Media hub’s refresh at Market East | visiting Philadelphia Traction Company | AVI uncertainties cool real estate market | AVI assessments delayed | Robert Coyle redux? | outdoor feeding ban blocked
Inga Saffron unsentimentally ruminates on the Inquirer/Daily News/philly.com move from North Broad Street to the hustle of East Market Street. She sees the move as an opportunity to refresh the connections and interactions between the media outlets and the city beyond. “Making our home in a newspaper building froze us psychologically in history, and kept us from interacting physically in the city. The future for all media is an interactive one. At the Strawbridge building, the linkages are visible and real; the offices are connected directly into the Gallery shopping mall, all the regional transit lines and, most importantly, onto a street filled with people.”
Flying Kite visited Philadelphia Traction Company, a collaborative arts studio started by PAFA grads in an old West Philly trolley manufacturing building at 41st and Haverford with 40-foot ceilings. “On any given day, one can find large-scale sculpture, traditional casting process, metal shop tools, and artisanal HVAC construction.”
Uncertainties about the city’s property tax reassessment threw cold water on the city’s real estate market, which has been steadily improving, the Inquirer reports. Real estate agents say buyers are shying away from purchasing because they have no idea what their taxes will be two years from now.
The Inquirer reports that Actual Value Initiative assessments will not be mailed out in September, but on February 15, 2013. That would mean that the first tax bills under the new system would come due in 2014. Homestead rebate applications are due by November 15, 2012.
Dozens of houses previously owned by notorious slumlord Robert N. Coyle, Sr. are being scooped up by a new landlord, Manilal Mathai, who has negotiated profitable deals with the Coyle and his son. City Paper’s Isaiah Thompson traces the new twists in this slumlord tale.
In a court-ordered auction Thursday several prospective owners put in bids for the Prince Music Theater, which has been going through bankruptcy reorganization, reports the Inquirer. Among the would-be owners: the Union League, the Performing Arts Charter School, and a consortium of five buyers with ties to the American Music Theater Festival, which operates the Prince.
City Hall is no better a place to feed homeless people than a public park or the Parkway according to U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn, Jr., who placed an injunction blocking the city’s outdoor feeding ban for the next year. The Inquirer reports that Judge Yhon said, “It seems to me that . . . the parks provide more dignity than the concrete apron outside City Hall.” A formal ruling is forthcoming.
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