April 30–Developer Bart Blatstein is taking another crack at turning the former Philadelphia Newspapers building into a hotel, with a nearly $40 million development proposal.
In an application that surfaced this week for $5 million in state money toward the project, Blatstein’s Tower Investments proposes transforming the North Broad Street building — for decades the home of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News — into a 125-room boutique hotel with a restaurant and meeting space.
The hotel, projected to cost $36.4 million to develop, would aim to draw visitors northward from the nearby Pennsylvania Convention Center to a part of Center City that has lagged other more rapidly revitalizing areas, according to Blatstein’s application for a grant from the state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program.
“This project could be the keystone to spur one of the most important redevelopment opportunities for the city and state at the present time,” the developers wrote in the document obtained this week by a reporter.
A project schedule included in the application sets the completion of its design phase this month, with construction beginning August 2016.
This Center City stretch along North Broad street has only seen a smattering of redevelopment, such as the ongoing conversion of the Thaddeus Stevens School building into residential lofts and the planned transformation of the derelict Divine Loraine Hotel into apartments.
Despite the Hahnemann University Hospital complex and the convention center, the area suffers from a lack of around-the-clock street activity, Center City District President Paul Levy said.
“Anything that adds people, life, restaurants, would be extremely good for North Broad Street,” he said.
The proposal would salvage some of the work Blatstein had done toward developing his proposed Provence Entertainment Complex, a casino with 3,300 slot machines and 150 table games he had intended for the 1925 Art Deco former Inquirer tower.
That plan began unraveling in November, when the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board instead awarded the city’s remaining casino license to a development team building a resort in the stadium district at the southern end of the city.
When dropping an appeal to the gaming board’s decision, Blatstein hinted he may sell the North Broad Street property, saying he had encountered “significant interest” from potential buyers.
A reporter’s numerous phone messages left with Blatstein seeking details of his latest plans for the property, which he bought in October 2011 for $22.7 million, were not returned.
Blatstein’s application for the state grant would have been received before a February 2015 deadline, said Jeffrey Sheridan, a spokesman for Gov. Tom Wolf. The state’s decision on the grant request is not expected before July, he said.
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