New Haven Independent

Posted by: Edgehood | December 12, 2009 3:36 PM

More local jobs, a 'smart building' that is less polluting, a healthy grocery store and (another) bike shop downtown...thats progress...!!

Posted by: Jonathan Hopkins | December 12, 2009 6:19 PM

The proportioning of the base of this building (the first 5 stories) relates fairly well with the scale of the surrounding blocks. It would have been nice if this site were divided into several smaller lots, but the footprint of the building isn't that bad. If the floors immediately above the ground level were occupiable office of living space, this would actually be a very nice building. The diversity of material, ornament, and color on the facade is interesting (in the renderings that have been provided) and it seems like pedestrians will be reasonably happy along Chapel Street.
However, the State Street facade of this building is probably the worst thing to happen to the city and urbanism in general since urban renewal. The ridiculous curb cut for the tunnel should have been gotten rid of not 'improved'. This facade really highlights the absurdly disproportionate tower and its poorly executed connection to the base. The tower itself is more out of place than the CT Financial Plaza; and speaking of plazas, the facade facing the Pitkin Plaza is sure to be horrendous and destructive to the intimate nature of the space.
LEED represents what should be a bare minimum standard, not something to aspire to. Recently a study was conducted on the efficiency of LEED certified buildings. It was found that the overwhelming majority of the buildings run no more efficiently than comparable buildings that don't have LEED certification, and a few actually run less efficiently than the average building of its size. This has happened mainly because people tend to use buildings somewhat (or completely) differently than the architect intends, and as a result what is drawn on paper often does not translate to reality. The other problem with LEED is that it consists of documents of enormous size and complexity. And another problem is that it costs an unbelievable amount of money to get someone to check your design to make sure its 'efficient', sometimes this check costs more than entire design fees.
We cannot have an architecture defined by astronomical and monumental scale while trying to live more efficient, healthy, modest and contributive lives; it is contradictory.
The city gave this building huge tax breaks and ridiculous incentives, and in return this building will take away public space by shrinking the sidewalk in order to fit the building, while privatizing important open space by sticking it on the roof. This building sucks; this site had a lot of potential, the base of the building had a lot of potential, but a pack of idiots has destroyed this by continuing and pursuing a destructive architecture, design and urban planning policy that mutilates already struggling urban places while masking it with fake environmentalism that is backed up by a broken LEED standard. A lot of people deserved to get punched in the face for this.

We live in a country that requires not only continued growth, but a growth in the rate of growth in order to maintain our standard of living. Prior to WW2 construction workers were basically the working poor; they lived job to job just to put food on the table, and they had hardly anything to show for it. After WW2, the federal government ordered the construction of new homes-500,000 in 1946, 1,000,000 in 1947, 1,000,000 in 1948, and so on. These homes represent the beginning of suburban sprawl-they are laid out on windy streets and are only accessed by private automobile (on an entirely public road infrastructure that only certain people use). This allowed the working poor construction workers (pipe fitters, sheet rock layers, etc) to move up to the middle class. In order to maintain this our country will have to continue to grow, because if we don't, then we cannot maintain a high standard of living for an enormous number of people, which is politically bad. We have given ourselves an illogical living arrangement that costs more and more money each year to maintain, improve, rebuild and continue, which is why we cannot simply just grow, but we must grow our rate of growth as well, which is impossible to sustain. In order to solve this problem, the federal government must step in to reverse what it did post WW2, by investing enormous amounts of capital, resources, time, energy, everything into reorganizing the country into a sensible living arrangement that does not cost more and more money each year to maintain. This needs to happen so that when rapid growth eventually becomes impossible because there's no space, or no money, or no energy, or too much global competition that increases the price of everything, or whatever, the construction workers, like these, and everyone else will be okay. When we are unable to erect buildings at the rate we currently do, and we make no changes in our living arrangement, guess who gets hurt? These construction workers. We owe it to them, and ourselves to make it so that it is affordable to live with a decent standard of living and have a great quality of life even after our economy hits an inevitable and unending slow down.

