Crescent Stonewall Station

[Cadi40]

I hate that they had such a great opportunity to really make an impression of it from the freeway but they decided to make it look bland and make it appear that is was built in 2005. If they added some darker colors, More glass, varying levels, and some splashes of wood it would be one of the best looking apartment buildings in Uptown.

[Hunted]

No texture or depth, whatsoever. Very bland. At least the mildly thick cluster of buildings we’ll have right down the block will make up for it to some degree. As for then, it’ll just be another mass casting a shadow onto Stonewall and marginally contributed to its canyon effect. 

[KJHburg]

Yes it maybe ugly as lead from the freeway but on the street Stonewall side  imagine in just a couple of months people coming in and out of the Whole Foods. Drinking coffee on the patio platform next to the LYNX station.  The way it activates this once totally desolate stretch of street in uptown I am willing to look beyond its is blandness. Maybe not the best looking kid in town but this project will be super impactful.   

[navigator319]

It comes down to the fact that all the stuff we hate and despise 95% of developers simply do not care about.  They get the max ROI they need with the lest risky risk profile .  Just look at the The Mint, Circa, Embassy Suites for other examples.  It is also just as much the City's fault as well as far as I'm concerned. 

[KJHburg]

In other SS news Asana acquires the retail portion of the project and some others Crescent is doing.  https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2017/12/06/asana-partners-to-acquire-retail-portion-of-3.html?ana=e_me_set1&s=newsletter&ed=2017-12-06&u=oAaDx%2B74FoP4qOJ%2By4AU6dhJPpc&t=1512569963&j=79294891

[Spartan]

On 11/2/2017 at 1:53 PM, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

I quite literally hate this building. This is turning out just as badly as I imagined. Its a building of awkward elbows, elevations and overall design. Its an atrocity. I hate superblocks and this is quiet easily the worst offender of a superblock in city history. I don't think a fancy installation can save it.

• I don't think it needed a 1,350 space deck, and even if it did, just bury 3 floors worth the size of the entire site. It gives you so much for flexibility with the site. They could have had their 500 apartments, 90,000 of retail, and 300 hotel rooms, and then way more public space facing stonewall, in addition to the transit plaza. Who else in the country tries to throw all these uses into a massive stick built structure with a small concrete appendage grafted on.
• They proportion of this building is just so ominous and foreboding in stature. Not enough of the building is going to be hidden by equally as ugly hotels. Its just quite simply the worst high rise project in Charlotte history.
• This will be one of the hardest to navigate buildings out there. If you are driving its easy to get to your apartment, if you are walking you have to take dozens of twists and turns, unless you are in the high rise. 
• Its so popular to make fun of things for being beige in Charlotte. Its been written about by every single media outlet in Charlotte, and is all over social media. How can you be so out of touch to just go ahead and make the building beige despite every metric telling you otherwise. I'm starting to wonder if a local company accidentally made 4000% too much beige and is having to sell it at 5 cents on the dollar.

I could continue this rant but I wont. Sorry to my friends at Crescent that will surely read this.

I love that we finally agree on something architectural.

 

On 11/2/2017 at 7:51 PM, Durhamite said:

Down there this weekend, it's big.  I don't have a problem with it but a different color scheme would've nice or solid brick.  Is there a law against using brick in uptown?   I have to agree with the elodrvt guy, Charlotte seems a bit loose with allowing suburban type designs in uptown, especially some of the hotels, however the office buildings seemingly have received better treatment which is a glaring difference.  Uptown should be sacred ground no matter if it takes 100 years to replace urban renewal.   And allowing shoddy backsides on buildings like Trademark should be banned.  I don't think this would've been allowed in Durham, Gboro, Raleigh or Winston.  

I like the way that one side abuts the train station, that's cool and definitely big cityish.  Lol, all that negativity but on a positive note, it's creating density and creating additional vibrancy uptown which is more important than nitpicking about design flaws.  If the city gets dense enough, I don't think anyone will care in 25-30 years.  

I like that big thing though....maybe black and silver (panthers) or hornets green, I'd gone for that look. 

