A610, Philadelphia skyline from Boathouse Row, 2019

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

, the largest city in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sov ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Mary ...

, is home to more than 300 completed

high-rise building A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdicti ...

s up to , and 58 completed skyscrapers of or taller,"Search results for completed buildings of 100+ meters in Philadelphia"
''skyscrapercenter.com''. Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Retrieved April 18, 2019. of which 34 are or taller and are listed below. , the tallest building in the city is the 60-story

Comcast Technology Center The Comcast Technology Center is a supertall skyscraper in Center City, Philadelphia. The 60-floor building, with a height of , is the tallest building in Philadelphia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the fourteenth-tallest building in the ...

, which topped out at in Center City on November 27, 2017, and was completed in 2018. Comcast Technology Center is the tallest building in the United States outside Manhattan and Chicago, and is currently ranked as the fourteenth-

tallest building in the United States The world's first skyscraper was built in Chicago in 1885. Since then, the United States has been home to some of the world's tallest skyscrapers. New York City, specifically the borough of Manhattan, notably has the tallest skyline in the cou ...

. The second-tallest building in Philadelphia is the 58-story

Comcast Center Comcast Center, also known as the Comcast Tower, is a skyscraper in Center City, Philadelphia. The 58-story, tower is the second-tallest building in Philadelphia and in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania (after the Comcast Technology Center), ...

at , while the third-tallest building is

One Liberty Place Liberty Place is a skyscraper complex in Philadelphia. The complex is composed of a 61-story, skyscraper called One Liberty Place, a 58-story, skyscraper called Two Liberty Place, a two-story shopping mall called the Shops at Liberty Place, a ...

, which rises 61 floors and . One Liberty Place stood as the tallest building in Pennsylvania for over 20 years until the completion of Comcast Center in 2008. Overall, seven of the ten tallest buildings in Pennsylvania are in Philadelphia, with the remainder being in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylv ...

. Philadelphia is one of only five American cities with two or more completed buildings over tall, the others being

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, Chicago,

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

, and

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. Philadelphia's history of tall buildings is generally thought to have begun with the 1754 addition of the steeple to Christ Church, which was one of America's first high-rise structures. Through most of the 20th century, a "

gentlemen's agreement A gentlemen's agreement, or gentleman's agreement, is an informal and legally non-binding agreement between two or more parties. It is typically oral, but it may be written or simply understood as part of an unspoken agreement by convention or th ...

" prevented buildings from rising higher than the 548-ft (167-m)

Philadelphia City Hall Philadelphia City Hall is the seat of the municipal government of the City of Philadelphia. Built in the ornate Second Empire style, City Hall houses the chambers of the Philadelphia City Council and the offices of the Mayor of Philadelphia. It ...

. Despite this, Philadelphia amassed a large collection of high-rise buildings. The completion of One Liberty Place in 1987 broke the agreement, and Philadelphia has since seen the construction of eleven skyscrapers that eclipse City Hall in height. Philadelphia has twice held the tallest habitable building in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the C ...

, first with Christ Church, then with City Hall. The latter reigned as the world's tallest building from 1894 to 1908, and is currently the world's second-tallest masonry building, only shorter"National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form"
National Park Service. pages 2, 10. Retrieved November 13, 2017. "The statue was … hoisted to the top of the tower in fourteen sections in 1894." (pg.10) "The tower rising 548 feet, City Hall was the highest occupied building in America…" (pg.2) than

Mole Antonelliana The Mole Antonelliana () is a major landmark building in Turin, Italy, named after its architect, Alessandro Antonelli. A ''mole'' in Italian is a building of monumental proportions. Construction began in 1863, soon after Italian unification, ...

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

. Like other large American cities, Philadelphia went through a massive building boom in the 1970s and 1980s, resulting in the completion of 20 skyscrapers of or taller."Search results for completed buildings from 1970 to 1989 in Philadelphia"
''skyscrapercenter.com''. Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Retrieved April 18, 2019. __TOC__

Tallest buildings

This list ranks completed and

topped out In building construction, topping out (sometimes referred to as topping off) is a builders' rite traditionally held when the last beam (or its equivalent) is placed atop a structure during its construction. Nowadays, the ceremony is often parlay ...

skyscrapers in Center City Philadelphia that stand at least tall, based on standard height measurement, including spires and architectural details but excluding antenna masts. An equal sign (=) following a rank indicates the same height between two or more buildings. The "Year" column indicates the year in which a building was completed. The only demolished building that would have ranked on this list was the

One Meridian Plaza One Meridian Plaza, formerly known as the Fidelity Mutual Life Building, Three Girard Plaza and Three Mellon Bank Center, was a 38-story high-rise office building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The tower was designed by Vincent Kl ...

, razed in 1999.

Tallest under construction

Tallest approved or proposed

This list includes buildings of or higher that have been approved or are proposed for construction in Philadelphia. The list is mainly based on the status of proposals on the

Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) is an international body in the field of tall buildings and sustainable urban design. A non-profit organization based at the Monroe Building in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United State ...

's website, . * Table entries with dashes (—) indicate that a building's height, floor count, or estimated year of completion have not yet been released.

Cancelled or distressed

Timeline of tallest buildings

Philadelphia has seen few city record-holders compared to other cities with comparable skylines. Although churches, cathedrals, and the like are not technically considered to be

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...

s, Christ Church, after being surmounted with its lofty spire in 1754, stood as its tallest building for 102 years before being surpassed by the (no longer extant) spire of

Tenth Presbyterian Church Tenth Presbyterian Church is a congregation of approximately 1,600 members located in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Tenth is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), a denomination in the Reformed (Calvi ...

, which was surpassed by

City Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually house ...

in 1894. Then, due to the "

" not to build higher than the top of the statue of

William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...

atop City Hall, that building stood as the city's tallest structure for 93 years; it also held the world record for tallest habitable building from 1894 until the 1908 completion of the

Singer Building The Singer Building (also known as the Singer Tower) was an office building and early skyscraper in Manhattan, New York City. The headquarters of the Singer Manufacturing Company, it was at the northwestern corner of Liberty Street and Broad ...

References

;General
Emporis.com - Philadelphia
;Specific

External links

Diagram of Philadelphia skyscrapers
on SkyscraperPage
Philadelphia Center for Architecture
{{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Tallest Buildings In Philadelphia

Tallest in Philadelphia Tallest