Comcast+Center

=Comcast Center, The=

The Comcast Center, at 975 feet, is the tallest building in the City of Philadelphia and the tallest building in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It was constructed following and is maintained with strict compliance with the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System. As a result, it has been called the “Greenest” Office Building in Philadelphia, as well as the Tallest “Green” Building in the United States.

It is located at 1701 John F. Kennedy Blvd, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The building celebrated being topped-out on June 18, 2007, and officially opened its doors on June 8, 2008. Its primary tenant is Comcast Corp.

1 History 2 Building Construction 3 The Tallest “Green” Building in the Country 4 Economic Relationship with Philadelphia 5 Cultural Relationship with Philadelphia ||
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One Pennsylvania Plaza
In December 2000, Robert A.M. Stern Architects (New York, NY) and Liberty Property Trust began talks regarding the construction of a new skyscraper in downtown Philadelphia. The name given to the property was One Pennsylvania Plaza. [1] [2]

The Early Designs (869ft & 1030ft)
The earliest potential designs for the building that have been found show two postmodern building designs. These designs were not publicly released until the publishing of //Robert A.M. Stern Buildings and Projects 1999-2003.// The first, either a pentagon or a hexagon, would stand 869ft tall with a full glass facade and a stack-like design. The second, at 1030ft, would stand far taller than the next higher building in the city (One Liberty Place, 945ft). This design featured an angular design that somewhat resembled the still pending Cira Center, another Philadelphia building construction project that wouldn't be completed until 2005. [1]

Kasota Limestone Design
The next design, featuring Kasota Limestone, was released to the public. This design stood 750ft, and included some features that would be integrated into the eventual final design, like the new entrance to Suburban Station. [1]

The Final Glass Design
Liberty Property Trusts changed the design of the Kasota Limestone building, shaping the contours differently and, at first, adopting granite for the trim in between the windows. This is the first revision of the design to closely resemble the eventual building. This revision is set to be 962ft tall, just 13ft shorter than the eventual 975ft height of the final building. [1]

The very last design revision did away with the granite in between the glass window panes, and gave the entire building glass curtain effect walls. It stands at 975ft.

The Comcast Center
Soon after the first revision of the “Final Glass Design” was completed, word began spreading that the building had found its primary tenant, and it was to be Comcast Corp.

In January of 2004, Comcast submitted the last design revision, the full glass curtain that stood at 975ft. The building, which had been called “One Pennsylvania Plaza” was changed to “The Comcast Center”. Comcast agreed to lease 534,000 square feet, which they later expand to 872,000 square feet months later in August 2004. [2]

Keystone Opportunity Zone Status Controversy
In 2004, Liberty Property Trust applied to designate the building as a “Keystone Opportunity Improvement Zone” (KOIZ), a special zoning designation that allows the owner of a business property to be exempt from some taxes. [2] [3]

KOZ (Keystone Opportunity Zone) and KOIZ designations were meant to be for business buildings that are constructed in areas where there had been little-to-no economic expansion or growth, in order to stimulate that growth and encourage people to build on underdeveloped or underutilized property. [4]

A controversy arose with other Center City business owners. They argued that the Center City District was not at a lack for economic activity and growth. They succeeded with their dispute, and the Comcast Center would not be designated as a KOIZ. [3]

Building Construction
Preliminary site work for the builidng started as early as 2001. The building that was in the location on JFK Boulevard was “The Public Defenders’ Building” was demolished in 2001.

In April 2005, Liberty Property Trust broke ground on the site, and excavation began. In February of 2006, the actual construction began, starting with the steel frame construction. The “curtainwall” was laid over top of the steel frame starting in December of 2006.

Opening
The building celebrated being topped-out on June 18, 2007. Employees from Comcast began moving into the building in phases starting in November of 2007. The Comcast Center officially opened its doors on June 8, 2008.

The Tallest “Green” Building in the Country
A large consideration was taken to control and minimize the building’s effect on the environment. It is expected to receive LEED Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, and has been dubbed “The Tallest ‘Green’ Building in the Country”. [5]

Designed for LEED Certification
LEED Certification is a guideline for building design, construction and operation that emphasizes sustainability and minimal environmental impact.

