Morning Headlines: Comcast Announces It Will Keep Its New Tower For Itself
Have you seen the interior renderings of the Comcast Innovation and Technology Center? Pretty swanky stuff, right? Well, it seems some tenants that had been slated to move into the tower once it was done will only have the renderings to go on just like the rest of us.
The Philadelphia Business Journal‘s Natalie Kostelni reports Comcast has announced it will take up the entire office portion of the building, which means only the cable bigwig and the 222-room Four Seasons Hotel will be its sole occupants:
David L. Cohen, executive vice president of the Philadelphia cable company, said Comcast has expanded the amount of space it will occupy and will take all of the building’s 1.28 million square feet of office space.
It’s a move to accommodate Comcast’s rapidly growing pool of employees. Cohen said they don’t need a “third tower” (psh, why not?) but they do need the space:
Comcast followed a similar growth trajectory when its first headquarters building, the Comcast Center, was under construction a decade ago. The company thought it would need just a portion of that 1.2-million-square-foot building but ended up filling the entire structure. More recently, it asked some tenants not affiliated with the company to leave the building so it could have additional space.
Speaking of which, Kostelni notes CITC’s tenants will also enjoy several bike racks, a lesson on the growing number of bike commuters Comcast learned the hard way with the Comcast Center:
“The only thing we really got wrong with the Comcast Center is bike racks,” he said. Just 50 were initially installed but that got expanded to 250. In another reflection of its employee base, 80 percent take public transit to work.
• Comcast to occupy entire new skyscraper [Philadelphia Business Journal]
In other news…
• City plans improvements for Fox Chase Town Center [Northeast Times]
• A New Urbanist, Progressive PAC Is Forming [Citified]
• Planning Commission approves Land Bank plan [PlanPhilly]
• Fearing Demolition, Community Advocates Of Germantown YWCA Call For Emergency Meeting [Hidden City]
