Considering Rodeph Shalom’s addition | spray park for Shissler Rec | King of Jeans signage | Assumption sold for $1.12m | Bike fun fading

KieranTimberlake’s design for an addition to the historic Rodeph Shalom building on North Broad leaves Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron unimpressed. She writes, “The designers, unfortunately, have concentrated so much energy on solving the knotty functional and historic problems that they seem to have forgotten about making memorable architecture.” It’s not KieranTimberlake’s sleek modernism, but the massing and proportions that disappoint. While the original building is “assertive” the addition is “low and meek, burrowing into the ground. It seems to shrink away from the old synagogue as if the two had no familial relation.” The Historical Commission has approved the addition.

A new spray park is coming to Shissler Rec Center in Fishtown, City Paper reports. Neighbors recently saw near-final designs for the water park, one of many projects in the collaborative Big Green Block effort by New Kensington CDC, Mural Arts, the Water Department, and Parks and Rec. The spray park will be installed this fall.

Whither the King of Jeans? NewsWorks wonders: What should happen the East Passyunk’s awful/fabulous King of Jeans sign? The building has been on the market for some time and now developer Max Glass envisions a residential reuse for the oddly shaped building. Is it so bad it’s good? So iconic and kitschy that it’s worth saving?

The Business Journal reveals the selling price for Church of the Assumption: $1.12 million. Developer John Wei owns the church complex as MJ Central Investment LP.

The Philadelphia Tweed Ride will disappear if no one steps in to organize it, and the Bicycle Coalition’s Bike-In Movies didn’t happen this year. With the fading bike-focused fun, the Philadelphia Bicycle Journal wonders: “Where have all the good times gone?”

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