A corporation's plan to put its name up in red lights on a landmark downtown skyscraper is generating howls of protest from luxury condominium owners who have only recently begun moving into the building.
Unisys Corp. is shifting its headquarters to the iconic tower after more than three decades in the suburbs in part to increase its visibility. To help do that, the information technology company wants to erect two UNISYS signs with illuminated 11-foot- (3.3-meter-)high red letters more than halfway up two sides of the 58-story building.
The city administration, which wooed the company with tax incentives, backs the signs. It sees them as a way to advertise that Philadelphia is becoming a better home for corporations.
But the condo apartment owners in Two Liberty Place find the idea ghastly. They say it would be like putting McDonald's arches on the facade of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Let the signs go up, they say, and downtown Philly will be on its way to becoming another Times Square or Las Vegas.
What galls tenants most is that Unisys is only occupying four floors.
"If I rented a couple floors on the Empire State Building, do you think it'd be appropriate for me to put my law firm name in glowing letters in red on the Empire State Building?" said Michael Beautyman, an attorney who lives on the 40th floor.
Condo owners say they fear the planned signs would reflect into their living rooms, hurt their nighttime views, depreciate the value of their homes and tarnish the beauty of the striking building, which is clad in granite, metal and reflective glass. They are fighting the plan before the zoning board and have also sued in federal court.
Unisys spokesman Jim Kerr said the company went the extra mile to make sure the signs don't bother anybody, noting they will have black lining to reduce glow from the light-emitting diodes, or LEDs.
Ironically, Two Liberty Place and its slightly taller sister with a huge spire, One Liberty Place, have been known from the beginning as tradition-wreckers.
The much-heralded arrival in 1987 of One Liberty Place, known in part for its resemblance to New York's Chrysler Building, broke an unwritten agreement that no building would rise above the William Penn statue atop City Hall. "Ungentlemanly Towers," Francis Morrone said of the Liberty Place buildings in "An Architectural Guidebook to Philadelphia."
For both the company and the city administration, the signs are important.
Unisys is working on rebranding the company around the world "so signage was absolutely critical in our decision to move downtown," Kerr said.
The signs are "not an unreasonable request, in light of everything that this company is bringing to the city," said Deputy Mayor Andy Altman. "The last thing we want is to lose this company."
Though Unisys has signage rights in its lease, the proposed 900-square-foot (84-square-meter) signs at the 38th and 39th floors still need approval from the city zoning board, which will take up the issue July 23. By regulation, the company cannot put up a sign higher than the second story or bigger than 100 square feet (9.3 square meters), but the city is known for bending to the wishes of downtown developers.
"If everybody in that building who had 7 percent of the space put a sign up, it'd just be a big billboard," said Tom Knox, a former mayoral candidate who paid more than $8 million for 5,500 square feet (510 square meters) of space on the 46th floor, plus a large balcony.
A downtown residents' association and a nonprofit group founded years ago to fight billboards, the Society Created to Reduce Urban Blight, or SCRUB, also oppose the sign plan.
"One of our greatest assets is our rich architecture and historical beauty. We don't want to jeopardize our greatest assets to appease a corporation," said SCRUB's executive director, Mary Tracy.
For Beautyman, it's also personal.
"I don't want to sit in my condo with red glare, and I won't. I will sell and I will move," he said. "If that light is reflecting into my condo, I'm outta here."
