15 replies to this topic

[orulz]

Caught this on the HRC agenda:

Quote

Biltmore Village
Brook St.                             demolish 5 non-historic structures on north side of street    
Brook St.                             construct new mixed retail/office building

Wonder what 5 structures they're talking about, and what this retail/office building to replace them will look like.

[rooster8]

If I'm not mistaken, this is near the old depot across the street from the village proper.  There are some scruffy looking buildings in this strip.  Anything they do will definitely be an upgrade.

[orulz]

Agreed. I go to La Paz with my parents pretty often when I'm in town (it's their favorite restaurant) and there certainly are a lot of ... scruffy buildings around there. A bit further east at the intersection of Sweeten Creek and Fairview Road, there's a pretty new two-story building ("Biltmore Courtyard") that follows the architectural guidelines for BV. Beyond there the area takes on the character of an outdated but still active industrial area pretty quickly.

It would be nice if this new office/retail project can extend the "village core" further down Sweeten Creek, linking it with that existing building built a couple years ago and beyond.

I hope they do a good job of building something that works well with BV. I'm not the hugest fan of some of the recent construction in BV - the McDonalds and Hardees look kinda nice as buildings, but they're still surrounded by moats of parking. Biltmore Courtyard is OK, don't like the surface parking ... no big deal - but it's not well integrated with the rest of BV. Hopefully that will change. The New Morning Gallery did a pretty good job with their expansion, though. I'm also interested to see how the two planned hotels (on the Exxon site and the old Plaza Motel site) fit in with the context.

[rooster8]

I guess they've gotten the historical character part covered, now they need to work on the urbanity.

[hauntedheadnc]

http://www.citizen-t...D=2006612240302

More news about this project.  Be sure to look at the PDF depicting the before and after view of Brook Street.  My new favorite saying, "Frickin' Sweet!" more than applies in this situation.

[orulz]

Agreed - that's a pretty big change for the area. The building has parking below it. Rather than being completely below grade with the retail at ground level, the retail floor appears to lie on a pedastal, about 6 feet above ground level. I guess that will raise the floor of the retail units out of the 100-year flood plain. It would be nice to have the retail units open up to the actual sidewalk (as with most historic units in BV). The pedastal is OK - but the building is very wide and appears to hold a LOT of retail units, so I think they need more than just the four staircases depicted in the rendering. One staircase for each retail unit would be great!

[otis-t]

This is an excellent spot for redevelopment, but I’m not so crazy about the Mock Tudor architectural style or the outsized scale of the proposed building. I suppose that the varied roofline is supposed to break up the mass. I know that it’s an early rendering, but it looks like, well, the same phony half-timbered gable was cut and pasted and stretched to fill the required length.

The beauty of Biltmore Village is in the finely crafted details and hierarchical scale of Richard Morris Hunt’s church and Richard Sharpe Smith’s cottages. The church was the tallest and largest building, and the cottages all of modest human scale. Recent infill such as the new Hardee’s and McDonalds make a bow to Smith’s cottage style, but are ridiculously supersized, cottage style on steroids.

Apparently, we used to get better infill design. There are some terrific (and larger) buildings in the Village that postdate Smith and Sharpe. The old Biltmore-Oteen Bank (Neoclassical), the old Clarence Barker hospital (Art Deco), and the building that houses the New Morning Gallery (early 20th c. commercial with later alterations) make no attempt to reference the cottage style, and represent styles characteristic of the time they were built. They are appropriately scaled and do not convey a false historicism. The many infill banks in Biltmore Village – especially the Credit Union, Wachovia, and SunTrust, also make no reference to the cottage style, but their diminutive size and sympathetic construction materials quietly complement the Village’s main attractions – the authentic church and cottages.

I hope that historic district design guidelines are not limiting the imaginations of the developer and architects. The new building as rendered conveys little of the thoughtful application of historic styles, attention to scale, or the craftsmanship present elsewhere in the Village.

[orulz]

Great post. You bring up some good points.

