Fuss & O’Neill
Transparent glass will cover the seven-to-10-story building. The sidewalk will extend 25 feet from the buildling to curb, with a thick buffer of street trees. A restaurant with inviting umbrellas will bloom in an “oasis” with surrounding plazas.
Those details emerged before an audience of 40 people in the community room of the Wilson Branch Library in the Hill Tuesday night. Developer Carter Winstanley and city officials revealed the latest plans for 100 College Street, the anchor building for the first phase of the Downtown Crossing.
Proponents said the $140 million project seeks to repair the scar of 1960s misguided urban renewal. The aim is to fill in the highway canyon at grade, eliminating Exits Two and Three, creating two “boulevards” of three to four lanes on the Frontage roads including some sections with bicycle paths and pedestrian amenities. In subsequent phases the full build-out calls for street life to emerge connecting downtown, Union Station, and the medical district.
This effort will create four parcels for development for a total of ten acres; 100 College will rise on the first parcel.
Click here for a story on a previous briefing Winstanley gave to a handful of skeptical aldermen.
And here for a story in which aldermen, job-seekers, and cyclists debate a resolution urging the city to reduce from four to two the lanes of the Frontage roads that surround 100 College.
Proposed footprint of building and surrounding plazas
Winstanley and city officials made their presentation Tuesday as they ready three crucial pieces of the project to bring before the Board of Aldermen for approval on Oct. 24: a development agreement, a zoning change, and a transfer of land.
Winstanley and city Economic Development Administrator Murphy said the development agreement will require a minimum building of 225,000 square feet. If the project goes from seven to ten stories, it could max out at 450,000 square feet.
100 College seen from the southeast corner.
Winstanley’s architect, John Marti,n said that If it’s a lab building at ten stories, with 14 feet six inches from floor to floor, the “mechanical penthouse” at the top will in effect make the building rise some 50 feet higher than Winstanley’s 300 George Street. The overflow at that nearby complex helped spur the 100 College project.
“The east facing facade is all clad in glass,” Martin said of the 100 College design. “That’s a benefit to tenants allowing daylight in but allowing light and activity to spill onto Collge to make it safe. It won’t be opaque but transparent, creating a public realm welcoming any time of the day.”
Winstanley and architect John Martin.
All service access locations are beneath grade. All four sides are pedestrian friendly, Martin added.
Engineer Ted DeSantos, from the Fuss&Oneill firm, said that in addition to the main east-facing entrance on College, the building will have an entrance on the west side, in the plaza area between the building and its garage. The garage will rise not quite as high as the building.
DeSantos said that the plaza on the front, the eastern side with the main lobby, will stretch 25 feet from facade to curb. In the back, the west side, the plaza between the building and garage, will be even wider, at 35 feet. The walkway on North Frontage Road will vary from 15 to 25 feet and on South Frontage from 20 to 30 feet.
People would access the plaza from both Frontage roads via a set of steps. That’s because the two roads dip and drop off at different levels, while the building and its two plazas are conceived at being at the same grade.
DeSantos said 15 steps would connect the complex to South Frontage Road, eight steps to North Frontage.
A Cabbie Raises Questions
(r-l) Antoine Scott (at right) with Mike Pisciteli (left) & Ted DeSantos.
One member of the public attendance, Antoine Scott, said he was impressed with the Downtown Crossing plan. But he questioned the premise that traffic coming in on the flyway of I‑95 and I‑91 could be distributed according to the plan without significant congestion.
Deputy Economic Development Director Mike Piscitelli responded that traffic coming in would self-distribute. Some would spill onto Orange Street to go to Union Station. Some drivers would head straight ahead via the underground roads into the garages. A third set of drivers would head straight ahead to Church Street toward, for example, Gateway Community College.
“As someone who drives for a living, if you come in off the flyway at peak time, you’re not going to be able to get over,” said Scott, who drives a cab.
Refocusing on 100 College, Ben Northrup, one of those project’s critics, complimented Winstanley’s intentions. He questioned whether the street life, particularly at the key south east corner, would be as lively as it might be.
“We’re building into the agreement active street life, transparent glass,” as well as requiring the provision of signage to attract tenants and customers,” Kelly Murphy repsonded.
WinstanleyStadium?
Antoine Scott asked Winstanley whether he might want to build a baseball stadium near 100 College to keep the commuting workers downtown in the evening.
“I’m not going to tackle putting a ballpark downtown, but in all our projects we try to keep people downtown,” Winstanley replied.
Northrup suggested Winstanley would give people more reason to walk downtown if he placed the parking farther from his building.
“We tucked the garage behind the building so it’s visually not upsetting,” Winstanley responded. “The first project can’t have the garage in another location.”
The Board of Aldermen’s Community Development Committee Thursday evening will consider a resolution to reduce the size of the planned Frontage Roads as part of Downtown Crossing.
What does a baseball stadium have to do with anything? The Ravens and the Cutters both failed because of little attendance, and if we'd have a stadium, we'd just have another useless building to demolish in the future.
Why not a convention center?