Construction on the 727,725-square-foot Cira Centre is on schedule -- about halfway complete -- and is set to finish on time in April 2005.
"We're right on schedule in terms of all the different contracts and timing of construction," said Steve Rush, a spokesman for Brandywine Realty Trust, which is the developer and owner of the $200-million-dollar, 28-story Cira Centre located at 30th St. and JFK Boulevard.
The building is hoping to become a major connection between the Center City business district and University City.
Rush said he thinks the Cira Centre will provide Penn students with increased job opportunities.
"The more companies that come here," he said, "obviously the more reason that some of these students here at Penn will have the opportunity to stay in the city and not have to go to New York or Washington or some of these other places."
"Could it make the city a better place? Sure it could," Wharton Real Estate Professor Georgette Poindexter said. "Developments add vibrancy, add life, add a fresh shot in the arm, and that's always good. It's always better to go to school in a city that's vibrant and working."
However, the direct benefit of this new building remains unclear to Poindexter, whose business students, she believes, will continue to aspire to work in New York. She said, "I think you're going to have a very difficult time trying to draw a direct line between the benefit of the Cira Centre and a benefit to students."
Spokesman for Facilities and Real Estate services Tony Sorrentino suggested the building will indirectly benefit Penn students by making the area in between Center City and University City safer and boosting the economy. "It's good for the University and those thousands of customers here, both from an economic standpoint as well as creating a more friendly pedestrian environment," Sorrentino said.
The "topping out" ceremony, which occurred in November, marked the completion of the steel superstructure of the building. During the ceremony, nearly 300 people involved in the project signed the final steel beam, which was then erected approximately 430 feet high on the frame.
Since November, further progress has been made, putting much of the glass skin into place and commencing interior work on some of the lower floors.
"What the Cira Centre does is takes a part of Philadelphia that was really vacant and industrial, and it's basically bringing a modern contemporary use, which is an office building, and a very beautiful one at that," Sorrentino said.
The other main attraction of the Cira Centre is its convenient location.
"It's like anything in real estate," said Rush. "It's always location, location, location, and that's not untrue of this. At the Cira Centre ... you're really putting [tenants] in the most centralized part of the whole labor pool for the greater Philadelphia area."
A pedestrian bridge across Arch Street will join 30th Street Station to the building to make commuting easier for workers and clients.
"While Philadelphia has always had a lot of [positive] attributes," Rush said, "this actually gives them something that you might usually typically see in New York or Washington where you have a major class-A office district connected to a mass-transportation system."
Two law firms, two money managers and one manufacturing company have committed to about two-thirds of the office space in the Cira Centre.
The law firms stirred major controversy last year by taking advantage of a major tax loophole that will significantly reduce the amount they pay to the city.
The building will also likely have support-level retail for its workers, possibly including restaurants, a retail bank, a conference facility and a fitness center.