I'm far from an architectural critic, but I too wonder how the recent and upcoming infill in Biltmore Village will stand the test of time. Biltmore Plaza (the most recent new construction infill development) is very similar architecturally to this new proposal, only smaller in scale. Biltmore Plaza feels out of scale and somehow out of touch with the rest of the village.

A challenge for all infill in Biltmore Village is maintaing pedestrian focus and human scale, while at the same time raising the bottom floor of every new building six feet above ground level to bring it out of the floodplain. I agree with you that this building (and, similarly, Biltmore Plaza) do a mediocre job at this.

I'm curious what you think of the other major infill project coming up in BV - Kessler's Asheville Mansion hotel. It will clearly be larger than All Souls, and in a very prominent location, but is subordination in scale to the church something that needs to be maintained for all eternity? It would seem to me that a relatively massive building is needed to stand up to the wide and busy roads that surround this project on three sides. Architecturally the building is still a mixed bag of false historicism, but the renderings show a greater level of detail and authenticity than does either Brook Street project. To my uneducated eyes, Asheville Mansion seems closer to an inn found in a village in the French countryside, rather than a supersized Tudor-style cottage.

Edited by orulz, 27 December 2006 - 01:21 PM.

[otis-t]

The hotel is much more thoughtfully rendered that the proposed commercial development! It shows many visual references to the church, Biltmore Estate Gatehouse, and the Biltmore Office Building in the Village (all R. M. Hunt buildings) – the architect is actually looking around and understands what building materials and motifs to emulate – roof pitch, brick and wood detailing, varied and rhythmic massing, etc.
I agree that a large mass of the hotel on that island will better balance the surrounding development. But I would argue that the church is among Asheville’s greatest buildings, and has already suffered the indignity of Biltmore Avenue almost taking out part of its hindquarters. Let its spire reign as the tallest point around! (This said by someone oblivious to the number crunching that dictates new building volume.)

[orulz]

otis-t, on Dec 27 2006, 03:29 PM, said:

But I would argue that the church is among Asheville’s greatest buildings, and has already suffered the indignity of Biltmore Avenue almost taking out part of its hindquarters. Let its spire reign as the tallest point around!

I'm pretty certain this new hotel will be lower than the steeple on All Souls Episcopal. It's just that from a volume standpoint, this building will be much larger than the church (though still much smaller than the TGIF/Doubletree). I don't see Asheville Mansion's size as a problem, nor did city council or the HRC.

About Biltmore Avenue. Why didn't the city (or DOT - or whoever owned the road at the time) widen Biltmore Avenue more to the west rather than grazing the corner of All Souls? That widening was done well before I moved to Asheville (1986). Wonder if they could get away with a three-lane design there to undo some of the damage.

There's another hotel in the cards for Biltmore Village, on the site of the old Plaza Motel. Haven't seen a design for that one yet, but it went back before the HRC sometime last month.

I'd also like to see something built on the parking lots next to the old Biltmore Hardware building, and on the lot that used to be Pedro's Porch. More on-street parking, and perhaps a parking deck at the future train station can replace the lost parking spaces. (The train station will be on the other side of the tracks, near the old Lowe's, but there's supposed to be a pedestrian walkway over the tracks into the village proper.)

[otis-t]

I don't know for sure, but I think the road crept up on All Souls' Church before any historic district regulations were in place to prevent it (pre-late 1970s/early 1980s). I've seen an undated photo that shows a row of trees between the church and road. It would be great to recover a little churchyard as a buffer for the building.

I hadn't heard about the new train station -- what's the timeline for that project? Speaking of pedestrian bridges, what could be done to improve pedestrian access across McDowell @ the Biltmore Estate entrance? It is extremely unpleasant to walk there, and with a new hotel coming in on the west side, there will be a greater need for pedestrian comfort/safety.

[orulz]

otis-t, on Dec 28 2006, 12:27 PM, said:

I hadn't heard about the new train station -- what's the timeline for that project?

This train station could be built any time; the property is already acquired jointly by NCDOT and the city of Asheville. I'm not sure of the timeline - it's been "two years from now" for the past ten years. The train station has wiggled itself into NCDOT's latest TIP (P-3804) though the project is unfunded.

