stays in area hospitals.  (In fact there is a three story, extended stay hotel being built on 39th and Spruce right now!)

Tony, there are so many alternative locations for this hotel in our area, that ANY feature of this hotel that you see in the 40th and Pine location is available elsewhere.  For example, are you fascinated by the "located near public transportation" claim that the 40th and Pine Hotel claims?  There is probably no location in all of UC that is not equally located near public transportation.  How about locating on any of the 30 acres that Penn just bought near 30th St Station?

If there is such a market need for the hotel then it can be built virtually anywhere in UC and the market forces for occupancy will be the same.

I want to be clear that I am opposed to the location of the hotel at this particular site.  In addition, I am in favor the the erection of an extended stay hotel somewhere more appropriate in UC.

I believe that the issues surrounding whether it should be built on this 40th and Pine site seem to me to be:  the opposition does not want the intrusion of a large commercial building into a residential three story neighborhood in a case where there are alternatives.  The developers arguments are largely economic ones (need for the hotel rooms, jobs at the hotel, completion of the 40th St commercial corridor).

I hear the same economic argument in your post and I wanted to point out that none of the economic problems that you mention (loss of jobs and lack of hotel rooms) will occur if the hotel is built elsewhere.

Guy



-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony West <[email protected]>
To: UnivCity listserv <[email protected]>
Sent: Sun, 21 Dec 2008 7:04 pm
Subject: Re: [UC] Campus Inn

No, it's not going to do that, SH. "The development group" isn't really a single business of any kind, either public or private, so there is no "it" to go into bankruptcy. 
 
"Its" partners are the University of Pennsylvania, which is nowhere near bankruptcy, and the Hilton chain (there've been no large-scale collapses in the hospitality industry yet, although these are certainly tough times for restaurants and probably for hotels as well). Perhaps there are other real-estate operators with tiny stakes. 
 
Unlikely the Campus Inn matters enough to any of its participants to thrust them into insolvency. Failure of the project might mean a few people who are working on its plans may be cut by their employers or have their careers dampened. 
 
Of more importance to the rest of society, it would cause several major business contracts not to be written and hundreds of people not to get new jobs, precisely as we slide into a global recession. These are the kinds of economic issues at stake for policy-makers in this controversy. 
 
-- Tony West 
 
> Hi, 
> 
> Could someone spell this out for me? 
> 
> Does this mean the campus inn development group is going to file for 
> bankruptcy? 
> 
> - SH 
> 
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