The Parker Spruce, at the northeast corner of 13th & Spruce, was built as a “bachelor hotel” in the 1920s, but as the decades wore on, it transitioned to a seedy hotel of ill repute. A Philadelphia Weekly writer spent a night there in 2006 and found the accommodations to be better than expected, and noted that the management of the building possessed at least a modicum of professionalism. Then again, at one point during the night, the writer got a whiff of what was more than likely a bunch of people smoking crack, so while it may not have been as bad as people thought at the Parker, there was still some illicit stuff going on over there.

Around 2011, the Wankawala Organization took over management of the hotel and numerous reports indicate that operations took a turn for the worse. After a fire in 2014, Wankawala purchased the property for $3.5M, and started an effort to renovate the building. By the end of 2015, word had emerged that they were planning to convert the building into a 112 room Marriott Fairfield Inn and Suites. Philly Mag covered a community meeting about these plans, and the story indicated a lack of trust between the community and the developer thanks to management practices while the Parker was open and careless demolition practices by a subcontractor. The developer promised to do better, but two months later, L&I slapped a Stop Work Order on the property for poor dust control.

From what we can tell, nobody has written anything about this property in over a year, with the last coverage being a union protest in January of 2016. This seems a little odd to us, as it seems that the renovation is progressing, albeit slowly. Over the last several months, we’ve noticed that new windows have been installed, though we can’t speak to anything else going on inside. Outside, we will say that the union rat has been a continuing presence for over a year and we don’t think that the unions would be wasting their time protesting if there wasn’t active work happening inside.

Has anyone in the neighborhood heard any updates on this project? At the community meeting, the developer indicated that the renovation would be finished by the 3rd quarter of 2016, and that’s clearly come and gone. Perhaps someone out there can fill in the gaps and help us understand what’s taking so long, and when we can expect to see the renovation effort completed. After a more than two years of construction and decades of the Parker Spruce being the Parker Spruce, we’d think that people in the neighborhood are more than ready for this project to come to a close.