The Wanamaker building’s new owners reveal plans for rooftop pool and a sunny Grand Court

The Wanamaker building was built to be an icon of modern retail, a colossal temple of middle-class consumerism in the heart of Philadelphia.

Over 100 years later, the palatial department stores of Wanamaker’s heyday are gone, and the building’s new owners are remaking it for a different age following the closure of Macy’s earlier this year. The building will offer loft-style apartments and, plans filed with the city show, a rooftop pool.

New York-based TF Cornerstone has submitted plans to the Philadelphia Historical Commission that show the changes to the retail space. Both the exterior and parts of the interior — the Grand Court and organ — are protected. The developer is seeking permission to add more entrances and retail space on the ground floor, among other changes.

TF Cornerstone and local partner Alterra Property Group plan to resurrect original aspects of the building’s design, while acknowledging the realities of retail today, which means carving out space on the street and within the building for smaller businesses.

“It’s most likely not going to be one tenant across the entire area. Retail is just different” today, said Mark Faulkner, an architect with New York-based Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU), which is in charge of the design of the building’s retail section.

“We’ve been providing a lobby and an arcade that leads you to that center space but also allows for smaller retail and smaller individual stores around the ground floor and some of the upper floors,” Faulkner said. In the Grand Court itself, “we’ve been focused on a food and beverage offering.”

Renderings created by PAU also show two new entrances on Market Street, one on Chestnut, another on 13th and on Juniper. The proposals submitted to the city include options with multicolored or white themed signage.

The signs themselves would be made of bronze with backlit acrylic faces. The colorful sign option could match a prospective tenant’s logo.

The Chestnut Street ground floor of the building has already seen some new entryways and retail spaces added, such as the Starbucks at the southeastern corner.

Inside the building, one of the biggest changes will be the removal of a steel platform that covers the huge, historic skylight and blocks the sun from warming the Grand Court, as TF Cornerstone and Alterra previously announced.

But Faulkner emphasized that only the obstructing floor, which is just a couple decades old, will be removed, not any of the building’s original touches.

The platform covering the skylight currently serves as the pre-function space for the Crystal Tea Room, which will remain open during construction. That congregation space will be relocated.

As an accompaniment to that major change, on the ground floor, the architects have also been studying the original detailing and paint schemes of the Wanamaker’s heyday to see if more of that original grandeur can be revived.

“The Grand Court is one of the most amazing parts of this project, and once people see natural light flood into that space, it will be even more amazing,” Faulkner said. The developers also will be “refreshing the finishes in the Grand Court that respond more to the original condition back from when it first opened.”

Philadelphia-based JKRP Architects is leading design of the remainder of the building, including a few floors of renovated office space, the conversion of the rest of the floors to loft-style apartments, and the rooftop.

The plans submitted to the Historical Commission include some aspects of JKRP’s plans, which show an 18- by 60-foot rooftop pool with a depth of four feet at the northwestern corner of the roof, near the newly operational skylight, as well as a hot tub.

TF Cornerstone plans to begin renovations in February, and the work will last years.

Until Christmas Eve, the Wanamaker’s Light Show and the Dickens Village will still be operational.