Stamper Square Might Be The Only Thing To Save Society Hill From Itself
Real talk: As we speak, a whole section of town is withering on the vine. And sure, it doesn’t suffer from the problems of urban blight and crime that plagues other, less-well off neighborhoods, but the fact is, Society Hill has been suffering from a NIMBY brain cloud for longer than some of you have been alive. And while this has been going on, the neighborhood — once a study in urban renewal done right, thank you very much, Ed Bacon — has remained almost entirely static as its population has grown older and crankier. Meanwhile, everything around it — Old City, South Street, the Riverfront, Wash West — has changed fairly dramatically, some for better, others definitely for worse. And it’s hard to imagine that Society Hill’s palpable, overwhelming desire to build a wall between itself and South Street in particular hasn’t contributed to the decline of both. But there’s reason for hope. See, the Stampers Square project just got approved. Stampers Square, in case you haven’t been paying attention, will be going up in the Will Smith Hole aka what used to be, in a more vibrant Society Hill time, NewMarket. According to H2L2, the project’s architects, Stamper Square is:
Located in the Society Hill section of Philadelphia, Stamper Square is a mix-use building of a boutique luxury hotel of 150 rooms, 80 luxury condominiums and retail space. The building will promote sidewalk activity through its first floor functions and enliven this part of Head House Square. The sidewalk experience on Front & Second streets will be enhanced with new landscaping, and parking and service entrances will be kept minimum. Parking will be completely underground.
As you can imagine, this nearly gave many in the Hill a major coronary, but faced with this versus having a large hole in the ground for another decade, The Philadelphia Historical Commission ultimately said yes. And good on them. Back in the day, NewMarket provided a much-needed link between Society Hill and South Street, and one could argue the area has never been the same since NewMarket closed. Will this fix South Street’s myriad woes? Will it snap Society Hill out of its slumber? Probably neither. Only a concerned group of small businesspeople, politicians and neighbors could bring South Street back from the dead now — and eventually, we suspect, they’ll have to — and Society Hill will also eventually have to shed its cocoon. But it’s a start.
