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Unfortunately, the Franklin Mills Eagles Stadium Dream is Dead
Published:
One of most diabolical AI creations of the past year was when of those fake accounts on Meta shared some fugazi renderings of an Eagles stadium built at the location of the Franklin Mills Mall, or whatever it’s called now, in Northeast Philadelphia. I even wrote two hypothetical stories asking if the great Northeast could host the Birds if they moved out of South Philly when the Linc lease expires.
Unfortunately, the dream is dead, because according to Paul Schwedelson at the Philadelphia Business Journal, the site is being purchased:
Dean Adler is under contract to buy the Franklin Mall in Northeast Philadelphia, he told the Business Journal.
The high-profile real estate developer said he plans to transform the once-prominent shopping destination, originally known as the Franklin Mills Mall, into a major youth sports venue and mixed-use development.
In addition to the youth sports facility, Adler said his plan is to build workforce housing, restaurants, a hotel and a water park at the site of the 1.6 million-square-foot mall. That would mean demolishing at least a portion of the massive mall, though Adler said he’d like to reuse as much of it as possible.
…
Adler said he envisions 250 units of workforce housing at the site, a 150-room Homewood Suites by Hilton hotel and a Margaritaville water park
A Margaritaville water park? Sounds dope.
A cursory Googling reveals that they’ve got one of these in Biloxi and one in Cape Cod, which looks like this:
Apparently this Adler guy, no relation to Steven Adler from Guns N Roses, is the developer redoing the Plymouth Meeting Mall as well. We need this guy to buy up all of the old joints around here, because they ain’t never coming back. If Mr. Adler or one of his associates is reading this, we’d like to replace the dilapidated Montgomery Mall with “Disney World North” and the Coventry Mall can make way for a lazy river that goes underneath route 422 and connects to the Schuylkill River. We will patronize; we just need some disgustingly rich guy to come in and buy this stuff up and knock it down.
Who says no? Have your people call my people.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com