The Clifton, NJ-based
ARC Properties development company has been working for nearly two years now on an increasingly controversial hotel, retail and entertainment complex that will sit on the stretch of Race Street in Philadelphia between Fourth and Fifth streets and is scheduled to be operational sometime in 2012. But according to ARC's CEO, Robert Ambrosi, the project has only become controversial as a result of misinformation mixed with innuendo.
Ambrosi claims that his project, which is currently being referred to as
Franklin Place, has the full support of the
Independence Visitor Center and a number of other area groups. The
Old City Civic Association, however, hasn't exactly given ARC Properties its undivided blessing, and Ambrosi thinks he knows why. "There's been a lot of wrong information in the press, unfortunately," he insists. "People are claiming we're putting in a nightclub. But this is really a hotel project with an attached restaurant and a small music venue."
Franklin Place will actually consist of two separate structures, one of them facing the residential community along Fourth Street, and the other facing Independence Mall, where no residential community exists. Understandably, the project has been the cause of much consternation among locals, although as Ambrosi explains, the Fourth Street-facing building will actually house a 55-unit residential complex. "We've been extremely sensitive that anything we do on the Fourth Street side of the project be very passive," he says. The structure facing Fifth Street, meanwhile, will be home to a 156-room
Starwood Hotel, as well as a currently undecided combination of retail and dining venues.
Ambrosi originally wanted the complex to contain a bowling alley and a small live music space. His newest idea is to bring a
Toby Keith-themed restaurant featuring live country-and-western music into the mix.
"This is a very, very important project to us," Ambrosi adds, "and we're going to make it a great project. I just want people to understand what we're doing."
Source: Robert J. Ambrosi, ARC Properties Inc.
Writer: Dan Eldridge
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