Comcast Center (office building)

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Information
Comcast Center
Under construction, February 2007
Location	1701 JFK Blvd, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Status	Under Construction
Groundbreaking	January 2005
Est. Completion	Fall 2007
Use	office
Height
Roof	975 ft
Technical Details
Floor count	57
Floor area	1,238,000 ft²
Elevator count	35
Cost	$540 million
Companies
Architect	Robert A. M. Stern Architects
Structural Engineer	Thornton Tomasetti, Inc.
Services Engineer	Thornton Tomasetti, Inc.
Contractor	L. F. Driscoll Company
Developer	Liberty Property Trust
Owner	Liberty/Commerz 1701 JFK Boulevard L.P.

For the arena in College Park, Maryland, see Comcast Center (arena).

Comcast Center is a skyscraper currently under construction in the Center City section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is scheduled to be completed in fall 2007. Upon completion, it will become the tallest building in Philadelphia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It will also be the tallest structure in the northern United States between New York City and Chicago, stripping away that title from the Key Tower in Cleveland, Ohio.

1 Design and Construction
2 Ownership
3 See also
4 External links
5 References

[edit] Design and Construction

Designed by Robert A. M. Stern Architects, LLP, it will rise to a height of 975 feet (297 m), Comcast Center will have 57 floors, 56 rentable with 1,248,000 square feet of office space and about 23,000 square feet of retail facilities. As of 2005, over 70% of the office space has been reserved. In 2006, the building was valued at $523 million.^[1]

Comcast Center is between Arch Street, 17th Street, and John F. Kennedy Boulevard. While its official address will be 1701 JFK Boulevard, the tower itself will sit towards the Arch Street side.

Part of the public space includes a new entrance to the SEPTA's Suburban Station with a 120-foot high glass-enclosed winter garden. Other features include:

multiple three-story stacked atria rising on the south face of the building
½ acre landscaped public park
expansion of Suburban Station's underground retail concourse
500-seat concourse level dining court
120 private space underground parking garage
new entrance lobby addition to historic Arch Street Presbyterian Church
sustainable building design with the goal of achieving a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating from the U.S. Green Building Council
waterless urinals

Southeast elevation of Comcast Center

The project had originally been named One Pennsylvania Plaza, however, when Philadelphia-based Comcast Corporation agreed to a significant presence in the tower — taking 873,000 square feet on 39 floors in a 15 1/2-year lease — the entire project was named after Comcast.

On February 11, 2007 two men parachuted off the tower and onto the streets below.^[2]

[edit] Ownership

The building was begun by Liberty Property Trust of Malvern, Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania state government has contributed $30 million for the building's public spaces. In 2006, Liberty Property Trust sold 80% of their interest in the building to CommerzLeasing & Immobilien AG, a German company and subsidiary of Commerzbank AG. Liberty will continue to operate the Comcast Center as a joint venture with Commerzbank. The 80%-Part of the CommerzLeasing & Immobilien AG will merge into a closed end fund, sold in Germany by another daughter of the Commerzbank, the Commerz Fonds Beteiligungen, CFB.