Located at Chestnut and Juniper Streets, the Keystone National Bank Building is big old mothership of a building that’s been sitting half-dead for a shamefully long time. You might know it as the Valu-Plus, but gosh, look at those top floors: Kinda makes us want to move in up there with the rest of the Tenenbaum family and let the healing begin and just tell Richie and Margot it’s OK, you gotta take love wherever you can find it. But in the real world, the Philadelphia Historical Commission is currently debating an idea put forth by developers to turn the spot into a boutique hotel. (Lots more on this PhiladelphiaSpeaks thread, including old pictures.) Though some might bristle at the proposed new storefront, we’re saying yes. If — and it’s a big if, apparently — this thing ever happened, they’d have to take a wrecking ball to that nasty Valu-Plus storefront (sorry, Valu-Plus, but real talk: how the hell did you wind up there in the first place?) and the mod-glass thing would look better than trying to retro-fake the original front and second floor exteriors (far left). Note to developer Alon Barzilay and architects JKR Partner: Make the top floor a bar. Please. Thank you.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 4:00 pm.