Posted by: resident | December 12, 2009 7:14 PM

The building looks awesome so far. Congratulations everyone.

Posted by: Pioneer | December 13, 2009 9:23 AM

I really wish some events like this would get publicized a bit more. I would have wanted to go to this, but I had no clue it was happening.

Posted by: Pedro | December 13, 2009 8:29 PM

Johnathan, I agree with a few of your comments, and you have a pretty large amount written, that I can't respond to in full, so I just want to respond to a few points I take issue with.

David Owen, who writes for the New Yorker, has a very compelling argument to make that New York city may in fact be the greenest city in the United States. His stated reason is that the density and scale compel and assist a person in living a far more efficient and scaled-down lifestyle than they would in a less packed-in environment. He implores cities to look for projects with scale and density, since those very projects will draw people out of attached homes and into more sensible living arrangements and a much smaller carbon footprint.

By packing 500 apartment units and perhaps 750 or more people into this block, 360 State is going to help transform this part of town by increasing the population of downtown and Wooster Square by almost a third, doing so while being vertically oriented, saving space for other structures to be built in the barren lots.

Yes, I think that the parking deck is problematic. I would have much preferred a more creative solution of parking, perhaps wrapping the front of the building, even if the structure would have been taller, or going underground as much as possible.

I'm not going to argue aesthetics or appropriateness, as you have taken clear positions on this matter, but I think that this project is going to be a substantial positive for the city, and hopefully encourage development of the surrounding area.

State Street used to be a thriving commercial corridor with beautiful buildings. I think it can return to being that in the future, and having a large-scaled project like this as an anchor will hopefully help.

Posted by: Jonathan Hopkins | December 14, 2009 11:26 AM

Pedro,
To me, that seems like urban renewal era thinking. If we build a massive tower, development will quickly follow and we'll have New York-style activity. If New Haven were first laid out with the CT Financial tower, Bella Vista, the bank buildings, Crawford Manor and Klein tower, would we have any dense walkable streets lined with businesses? The low scale densification common in old towns and cities represented in tree lined streets that make walkable distances pleasant is something we should strive for first; then if demand allows it we can build vertically. I also feel that a metropolis like NYC has little place in a discussion about an old New England town.

My comments on green architecture were merely to discuss the absurdity of LEED (and green architecture thinking in general) and how this is not something to praise or help us accept things that are awful. Another example, LEED standards can be applied to megamalls. LEED basically only requires the use of expensive gizmos and gadgets and deals little with actual design practices. LEED should spend its time going after specific trends in bad design by promoting good design. We should not have malls (and other large scale buildings with lots of underused space) in this country that require the heating, cooling and ventilation of massive amounts of underused interior square footage, we should have tree lines streets with close 2-5 story buildings with ground level retail. The things to take away from New York is walkability; this quality is not directly connected to vertical density. New Haven is an extremely walkable city, its just that very few people do so because of horrific urban design like 360 State. Yes, walkability should be our focus, but vertical density need not be a large part or even a small part of the solution, transition , change, whatever we call our movement to more sensible living arrangements.

You do make good points and perhaps neither one of us is right or wrong, this may simply be differing opinions.

Posted by: FanOf360 | December 15, 2009 12:33 AM

Jonathan, I am someone that might agree with you on a few things but I think you are way off base re this building.. Some of your points on green building, what ideal urban landscape should look like, etc are valid but most of them dont relate to 360 state or this article. Personally, I think this building looks great. It is nicely spaced apart with the other tall buildings, it is uniquely shaped and has nice, big windows. Yes, from a visual aspect only, it would be nice if they didn't have parking in levels 2-6, or not at all, but lets be realistic. People do drive cars (hopefully car use will decrease in the future and they will continue to become more efficient but that is another story). You cant have 500 luxury apartments and no place to park - the building would be empty. The grocery store/bike shop/etc on the 1st floor will be fantastic for the area. The people living in this building will add lots of pedestrian traffic to that part of town, making it more vibrant and safer. I think the building is a great asset to the city. Its a lot better than the dirt parking lot that was there before it.