March of Dimes Premature Birth Awareness Month: Pink and blue, as it were. Not to trivialize premie babies or anything, but who do we need to petition to have the building managers change the colors of the accent lighting and neon more frequently, as with the Empire State Building or Sears Tower? This year was probably most frequent (green for the Eagles in January, red for hearts in February, red white & blue for the 4th, pink last month, pink and blue this month . . . I'd like to see an all-orange, personally).

Memo to gingko trees: YOU STINK!

Discuss at Phillyblog.

PNB supports Dubya: or something. The not-really-historic PNB sign atop One South Broad appears to be in its final days before being replaced by a giant 'W', presumably to represent Wachovia, who has a lot of office space in the building, but these are strange days, so maybe it's a wink and a nod to our Leader. More by Michael Klein of the Inquirer.

Dockside II?: It would seem so. Inga Saffron reported on her blog that the DePaul Group has gained ZBA approval for building a second, lookalike ship-thing on Delaware Avenue's high-velocity zone. Allll righty then. Good luck with that.

1352 Lofts: Huzzah! It didn't take long for this project to get going. The tall five-story loft-style condo building is already under construction, as evidenced by a big dirt pit and jersey barriers on the south side of South Street just east of Broad.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month: It's that time of year again -- everything and everyone goes pink for a good cause. Lots of cities participate by donning pink lighting on their prominent skyscrapers. Like us. For more about Breast Cancer Awareness Month, visit the official web site HERE.

Cira Centre's all lit up: After all we've heard and the sneak previews we've seen, Cira Centre was finally turned on tonight, in solid blue. We've seen it all red and we've even seen it change colors, but usually in 10 minute snippets or during the day when you can't see it so well. But tonight, 9/22, we finally got a taste. Cira Centre should be open for business soon, at which time we'll get the full LED treatment all the time. Until then, don't forget to watch the building rising over HERE.

CREI is on a roll: One day we were strolling through Northern Liberties and enjoying the day. The next day on the we saw a huge, fancy new office at 2nd & Fairmount, announcing CREI's arrival. They're slick; they appreciate good design. Check out their web site HERE to get a taste of things to come. 101 Walnut is already in The Skinny, and American Loft is right behind.

Divine Lorraine Hotel: For the third time in five years, the crown jewel of North Broad Street's (sort of) living architecture museum has been sold, this time to a joint development team with intent to convert it to condos. The plan also calls for the construction of several new additional condo towers on the open space directly behind the hotel. Read the Daily News' article HERE.

Route 15 Trolley: Hard to believe it, but it's finally here. I've said it before, but I think the Daily News' Urban Warrior deserves a medal or at least a raise for her coverage of the Route 15. It took a newspaper columnist to push through what bureaucrats could not. Now let's hope SEPTA can keep them functioning and in top shape. The Urban Warrior's most recent column is HERE and came just days before the trolleys began running.

801 Chestnut: This Clark Realty (of St James fame) news is still so new to us that we don't have it up in The Skinny yet. Plus we're trying to figure out whether it's part of the Goldenberg Group's Target project called Pavilion East. While we work on that, have a looksee over HERE.

Hot web sites: "Condos are selling like hotcakes." Yeah, big newsflash there. What IS news, we think, is all these cool web sites touting the new condos, whether they're built or not. In case you need more proof that condos are doing well, have a look at the Philadelphia Business Journal feature HERE. But make sure you check out the views, renderings, floorplans, etc, on the official web sites for The Murano, Mandeville Place, Marina View Towers, Waterfront Square, Residences at the Ritz and 10 Rittenhouse Square.

Two Liberty Place goes condo? That's the rumor. Does it say more about the state of business in Philadelphia or more about the real estate explosion and its inherent necessity for killer views? Who can say for sure? The Inquirer broke the story HERE