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Press Release Of The Week: Two Liberty Place Revealed As The Arthur Kade Of Buildings

2lib
Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful. Hate me because I’m the exact kind of asshole
who’d pay $2M for an apartment with no opening windows.

One of the only really fun things about Great Depression 2.0 — besides the chance to wear barrels, of course — is that it has people talking (both intelligently and non-intelligently) about issues of class in America. In Philadelphia, the class wars have always been raw and rugged, and these days are certainly no exception. For if we can get so very upset about the opening of an ill-timed new bottle service club off Rittenhouse Square, what are we to make of the fact that while the City of Philadelphia is raising property taxes all over, property tax abatements continue unfettered for the wealthy set currently moving into The Residences At Two Liberty Place, a building so obnoxious it should have a popped collar and Kanye shades? (The above image is Two Liberty’s splash page.) The Philly chapter of ACORN has a few questions to raise about Two Liberty’s ongoing free pass, and they’re planning on showing up at Two Liberty tomorrow to check out those opulent places, maybe nosh on a little cru d’ete, and then ask (very politely of course) what the fuck is up with that tax abatement thing, while the lowlier classes in Philly are about to be zapped with higher tax bills. Oh, and you’re invited! The press release, utterly seething with right-on, who-the-hell-are-you-people sentiments, is reprinted in full after the jump.

April Fools! : How Can the City Raise Property Taxes and Continue Property Tax Abatements at Two Liberty?
Record shattering condo sales come with multiple powder rooms, 2,000+ sq. feet of balcony space, all without the hassle of paying property taxes for 10 years.

What: Open House, Learn how you too can avoid the property tax hike!
Where: The Residences at Two Liberty Place, 50 S. 16th Street
When: 12 Noon, April 1st
Contact: Ian Phillips 315-406-4386, Neil Herrmann 201-280-1060

Please join ACORN and others at an impromptu tour of The Residences at Two Liberty Place, a truly mixed-income community of bankers, media moguls and affordable residences for professional athletes and rock stars.

“Give me liberty, and a lifestyle without compromise”
– motto, Residences at Two Liberty Place.

If you too don’t want to compromise, or sacrifice a cent of your inherited money to the tax man, or perhaps you simply want to live in a massive tower, thereby giving yourself a visual representation of how much wealthier you truly are than the uncouth masses of Port Richmond, Olney, and Southwest Philadelphia (panoramic views!); either way The Residences at Two Liberty Place are for you.

As you may have heard from the person you pay to read the newspaper to you, Mayor Nutter has unveiled a budget which keeps all essential services but calls for a substantial, temporary property tax increase for two years. A 19% increase to your property taxes when your home is worth $7.8 million might mean giving up that holiday in Prague, or perhaps you will even have to lease a lowly Jaguar and give up your Bentley and/or Batmobile.

I know what you are thinking, “I better call my lawyer and appeal my assessment again.” But wait! Now you don’t have to! Under the City’s tax abatement program you don’t need to pay a cent in property taxes for 10 years, skipping the two year tax increase altogether; why should you have to pay to support libraries and health centers that you don’t use or schools that your heirs do not attend?

Each residence is appointed with the finest Miele and Sub-Zero appliances, Snaidero cabinetry . . . and of course, marble, tile, granite countertops and exotic hardwood flooring. To complement your personal concierge service, each home includes a Virtual concierge which allows you to . . . call the valet for your car, book reservations, or reserve a spa treatment for your pet.” – www.twoliberty.com

If you have a small dog that lives primarily in one of your handbags which costs more than the average North Philly rowhome, then Two Liberty is for you. If your hate for the proposed Unisys sign is rivaled only by your contempt for paying your share of taxes, then we’ve got a Jacuzzi bathtub filled with dollar bills waiting for you (“luxury” denomination only).

While welfare for the wealthy and bailouts for bonuses may have gone out of style, abatements for the affluent are the hottest trend in no restraint living for Spring ’09. Join us on this exclusive tour on April 1st at Noon at The Residences at Two Liberty.
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 10:46 am.

  • Brendangling

    The argument for allowing zoning changes, approving new construction permits, etc is that the new housing stock will increase the tax base. How many people who buy these homes will live in them beyond 10 years, if they occupy them at all? They save on property tax then if the market is right, make a profit on the sale of the home.

    I think any tax abatements should be dedicated to new or existing construction meeting LEED Gold or Platinum certification standards. There would be real benefits to the city in terms of stormwater control (infrastructure!), heat island effect reduction, and air quality. This would also encourage rehabilitating old structures. Perhaps a five year abatement for such projects would work.

  • robot

    The tax abatement program may or may not have been a good idea, but it would be insane to take it away from liberty two after the fact just because someone thinks the places are too expensive. What developer would ever trust the city to keep its word again? Also, I don’t think that the tax abatements mean you pay no property tax, you just pay whatever the property tax was before the imrovements were made. Big difference.

    This is just tacky class warfare. Sure rich people will live in two liberty, but who else is going to spend money in all the restaurants on Walnut street? Look at Detroit if you want to see a city with no rich people.

