The UArts Real Estate Sale Puts a Golden Opportunity in a Developer’s Lap

The Greek Revival portico of the University of the Arts’ main building, Dorrance Hamilton Hall, became the school’s icon. Sandy Smith is betting that it will become the entrance to a luxury condo or apartment building. Photo by Beyond My Ken via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

The sale of the late University of the Arts’ real estate portfolio, announced Monday, puts at least one trophy property up for sale on the Avenue of the Arts.

That property is Dorrance Hamilton Hall, once home to the school’s administration and some of its students.

The building has two parts. Architect John Haviland (with William Strickland) designed the front part, which was built in 1824-26 for what was then called the Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb (now the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf). From the 1830s to the 1860s, wings sprouted from the north and south ends and the rear of the building. The city’s most celebrated Victorian architect, Frank Furness, designed the brick rear portion of the building in 1875.

The central structure is the oldest building still standing on Broad Street. Alterations to its courtyard and entrance made by Mitchell/Giurgola Architects in the 1970s turned it into a showcase that often hosted events and fundraisers.

One institution that should have raised more money in its grand court was the University of the Arts itself. But, as David Murrell uncovered in his chronology of UArts’ sudden and shocking collapse, the school was running on hope and fumes instead.

However, the school did own several architectural gems. Besides Dorrance Hamilton Hall, it owned the former Gershman YMHA/YWHA at Broad and Pine and the Terra Building at Broad and Walnut, designed by Horace Trumbauer and built in 1911 as the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. In 2017, during President David Yager’s tenure, the school acquired the Philadelphia Art Alliance on Rittenhouse Square, built sometime around 1906 as the residence of Samuel Wetherill and designed by Frank Miles Day.

Now, all of these properties are on the market, to be sold either individually or as a package. A Philadelphia Business Journal report on the sale states that the school valued its nine buildings at $87 million in its bankruptcy filing. According to the article, they could fetch as much as $100 million in a sale.

When the news of UArts’s closing broke, I told friends that Dorrance Hamilton Hall would likely become a high-end condo or apartment building someday soon. And I’m still banking on that happening. And I think that developer Carl Dranoff would be the person most likely to make it happen.

The Avenue of the Arts 2.0 project will use the 300 block of South Broad Street — right in front of Dorrance Hamilton Hall (left) — as a demonstration block. Rendering by OJB Landscape Architecture via Avenue of the Arts Inc.

Consider: Dranoff has rebuilt his reputation as a transformational developer by remaking South Broad Street, one building at a time. He has built four buildings along the Avenue of the Arts: Two condos, the Symphony House and the Arthaus, and two rental apartment buildings, Southstar Lofts and 777 South Broad. He has since sold the apartment buildings.

Dranoff is also invested in the Avenue of the Arts itself. He serves on the board of directors of Avenue of the Arts, Inc., the nonprofit organization formed to improve and promote South Broad Street and its collection of performing arts venues. And he surely played a role in putting together the $100 million first phase of the South Broad Street makeover announced this past summer.

That project will turn the 300 block of South Broad Street into the first block of a planned 10-block linear park. On that block are three notable buildings: the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, the Arthaus and Dorrance Hamilton Hall.

Dranoff already owns the second. He would be an obvious candidate to buy the third.

But that doesn’t mean that he will. This pair of buildings (the Furness wing is considered a separate building even though it’s connected) might also entice Matt and Mike Pestronk, aka the Post Brothers. They own The Atlantic across Spruce from the Kimmel Center and are busy transforming the block of land Bart Blatstein bought at Broad and Washington into a luxury apartment city.

Were they to buy the iconic UArts building, they would no doubt polish it to a high gloss and market the hell out of it.

I doubt this would capture Southern Land Company’s fancy; that firm prefers to build new buildings. But this building is also something that Lubert-Adler Real Estate Funds, currently redoing the Bellevue a few blocks north, might want to consider taking on.

In other words, expect to see a lot of interest in Dorrance Hamilton Hall — maybe even a bidding war. But whoever fails to acquire it has several other choice UArts properties they could consider instead.