It's quite likely that the station will be built well before trains can actually stop there. Norfolk Southern, who owns the rail lines between Salisbury and Asheville, have a list of improvements almost $140 million long that they're demanding before they'll allow four passenger trains per day to traverse their tracks.

Quote

Speaking of pedestrian bridges, what could be done to improve pedestrian access across McDowell @ the Biltmore Estate entrance? It is extremely unpleasant to walk there, and with a new hotel coming in on the west side, there will be a greater need for pedestrian comfort/safety.

You're absolutely right about pedestrian improvements, though I think a pedestrian bridge is far from necessary. It would be an eyesore, and people would sooner jaywalk against a red light than climb stairs to go over that street. Here are my suggested improvements:

1. Sidewalks were there are none, and wider sidewalks where they exist but are inadequate. Street trees, planters, and benches would also be nice, though not necessary.

2. Better crosswalks, all corners of each intersection.
Zebra stripes, or better yet, pavers of some sort. Or for something different, that funky hexagonal pattern at Haywood & Battery Park downtown.

3. Better signals with better timing.
New, bright LED stoplights for cars; LED signals with countdowns for pedestrians, timed such that they do not require a pushbutton to activate, and will allow pedestrians to cross during every cycle. (even in the middle of the night - just like downtown).

If McDowell were a city street, all three items above should be no problem. But since McDowell is an NCDOT highway - a signed, major US route at that - getting the signals timed in any way that diminishes vehicular capacity would require an act of Congress (or the MPO, at least.)

But all of this is less is still less than the red tape of building a pedestrian bridge, and will result in a far more attractive streetscape. Short of a freeway or an expressway, I've never seen a 5-lane road that really needs a bridge to make pedestrians feel safe.



While we're at it I'd also like to see the intersection at Biltmore & Brook improved as above, as well as the 5-way intersection at Vanderbilt, McDowell, Biltmore, All Souls, and Hendersonville.

It would be really great if there could be a new signalized intersection installed at Angle Street on both Biltmore and McDowell. Unfortunately, NCDOT's "1000 foot" rule would prevent this. The 1000 foot rule states that no two traffic signals shall be closer than 1000 feet. As I eluded before, The DOT's inflexibility is notorious - this "1000 foot rule" applies in downtown Raleigh just the same as it applies in the middle of rural Yancey county. The only exceptions to this rule that I've seen are places where signals are grandfathered in, and there are plenty of examples where 'grandfathered' signals have been ripped out at a later date.

[orulz]

orulz, on Dec 28 2006, 11:57 AM, said:

I'd also like to see something built ... on the lot that used to be Pedro's Porch.

No sooner did I say it, then, lo and behold, on the January 10th HRC agenda:

Quote

Biltmore Village

           11 Lodge St.                           demolish former Pedro’s Porch building


Preliminary Review

           11 Lodge St.                            new 2 ½ story hotel annex

Looks like Kessler wants to redevelop the Pedro's Porch lot as well! Good news, good news! This is a small, underutilized lot in a prime location. I was worried that this lot would go untouched, too small or difficult for a modern developer to turn a profit. Thankfully, I was wrong.

[Lootles]

orulz, on Dec 28 2006, 04:10 PM, said:

No sooner did I say it, then, lo and behold, on the January 10th HRC agenda:
Looks like Kessler wants to redevelop the Pedro's Porch lot as well! Good news, good news! This is a small, underutilized lot in a prime location. I was worried that this lot would go untouched, too small or difficult for a modern developer to turn a profit. Thankfully, I was wrong.

Annex to what hotel, I wonder?  The new one yet to be built across the street?

[orulz]

^ That's my assumption, as there are no other hotels nearby.

[rooster8]

Pics of the new development:



You can see the stucco in this shot:



I think I would have preferred several smaller buildings instead of the one long strip mall.  I also think the shingles really cheap.  Real slate or another more permanent material would have been nice.

Edited by rooster8, 12 January 2008 - 05:11 PM.