October 19: $1B for Amazon | PA budget | Roadmap to Smarter City

Amazon chronicles, continued: the Chamber of Commerce’s Rob Wonderling says Pennsylvania’s ready to offer Amazon more than $1 billion in tax incentives, Jacob Adelman reports. To see if Philly can deliver, Jim Saksa breaks down the pros and cons of doing business in the region. 

Over in Harrisburg, the House narrowly passed a portion of a budget plan Tuesday, WITF’s Katie Meyer reports. Version 2.0 looks like the previous one…but “borrows more money and doesn’t include significant recurring revenue, from taxes or otherwise.” Meanwhile, some state lawmakers are trying to get $20 billion in federal restitution.

The Office of Innovation and Technology’s Ellen Hwang and Charles Brennan discuss Philly’s Smart City roadmap with Curbed Philly. Checkpoints include digital inclusion, solving Philly’s parking problem, and a new open property data app called Atlas.

Hidden City Philadelphia peeks underneath the “circa-1970s metal cladding and putty-colored paint” of The Consortium at 40th and Ludlow Streets, revealing one of Frank Furness’s earliest commissions. Hidden City tours the former child and adolescent mental health services building with Ventures’ Tom Lussenhop and discuss preservation, real estate economics, and new construction in West Philadelphia. 

Fishtown’s Alexander Adaire School now has a new, safer play area and rain garden, CBS reports. The project, from design to completion, took four years.