  • John Lightstone

    If you look around Center City and see all the new stores and restaurants that have opened up since the tax abatement went into affect, you have a pretty good argument for why it made sense.

  • http://plunkchutley.wordpress.com/ Clare

    Isn’t this the building where Cole Hamels just bought the penthouse?

  • robot

    Yes. Cole Hamels and Richie Sambora both live in this building. Would we rather them live in New Jersey McMansions like all of the Eagles?

    I bet Cole Hamels pays more in city wage taxes in a month than these protesters do in their lifetime.

  • Adam_B

    @clare: Yes.

    So if you hate 2LP then you must hate Cole Hamels, and therefore the Phillies, and therefore Philadelphia.

    *wags fickle finger at Philebrity and ACORN*

  • Allan Smithee

    re: “I bet Cole Hamels pays more in city wage taxes in a month than these protesters do in their lifetime.”

    So what?

    The city wouldn’t have to raise property taxes if the abatements were abolished and current property taxes were accurately assessed.

    Also, think 60% going to the school district is a bit too high.

  • julia

    @ Allan Smithee

    You are absolutely correct, if the state actually gave school districts the funds they needed, the city and other municipalities wouldn’t have to rely so heavily on property taxes to pay for public school.

  • karenm

    Please stop giving these idiots more airtime than they deserve. Everyone knows poor people in Philly don’t pay any taxes at all and use all the services. If 10 years of property tax abatement in a high-end downtown building draws even a single high-end wage earner paying wage taxes they will contribute more to the city coffers in a year than the protestors will in a lifetime. Do the math.

  • robot

    My point was the press release was implying that the owners of these condo’s weren’t going to be paying their fair share of taxes when the reality is that they already pay a ton of taxes. They keep talking about inherited money as if none of the people who are going to live their have jobs.

    I am not a fan of tax abatements. They are a band-aid on a broken tax system, but you can just retroactively take away one that was already granted.

    Philadelphia’s curent financial crisis has nothing to do with tax abatements and everything to do with financial mismanagment.

    Why not protest the city counsel members getting $500k drop payments for phoney one day retirements?

  • http://www.PhillyChitChat.com Philly Chit Chat

    I just spoke to a friend over the weekend who lives at Liberty Two, they don’t have the full tax abatement as new construction. Plus as an office building the before construction taxes were high anyway, so they are paying more in taxes then say the new Ritz-Carlton Condos. He wasn’t complaining though, just noting it in our conversation about Nutter raising taxes.

  • Allan Smithee

    @ karenm

    re: “If 10 years of property tax abatement in a high-end downtown building draws even a single high-end wage earner paying wage taxes they will contribute more to the city coffers in a year than the protestors will in a lifetime. Do the math.”

    Think the wage tax for non-residents should equal what residents pay or be greater. Should be live here/pay less wage taxes not leave here/work here pay less.

    @ robot

    re: “Philadelphia’s curent financial crisis has… everything to do with financial mismanagment.”

    You’re right. There is plenty of blame to go around for the current financial mess.

  • robot

    @allan Smithee

    re:”Think the wage tax for non-residents should equal what residents pay or be greater. Should be live here/pay less wage taxes not leave here/work here pay less.”

    I think the problem with that is that the people who just work here use little of the services that the Wage Tax pays for. They are probably very profitable for the city, and some of them probably spend money on lunches, shopping and the occasional dinner while they are here.

    What the city should do is try to crack down on people who live in the city but work outside the city and use an out of city address. These people use city services, but pay no wage tax.

  • John Lightstone

    There’s also the point that having a downtown which is inhabited and has 24-hour residents has a ton of spillover positive effects, from keeping stores and restaurants in business to improving safety and security. In just the 12 years that I’ve lived in Center City, the difference on the streets during nights and weekends is huge. This is a much better place to live. No more hookers on Broad Street.

    That’s what the tax abatement is designed to do. One can argue over whether it caused the influx of population to Center City, or if that was a trend that was going to happen anyway, but it was a designed development strategy, not just a windfall for the wealthy.

    I need Paul Levy here to do this for me. I’m sure he has a passel of statistics to back it up.

  • ekr103

    I agree with robot about the people who live here, but use out of the city addresses to avoid the city wage tax. I know a bunch of ‘em and have brought this up before!

    I was listening to an interview with Nutter on WHYY this morning, and I did come away with the feeling that the middle class who own regular homes and pay their taxes are being hit the hardest with the property & sales tax increases. I understand we don’t want to push businesses out of the city, but at the same time, I feel a bit burdened.

  • robot

    @ekr103
    Sales tax increase is the worst one.
    I like how they keep saying “just a one penny increase”.
    Like I spend one dollar a year.
    All this does is make me buy more of my stuff on the internets.

  • Patriot

    It’s truly encouraging that two fools can write such rubbish without doing any research and gin up a mob. Maybe they’ll find the social justice they seek in one of our world’s socialist utopias. Did they mention anything about all the union jobs that were created on these projects? That the abatement stemmed the tide of population losses by the city that had gone on for decades? That their likely political party affiliation was behind it all and that it actually served it’s intended purpose? It’s really a sad commentary on what this country is coming to.