Quote:
Originally Posted by McBane
I don't get the orientation. The tower is L shaped and the smaller portion is fronting Broad and the larger portion is fronting Carpenter. Why? Why wouldn't the tallest parts of the project face Broad and Washington? It reminds me of the tower portion of 1900 fronting Samson instead of Chestnut. It seems odd.
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As
br323206 pointed out upthread, the strange positioning of the tower is probably a result of maximising the sun exposure and minimizing the shadows for the "French Village" on the roof. I have to agree with
New2Fishtown on the "French Village" thing. It just doesn't make sense to hide that kind of use out of the way on the roof in an urban setting. It would make so much more sense to put the small retailers at ground level to add the the street level vibrancy and hide the big box stuff out of the way above that. People who are drawn to the big box stores will be drawn to them regardless of where they are, so putting them on the 2nd floor isn't really an issue and eliminates the blank wall they would otherwise have created.
In all seriousness, what do people think about the likelihood that Bart actually follows through with this. He hasn't exactly had a terrific record of seeing things through as of late and has a lot of projects in the air right now. This is also on a scale that is much larger than anything he's taken on that I know of. Misgivings over the "French village" aside, I'd like to see this project actually come to fruition, but I'm a bit skeptical.