Comments on: Design Element Caps New Parking Garage

By: ufos aliens

ufos aliens — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:52:00 +0000

With all the people living, working, and visiting downtown Chicago on any given day or month, parking space can be one of the greatest commodities Downtown Chicago can offer. But if you know where to look, parking space in a garage or on the street in downtown Chicago can be found. You can find a list of parking spaces and many other useful information at http://chicagospace.com/

By: joeindt

joeindt — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:01:00 +0000

"The roads are laid out already, and once the buildings are in place – assuming it's not 15 parking garages, which is not in the plans I have seen – it will be a great urban enclave with very little through traffic because of the railroad tracks. Maybe it's better in imagination, but I still think the CPV will be a great spot in due time.
"
–
Since this was in response to mine… Not exactly true. There is still more work to be done. When they plug into downtown via 18th, new traffic will flow into CPV. The nature of wewetta changes (I think it gets widend, not sure) with the station to be a major entry point for the station. These roads aren't being built or modified for bus traffic, but instead for car traffic. The surrounding area will suffer as auto drivers look for shortcuts, out of cpv. More road space, more parking, and more traffic doesn't usually add up to better urban design. The result is, they (private or public) only inducing traffic to this area. It's a shame and a waste.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 01 May 2009 23:47:00 +0000

Denver has plenty of parking, what it doesn't have is plenty of cheap and destination close parking. And yes, I realize that to us urban enthusiats, these thing are to be scoffed at. But I think that to some degree, all these new office and residential developments feel they need to add a parking component so visitors, residents and workers of the buildings have some relatively easy & cheap parking. And by cheap I mean cheaper than paying $15/hr. or $175/mo. for the surface lot 2 blocks away. Not to mention that the city requires these crazy ratios. I don't really have a problem with it, as long as there is some ground level retail and a mixed use component. As far as aesthetics, I personally don't think it looks much worse than the boring black cube across the street (sorry Adjaye).

By: BS

BS — Fri, 01 May 2009 22:35:00 +0000

I think it would have been more interesting if they had matched the red metal train overpass rather then the glass museum facade. The slope of the street under the tracks is more interesting to contrast with.

The scale is too big for peds. Whoever had the comment about the mca commissioning an art project here is spot on. Whats more interactive and post modern then spreading your museum outside of the museum space. One piece of art could make this strip more ped friendly than 95% of denver.

By: greenboy

greenboy — Fri, 01 May 2009 21:17:00 +0000

Jane G. you are so right. Design the building right the first time. It's like suburban homes built in the 60's. It looks to plain…lets tack on some shutters or other gingerbread crap. As for the funtion of the garages we need to add spaces for scooters and Urban(Smart) cars that take half as much space as the big SUV. And bike parking in the Garage.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 01 May 2009 19:54:00 +0000

I think there is a lot of elitist "you should be riding public transit talking" going on here. I couldn't be more thrilled that it works for you. It doesn't for me, I've tried it many ways. Right now top\ get in my car, go to the B-way park and ride and take the light rail downtown costs FAR more money than it should AND time. If I need to go somewhere else in town, then I've got duplicate fares. Yes light rail is great, I voted for more of it. It's a valid first step. The bus arguement is only partly valid. This type of office building and Gates HQ have people coming and going regularly for meeting, etc. This is a sprawled city. That isn't going to change ANYTIME soon no matter how much we want it to. This is not NY, SF, or Chicago nor are we going to be. We're Denver with OUR own set of infrastructure and unique problems.

We've done great things with our downtown over the years. But, recognize reality here too. People need places to park with the way the city is laid out. This is one way to address it.

By: Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall — Fri, 01 May 2009 15:33:00 +0000

"Design Element"…they really should just actually DESIGN the building well instead of dressing it up afterward. Why can't the entire structure be a design element?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 01 May 2009 04:38:00 +0000

1900 16th is a Jekyll and Hyde. the glass side is simple and elegant…until you get to the frumpy concrete base. Then, there is the frumpy concrete back (front) of the building. It is commie block bad. Tryba lost it with that. The garage is just the icing on the ugly side of a cake.

By: FrancoRey

FrancoRey — Fri, 01 May 2009 04:13:00 +0000

Although I think the garage looks a bit bland right now, I think it will look MUCH better once Trammel Crow develops the planned condo tower atop the garage. Let's keep in mind, Trammel could have easily just felt that the garage needed NO ground floor retail, NO metal facade to soften its wall, NO plans for future residential units on top. Then how bad and absurd would we think this garage was? I for one am glad that Trammel Crow at least attempted to integrate a plain old garage to be more utilitarian and mixed use. Once the condo is built on top of this thing, how more different would it be from Spire 10 blocks away? Sure it's not 41 stories, but the condo will make it look as if it was built as a mixed use tower with a garage base.

By: Will

Will — Fri, 01 May 2009 04:08:00 +0000

it needs more planters and green… i know trees aren't completely sprung yet but…. yeah add some green please