//“LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.”// USGBC.org, “What is LEED?” [6]

Construction Materials
According to Liberty Property, the Comcast Center is constructed with many materials containing high levels of recycled content coming from local manufacturers and sources. They claim that using locally sources materials increases the local economy for recycled products and lowers the amount of fuel that needs to be used to get the materials on-site. [7]

Construction Recycling
Liberty Property Trust also claims that 77% of all waste from the construction of the building went “to salvaging and recycling processors”. [7]

Glass curtain windows
The glass curtain windows “block 60% of the sun’s heat while allowing 70% of the sun’s visibile light to be transmitted to office spaces”, which Liberty Property Trust claims helps lower energy costs for lighting the office spaces and also lowers the cost of air conditioning by reducing the amount of the sun’s heat that penetrates the glass. [7]

Waterless Urinals & Fixtures
One of the most publicized “green” features of the Comcast Center has been its waterless urinals. Liberty Property Trust claims that they will save the building 1.2 million or more gallons of water each year.[7]

During the construction of the Building, the Philadelphia Plumbers Union complained loudly about the waterless urinals, stating that they require less pipe-work, and therefore, provide fewer jobs for plumbers in the city. [8]

A settlement between the union and the developers was reached in May, 2006. The union workers would install the pipes for traditional water urinals, and the waterless urinals would be considered a “five year trial”, that could be reverted to traditional urinals after the trial. Another stipulation of the agreement was that “Liberty Property Trust would not install waterless urinals in any other building in the city during the five-year trial.” [9]

Parking Garage
An underground parking garage was constructed to reduce asphalt on the surface, which absorbs heat. [7] The temperature effect of a city, as related to its surroundings, is called “the heat island effect”, a place in an urban environment where, due to the high level of heat-absorbant materials, the temperature rises several degrees. [10]

Winter Garden
The center’s “Winter Garden” is an indoor garden space that is sustainably optimized. Sensors installed in the 120ft garden room can detect if certain areas of the garden are occupied, and cool only those areas with floor vents to pump in cool air and ceiling vents to exhaust hot air, saving on cooling costs. Additionally, an under-floor water loop cools the entire garden. [7]

Rainwater collection
The Winter Garden’s roof and the Tower’s roof are both equipped with rainwater collection tools, which will reduce the amount of potable water used to irrigate the winter garden by an estimated 60,000 gallons per year. [7]

Economic Relationship with Philadelphia
The Comcast Center has had, and will likely continue to have a signifigant economic impact on the Philadelphia area.

Construction Jobs
During construction, an estimated 5,400 jobs were created in Philadelphia alone as a direct result of the construction. Steel workers, construction workers, plumbers, electricians, and other blue- and white- collar positions were created to construct the property. Worldwide, the impact is even greater, with an estimated 17,000 jobs created for the construction alone. [11]

Continuous Jobs
Currently, the building provides the city of Philadelphia with an estimated 6,500 jobs. [11]

Economic Activity
The construction itself spurred an estimated $2 billion in economic activity overall. Yearly economic activity is expected to be high as well, with expectations from June, 2008 predicting $1.6 billion in expenditures and $600 million per year. [11]

Philadelphia Office Vacancy Rate
As a direct result of creating and filling thousands of more offices in the city, the overall Philadelphia Office Vacancy Rate dropped by 5%, from 15% before Comcast moved in, to about 10%. [11]

New skyline feature
The most clearly obvious cultural feature of the building is its place in the Philadelphia skyline. It is the tallest building in the city, by a margin of 13ft, however, the next tallest building, One Liberty Place, uses an antenna to reach its height of 963ft. The Comcast Center’s height is not reached with an antenna; the building is a full 975ft tall.

LED Wall
Inside the lobby of the Comcast Center is an LED wall that touts itself as the world’s largest 4mm LED screen. The screen is blended into the architecture of the lobby, and the animations on the wall have been designed to occasionally look as if they were the same as the walls that are joined to the screen, effectively camouflaging itself. [12]

The screen’s content is driven by an AI-controlled brain that determines what content is appropriate based on a number of factors, including time-of-day, day-of-week, what sort of events are taking place at the Center, and how often certain content has already been played. [13]

Suburban Station Concourse
As part of the building is built over top of Suburban Station, Center City Philadelphia’s transportation hub, a new concourse was built that provides vendor space and rest areas for commuters. The concourse is directly connected to the Winter Garden.

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