About a month ago, we first shared the news that Dranoff Properties has its sights set on a new development at the corner of Broad & Spruce. Today, we attended the official announcement event for this project, which has been dubbed SLS International Hotel & Residences. The name pays tribute to the building's previous use as the home of Philadelphia International Records and also includes the name of the project's hotel partner.

At the event, Carl Dranoff went through all the project specs with the assistance of Gene Kohn of Kohn Pederson Fox. The building will be the tallest ever built in Pennsylvania exclusively for residential use, rising 560 feet and reaching 47 stories. There will be 149 hotel rooms on the lower floors, and 125 condo units starting at the 20th floor. The residential units will all have 10' ceilings and balconies,  and will share amenities with the hotel. There are plans for a large landscaped terrace, a fitness center, meeting rooms, banquet facilities, and an 85' swimming pool.

The tower will sit on a podium that includes ground-floor retail, the hotel lobby, and parking for the building. On the roof of the podium will be a ballroom that will instantly become one of the nicer party spaces in the entire city. Architecturally, the new building will be a partner to the Kimmel Center, and will hopefully encourage additional density and development down South Broad Street.

Sam Nazarian of SBE Entertainment also spoke at the event. He was preceded by a very well-done video detailing all of the businesses that SBE is involved in, including hotels, restaurants, and nightlife. The SLS brand has a presence in California, New York, Las Vegas, and Miami, with plans on the boards for additional hotels in Seattle and China. For Philadelphia to be getting an operator like SLS for this project is really a coup, and we can only hope that their involvement will spur interest from other parties that don't currently do business here.

In all, we came away impressed (and fed!) from this event. Hopefully, this project will spur additional development on the Avenue of the Arts and inspire additional development south of South Street or even Washington Avenue. We applaud Dranoff's efforts, as this will be his fourth building on Broad Street and easily our favorite, architecturally. We look forward to seeing this project break ground next year, and we likewise can't wait to hear about the next big project coming from Dranoff Properties.