To be fair, this probably wouldn't have been built in Durham, Greensboro, or Raleigh for a multitude of other reasons. 

However, everyone in this city loves contemporary architecture, and this is what contemporary architecture gets you. It's mostly garbage that is masked by shiny glass and flashing lights. In this case, the went with a heavy dose of beige, so combined with the monotony of the design, you get a very unattractive and monstrous building.

 

13 hours ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

It would look better if there were varying elevations and rooflines. If it wasn’t just one blob of windows and balconies it’d be so much better.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Agreed. Also, the term you're looking for is 'articulation.' 

[Scribe]

2 hours ago, KJHburg said:

In other SS news Asana acquires the retail portion of the project and some others Crescent is doing

I think this is huge - since they are that much more motivated to get tenants (they only own the retail portions of the developments)!

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, Scribe said:

I think this is huge - since they are that much more motivated to get tenants (they only own the retail portions of the developments)!

Agreed,  the only way they make money is if Retail is filled. This is a huge win.

 

I can't reply below this @Spartan but you and I agree on a ton, and the main part of it is Quality vs. just building something to build something. We both believe in activated and pedestrian scale spaces, and are very anti superblock. I'm a big fan of classicly styled architecture, but it comes with a price, that most developers are unwilling to pay outside of New York City and Chicago. This is where our differences come together. You don't like Modernism, I love modernism. I don't particularly care for PoMo, you don't seem to be offended by it quite as much as me. We have a lot in common, and just a couple of differences. The meat of it, pedestrian scaling and keeping things from being monotonous are key points we agree on. Funny, I haven't heard from some people since I posted that critique. I just finished an article about Elizabeth Avenue falling behind, maybe its time to write something about how bad Crescent turned out.

1 hour ago, Spartan said:

I love that we finally agree on something architectural.

Edited December 6, 2017 by Guest

[asthasr]

The irritating thing is (and maybe this belongs in "Learning from Other Places" rather than here) is that other cities in other countries get projects of this size that still manage to be less monolithic and boring. I mean, I'm not asking for "The Interlace" in Singapore. Just things that don't look like a Hilton Garden Inn where the plans accidentally got copy and pasted four times on top of each other. I mean, are these fantastic? No. But they're functional and good looking. Don't even bother looking at the new Duo Residences...

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, asthasr said:

The irritating thing is (and maybe this belongs in "Learning from Other Places" rather than here) is that other cities in other countries get projects of this size that still manage to be less monolithic and boring. I mean, I'm not asking for "The Interlace" in Singapore. Just things that don't look like a Hilton Garden Inn where the plans accidentally got copy and pasted four times on top of each other. I mean, are these fantastic? No. But they're functional and good looking. Don't even bother looking at the new Duo Residences...

See, I hate everything you just posted lol. I know this block has a huge impediment, being 277, and there is no way to integrate a solid street system into it, but I think this could have been 4 standalone buildings with proper pedestrian integration, and buried parking, cost be damned, these guys are going to make serious profit no matter what.

[asthasr]

4 minutes ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

See, I hate everything you just posted lol.

Well, Singapore has its own style. I'm not saying those buildings exactly would work here... but buildings with visual interest on par with them would.

(Singapore does not really build street-level interest into its residential buildings. The transit--subway and bus--is so ubiquitous and cheap that it's easy to go to one of the central areas or malls if you want to, and that's what most people seem to do. Charlotte does not have that luxury.)

[15895]

Im not sure I’d want Asana controlling the Retail space at Legacy. Do they have the relationship to bring in any national retailers? 

There are only so many “local retailers” (aka restaraunts) to fill all that space up. 

[KJHburg]

I am not sure where this came from about Asana working with Lincoln  Harris at Legacy.  LH is attracting national and local retailers right now to the Rea Farms Village and is doing a complete makeover of Phillips Place.  They have quite of bit of experience with retailers national and local.  

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

I am not sure where this came from about Asana working with Lincoln  Harris at Legacy.  LH is attracting national and local retailers right now to the Rea Farms Village and is doing a complete makeover of Phillips Place.  They have quite of bit of experience with retailers national and local.  

