Inside Philly City Hall’s new $6.85M lighting system, with hundreds of LEDs that dance with color

The roof of Philadelphia City Hall is now equipped with the same electronics used at theme parks and concert arenas around the world.

An ETC Mosaic Show Controller is running the historic landmark’s new and improved lighting system, which debuted this summer after two years in the making.

The building has been lit for two decades, but this is a major upgrade. It uses the latest in LED technology, allowing for a variety of colors and effects with a system that requires less maintenance and is more energy efficient.

Center City-based firm the Lighting Practice was part of the team that designed City Hall’s original lighting 20 years ago, and it also oversaw this renovation.

“The intent with it was to maintain that original design,” principal Jon Hoyle told Technical.ly. “Where we’re lighting City Hall from a distance from the rooftops of the surrounding buildings — treat the building like an actor on stage.”

Lighting for the structure at Philly’s nexus was originally organized by the Center City District in 2004 as part of a larger reinvigoration project that included street-level lighting fixtures and lighting systems on landmarks like the Ben Franklin Parkway and the Avenue of the Arts, according to Paul Levy, CCD board chair.

“Highlighting our architecture is just part of lifting the spirits of people in the city and just enhances the sense of safety,” Levy said.

Levy cofounded the CCD in the 1990s as a way make people feel more comfortable in Center City after working hours. These days, many more people come through Philly’s downtown during the evening, for food, entertainment and fun. In general, crime is down, but some violence still occurs.

The old City Hall lighting system used a technology known as high intensity discharge lamps, which serve to illuminate but aren’t very flexible. After a decade of considering the idea, about two years ago the CCD, the city and the Lighting Practice started thinking more seriously about replacing the lights.

A grant from Pennsylvania’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program allowed the $6.85 million project to move forward. The city put in $2.35 million, and CCD provided $2 million.

 Hundreds of fixtures on nearly a dozen buildings, working as one

There’s a reason City Hall previously was lit by high intensity discharge lamps. Used in car headlights, they’re durable, long lasting and energy efficient.

The challenge was to find a replacement that had the same benefits, but was also programmable, according to Hoyle, the Lighting Practice principal.

That challenge was met by the latest in LED technology — which offered additional benefits, he said: While the old lamps lasted about 30,000 hours before they needed to be replaced and re-aimed, LEDs last a minimum of 50,000 hours and don’t need to be re-aimed.

The new system comprises hundreds of lighting fixtures. Some are mounted on City Hall itself, but there are also installations on 10 surrounding buildings with 222 lights total. Each building is outfitted with a steel structure that holds anywhere from 8 to 30 lighting fixtures.

Instead of the simple clock timer that controlled the old lamps, the new setup is run via a transmitter on the roof of City Hall, which coordinates everything through the ETC Mosaic Controller, communicating with receivers on the roofs of the surrounding buildings.

About half of the lighting fixtures are dimmable white light only, while the other half are programmable lights that use red, yellow, blue and amber LEDs.

“We wanted to do that so we could have a very nice, appropriate, static white light look that will exist and be the standard programming,” Hoyle said, “but then also have the ability to do something special, to do something either animated or colorful, or moments of high impact and celebration.”

Expect to see those colors and effects during occasions like Pride month, the Fourth of July, Halloween and to celebrate the sports teams.

But don’t expect to see things get too wild, too often, said Levy, the Center City District board chair. The district’s mind-bending “Deck the Halls” projection extravaganza did not return during the winter holidays last year.

“As a special building in the center of the city, it should be illuminated, it should be in color,” Levy said. “But it also needs to be appropriate — and not purple, pink, blue, orange, whatever, for every single thing that happens.”

Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.