Congrats to the Chestnut Hill Local for publishing a terrific story about one of the community’s biggest real estate embarrassments.
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Congrats to the Chestnut Hill Local for publishing a terrific story about one of the community’s biggest real estate embarrassments: the massive, largely unused, unoccupied Verizon building that occupies the middle of our retail corridor and disrupts shopping patterns.
Spanning three floors and occupying half of the block, the building long ago ceased to be useful as a landline telephone switching center. So it sits, Mausoleum-like, empty and apparently ignored.
Why? No one knows because Verizon, which took over the building decades ago with its purchase of Bell of Pennsylvania, won’t say. The state’s utility regulators at the Public Utility Commission, which is supposed to oversee monopolies (or oligopolies) like Verizon, won’t say either.
It’s time for the Chestnut Hill Business Association, with assistance from our city councilperson, to demand that Verizon explain exactly why holding onto an analog switching center in the digital age is essential to its operations. There are many other uses for the space that would enhance the retail corridor.
Art Howe
Wyndmoor
