Since last year, we’ve been morbidly fascinated with CREI, the Center City real estate developers who’ve turned flashy design, a seemingly endless ad budget and almost no actual finished buildings into a strange kind of selling point. In Northern Liberties, for instance, residents have been inundated with so much propaganda surrounding two projects, Northern Life and American Loft (note: CREI buildings are titled as though they were novels or albums, which apparently annoys certain personality types to no end), that it was almost easy to forget that sometime last summer, CREI ‚Äî and many of their plans ‚Äî went missing. With surprisingly little fanfare, their sales office at Second and Fairmount closed up, and rumors began to abound of calls not returned and plans radically changed. A little over a month ago, a concerned potential buyer piped up on the NorthernLiberties.org message board, more or less saying the same. This week, on the same board and the same thread, the issue gets revived ‚Äî seemingly beginning CREI’s second act. According to a story published in the Philadelphia Business Journal last week (the story seems to be MIA from the PBJ site, but it is copied in whole on the thread below), CREI came out of the gate last year with bold plans for no less than eight luxury, ultra-modern condos around the Center City area. Now, blaming rising construction costs ‚Äî which CREI estimates to be over 60% higher than originally expected ‚Äî the developers are re-entering the fold, with just three buildings going up and the Northern Life building being retooled and redesigned altogether. So has CREI just found itself on the shit end of the Philly real estate bubble? Before you answer, also consider this: In the same thread, it’s revealed that the Northern Liberties Neighborhood Association is stonewalling the original plans for both Northern Life and a proposed plan for a building on Orianna Street, citing concerns about the height of the building. (Another note: The NLNA believes Northern Liberties is Society Hill North and loves pulling shit like, “Oh, you can’t be higher than the historic Mifflin School” which is, we kid you not, about three stories high.) So what becomes of the brokenhearted? CREI, for their part, have been promising that 9/2006 will bring the big reveal for their new, revamped plans ‚Äî and can we just say that we love how these guys market their buildings like Jay-Z records? ‚Äî but so far, no remix, no edit, no mixtape. CREI, are you faking the funk? For your own sake, we hope not.
NorthernLiberties.org: Give Me My Money Back, Give Me Money Back, You Bitch
IngaSaffron: Yo, But That Shit Is Nice, Yo
YouTube: American Loft Invented The Remix

This entry was posted on Friday, September 15th, 2006 at 12:16 pm.