On one of the most important urban revitalization sites in the United States—Philadelphia’s Schuylkill Yards—PAU was commissioned by Brandywine Realty Trust in collaboration with Drexel University to design two mixed-use towers adjacent to 30th Street Station along JFK Boulevard, the first high rise structures in PAU’s mission-driven metropolitan portfolio. Collectively entitled JFK Towers, the two buildings house over 1.5 million square feet of transit-oriented office, residential and retail space framing a new one-acre public open space entitled High Line Plaza and designed by the award-winning landscape architecture firm SWA Balsley. In addition to the recent opening of One Drexel Square, designed by landscape architect West 8, and the burgundy-colored adaptive reuse of the storied Bulletin Building by Kieran Timberlake Architects, JFK Towers mark the first phase of the Schuylkill Yards project, a 14-acre redevelopment of the vast network of underutilized sites located between Center City and University City along the reimagined banks of the Schuylkill River. Unlike any other urban site in the country, Schuylkill Yards is within a twenty minute walk of some of the nation’s finest academic, cultural, medical, municipal, open space and business resources, all centered on Philadelphia’s historic 30th Street Station, a hub for SEPTA commuter trains as well as the heart of AMTRAK’s Northeast Corridor.

The West Tower at 3025 JFK Boulevard houses both loft office space and approximately 300 rental apartments, designed as a quieter orthogonal form that brings residential vibrancy to an area in need of it.

The design of the West Tower is in conversation with the East Tower, the two buildings dancing together in scale and rhythm as they both aspire to create a sense of place and openness for the diverse communities of University City and Western Philadelphia, many of whom were consulted during the design process. The spatial relationship between the two structures—the way the East Tower’s cantilevered form responds to the West Tower’s diagonal base cut, the negative space that frames the plaza, and the alignment of the towers in both street-level and skyline views—demonstrates a coordinated architectural strategy that amplifies the public realm.

As the neighborhood evolves, Schuylkill Yards will remain a centripetal force for residents, students, medical professionals, families, businesses, collaborators, travelers, park goers, and more. The West Tower—bringing residential vibrancy to an area that lacked it—stands alongside the East Tower as part of the design vision to turn an underutilized yard into a prominent feature of the city, the beginning of a new downtown for one of the nation’s most important cities.