City eyeing former newspaper building as police headquarters
City officials have added the white tower that formerly housed the Inquirer and Daily News to a list of possible locations for the Police Department's new headquarters, Mayor Kenney said Tuesday.
City officials have added the white tower that formerly housed the Inquirer and Daily News to a list of possible locations for the Police Department's new headquarters, Mayor Kenney said Tuesday.
The surprise search, first reported by Philadelphia Magazine online, comes even as renovations continue on a West Philadelphia site first earmarked as a modern, high-tech police hub under former Mayor Michael Nutter.
Kenney said Tuesday that rehabbing the stately Provident Mutual Life Insurance Co. building at 4601 Market St. - initially estimated to cost as much as $250 million - has been expensive, and that the property might be better suited for a "health-related campus" or other use.
Since 1963, the police have been headquartered in the circular, three-story Police Administration Building at 750 Race St., popularly known as the Roundhouse. But the department long ago outgrew the decaying building, and a new site was sought during Nutter's tenure.
Repurposing the old newspaper property at 400 N. Broad St. would let the Police Department remain headquartered near Center City, Kenney said, while also potentially allowing several surrounding district headquarters to move in as well.
The iconic 18-story newspaper building at Broad and Callowhill Streets, once dubbed the Tower of Truth, was completed in 1924 to house The Inquirer. The Daily News moved into the building in 1965.
Both newspapers and their website, Philly.com, moved in July 2012 to the former Strawbridge & Clothier building at 801 Market St.
Kenney said Tuesday that the Broad Street property "is available and vacant. . . . It is large enough to do a bunch of things."
But it could take about a month to determine whether pursuing the building is financially feasible, Kenney said.
Developer Bart Blatstein, who owns the North Broad Street property, did not respond to a telephone message seeking a reaction to the mayor's comments.
City records show that Blatstein's company bought the former newspaper building in 2011 for $22.65 million. After losing out on a casino license in 2014, he began planning to renovate the tower as a 125-room boutique hotel.
Developing a new police headquarters has been an on-again, off-again goal of city officials for years.
Former Police Commissioner Kevin M. Tucker wanted to move the headquarters and sell the Police Headquarters in 1988; Everett Gillison, a deputy mayor under Nutter, was interested in a new headquarters in 2008. The economic recession that year temporarily shelved the project, but Nutter and Gillison revisited the idea in Nutter's second term.
In 2014, City Council approved up to $250 million in borrowing to develop the 15-acre campus in West Philadelphia as a home for the Police Department, the Medical Examiner, and other Health Department offices.
Also on the campus is the $110 million Philadelphia Juvenile Justice Services Center, at 48th Street and Haverford Avenue. It replaced the old Youth Study Center, on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, which was torn down to make room for the relocated Barnes Foundation.
Gillison and others supportive of the West Philadelphia plan said that it would benefit not only the agencies moving into a new, state-of-the-art facility, but also the surrounding neighborhood, because thousands of city employees would come to work in the area.
City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, who represents the neighborhood, said Tuesday that she "certainly [wants] to see that land developed for the betterment of the community," but that she was open to hearing the Kenney administration's final plan for the area.
"I just want to see what happens," she said.
Mike Dunn, a spokesman for Kenney, said Tuesday that the city has spent nearly $40 million on the project, but that the total cost would depend on what the site ultimately is used for.
Kenney said that due to the amount of money already spent on the West Philadelphia campus, Police Headquarters could end up there after all.
"This is all up in the air," the mayor said, "and we have not made any decisions yet."
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Staff writer Jacob Adelman contributed to this article.