Design review of the Vue tomorrow night
Those of you who are strongly opinioned on the Vue, may enjoy tomorrow night's meeting of the Pacific Corridor Downtown Waterfront Steering Committee, where a report on the new design (newer than the one we've been looking at, or is that the new design?) will be presented by Eric Eisenberg.
February 15 @ 6:00 PM
in the 4th floor conference room of the municipal building
-enjoy
February 15 @ 6:00 PM
in the 4th floor conference room of the municipal building
-enjoy
10 Comments:
"You Already Work in a Corporate Office Tower. Now You Can Live In One. The Vue."
Is anybody taking bets on how many stories the new design will have, compared to the old one? I'd like to take the over, please.
I've heard 17 stories. Developer requests a variance for a 170-foot high, instead of 150-foot, building. This was discussed briefly at the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council meeting last night. Several people were opposed to the variance for additional height. "Where are the kids who live in this building going to play?" was asked. I'm now thinking that this should have been approved as a mid-rise developement,up to about 8 stories high only. This would place it midway in height between the adjacent Northrup building and the Port building (across Fifth Street). Too bad that it is too late to effect this - the existing zoning and previous Pacific Corridor CRA actions have already entitled a 150-foot high tower.
What about environmental impact reports and traffic studies? Aren't these required BEFORE they break ground?
This is not going to be a boon for downtown, it's going to be a NIGHTMARE!!
Just wondering.....
I don't have any real problem with a 20 foot taller building. One 20 foot taller building. The only reason I think building a tall building on this site is an acceptable idea is because there already is one on the site. I'm not intending to support any similar developments, unless they are replacing an existing tower.
I don't see why there would be anything other than a cursory EIR on a building like this.
The traffic will be a boost to downtown. The added population will be good for downtown. Where it's going to hurt is on the Harbor Blvd. onramp to the 110 Freeway.
Redrider wrote:
the existing zoning and previous Pacific Corridor CRA actions have already entitled a 150-foot high tower.
Educate me: does this mean that we're irrevocably stuck with this piece of shit, and the only question now is whether they're going to be allowed to make it even bigger?
IMBG - I think the answer to your question is yes.
But... I keep hearing about a competing proposal to put two denser eight story towers on the same site, which is fine with me. I'm not sure if that was part of what was being discussed at last night's meeting, of if that's just a wandering idea that I keep hearing about.
The two 8-story towers represent an old proposal no longer on the table. Developer wants, and practically has, approval for the 170-foot tower. This is still being discussed in planning circles, but it seems that the only hurdle now is City Council approval, including the 20-foot height variance (this according to CRA staff last night). The details that can feasibly still be modified are the project "pedestrian interface" (how open and appealing the building facade will be on street level) and the use of the narrow strip along Centre Street - it should not simply be a blank parking garage wall. Ideas, anyone??
That wall/street level area could be well served by their 1% of the arts money. This project is $130 million or so? That's $1.3 million in 1% money. You could do some amazing stuff, like a labor oriented tile mural, a series of site specific sculptural installations, any number of interesting things. I'm talking world class art could be on site, on street level, and built into the project. I'd like to see any on-site art projects overseen by someone outside the development. It could be the site of a major project by an important Los Angeles or Pacific Rim artist that would add considerable clout and attractiveness to what is obsensibly an arts district.
It would be great to see the 1% from a project of this size get used on site in a way that isn't a "turd in the plaza" abstract lump. You could do something really amazing on site with only $ 2-300K of that money with the rest going to other projects in the area.
Has there been any indication as to how the developers intend to spend their 1%, or are they just going to sink it into the DCA?
Redrider wrote:
Ideas, anyone?
Well, apart from "don't approve it"--which is improbable to say the least, given this City Council and City Councilwoman--you could make the "pedestrian interface" more appealing the same way you could make the whole thing more appealing: by using materials, textures, and design elements that complement the area over which the building will loom. The developer does not seem to have the slightest interest in doing so of his own volition. The artist's conception that was posted on this blog depicts the architectural equivalent of a diamond-encrusted middle finger extended at San Pedro's historic core. The least the City Council, spurred on by the various advisory and neighborhood councils, can do is make the developer go back and design something that exists in harmony with its surroundings.
(It could be argued that its surroundings include the Northrop building and the Sheraton, but these are regrettable structures that may well meet the same fate as the PTC in the coming decades, and that we would be well rid of.)
Take a look at some of the new residential buildings going up around Grand Avenue in downtown LA. While none of them are anything to write home about aesthetically, to say the least, they at least have the virtue of humility in their design; they also have predominantly matte surfaces (another humble and human-friendly trait) facing the street that can be painted and repainted, with or without accents, in different colors and styles as tastes change over the decades. The designer of the new building at the PTC site could do worse--indeed, is doing worse--than to emulate those aspects of the design and construction of those buildings.
That's how you make it at least somewhat appealing. You make it "open" by bringing the street-level part of it out to the sidewalk and inviting the public in for lunch or a bit of shopping, not by setting it back. Being 170 feet tall, the damned thing is already towering (heh heh) over the neighborhood. You're not really fooling anybody, then, by creating a buffer zone from the sidewalk; you're just holding the structure further aloof from the thousands of people who have to interact with it daily. No "tower in the park," please, Le Corbusier be damned.
As for the narrow strip along Centre Street, I'm drawing a blank here. Which strip are you referring to? One that exists now, or one that will be created by the construction of the tower? When you tell me what it is, am I going to slap my forehead and go "Oh, THAT strip"?
Here's a link to a post by a blogger who gets a bit deeper into the subject of shiny gee-whiz check-me-out-ain't-I-badass glass 'n' steel architecture and its obnoxiousness to human inhabitants and neighbors, vs. good old boring classical matte building surfaces.
You might pay particular attention to this photograph of a brand new brick building that would look perfectly at home in any revitalizing urban area. Neither garish (the current Vue design) nor cheapjack (new stuff on Ocean Boulevard), you could plop it right in the middle of those handsome old buildings on Broadway and Linden in Long Beach, in the Arts District...or next to the City Hall building in Pedro. All the charm of 20th century architecture before the Modernists screwed everything up, and plumbing that works! Plus I'll bet there's a T1 connection in every room.
Too retro, you say? Too much a "Disneyfied" replica of an older urban center (an accusation frequently leveled at the New Urbanists by unreconstructed Modernists/Po-Mos who apparently prefer ugly-and-"real" to handsome-and-"fake")? OK, pull those classical accents off of the corners and the bottom of the building and replace them with something a little jazzier. Voila: updated, but still warm, inviting, and in harmony with the 'hood.
This is what the Sheraton should have looked like. This, albeit with some tweaks in recognition of its proximity to the godawful Northrop building, is what the Vue could look like. Why do we Pedrovians not insist that developers build with sensitivity to Pedro's unique flavor? Why, after losing so much of our historic core to the wrecking ball, do we add insult to injury by letting builders replace it with charmless, unprepossessing crap?
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