That's a fair point, but I love the idea of a company who's livelyhood relies on them filling these spaces vs. Lincoln Harris who is going to make a profit on the larger aspects of the development. Theres a decent amount of vacant space around uptown that just doesn't get leased because I don't feel its the company who owns the buildings prerogative to fill them.

Edited December 6, 2017 by Guest

[navigator319]

14 minutes ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

That's a fair point, but I love the idea of a company who's livelyhood relies on them filling these spaces vs. Lincoln Harris who is going to make a profit on the larger aspects of the development. Theres a decent amount of vacant space around uptown that just doesn't get leased because I don't feel its the company who owns the buildings prerogative to fill them.

Example of this that comes to mind are the two spots in the The Mint.  Or many anything does not want to be associated with that giant turd of something new.

[kermit]

2 hours ago, navigator319 said:

Example of this that comes to mind are the two spots in the The Mint.  Or many anything does not want to be associated with that giant turd of something new.

There is a TON of vacant small-scale retail space in Southend and Uptown that remains vacant. Its mostly in the bottom of parking decks (such as the Y's new deck on Caldwell behind Joe and Nosh and perhaps the deck beside the railtrail adjacent to Spring Hill Suites). I suspect the amount of space being created by zoning requirements has eclipsed the demand for this space thanks to the retail culture of Charlotte -- we just don't have much recent history of small-scale, walk-up, neighborhood-oriented businesses  so there are very few tenants lining up for the space. I also suspect that the spaces are so small that its not really worth the owner/managers time to aggressively market the properties given their size (as RDF suggests above).

I do think that once a few of these spaces gain some traction and reputational visibility that demand will rapidly increase. Hopefully Asana's ownership interest and focus can generate the necessary marketing muscle to get some of these spaces filled.   As said before, I really wish that either property owners or organizations like CCCP would aggressively subsidize these spaces to attract a critical mass of first wave tenants. I think it would be money well spent.

Edited December 6, 2017 by kermit

[KJHburg]

The problem with uptown retail is pricing. Most owners want $30-40 per square foot. That is hard for any retailer other than national retailers or restaurants high volume places. In perspective this among the most expensive retail space in town rivaling what SouthPark and Concord Mills charge.   This would be my idea to entice lower rents is to lower tax values on the retail portions of the office tower to offer lower rents but if only they do this and can prove it. the corner across from Ink and Ivy is charging $40 a square foot for that space.  That is why there is so much vacant  space the numbers don't work for most retailers except food places. 

[Guest]

So I know I've said this before, but I've started writing again. I just turned in a piece about Elizabeth Avenue falling by the wayside as the rest of the city blossoms. I think my next piece is going to be about how bad this building is. What are some details you would like seen in this article?

[KJHburg]

^^^ I disagree my friend for it will activate an area of uptown that is not pedestrian friendly and will help the convention center by having the Whole Foods (with dining options) and additional hotels nearby.  And you can quote me on that! 

 Photos from today of uptown's most talked about project and yes the crane base is in for the Home2Suites.  

[asthasr]

41 minutes ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

So I know I've said this before, but I've started writing again. I just turned in a piece about Elizabeth Avenue falling by the wayside as the rest of the city blossoms. I think my next piece is going to be about how bad this building is. What are some details you would like seen in this article?

It's simply too big. It's massive. It's 15 balconies (units?) wide on the 277 side. There's no vertical breaks: no changes in material, no different colors, just that beige institutional brick. It gives the feeling of a hospital.

I'm not one for overly complex roof designs or anything like that, but coherent vertical elements (besides the hideous gutters!), darker colors, casement rather than sash windows (to eliminate some of the busy-ness) would have helped. Being a floor shorter (if it had to be this wide) would've helped. Being narrower and a couple of floors taller would have helped. Having balconies set "into" the structure instead of protruding would've helped.

[kermit]

^ agree. The Soviet-style massing really puts me off.

[Hunted]

100% agree, asthasr.

[KJHburg]

Believe me this is no Soviet style blocks as my brother lived in one in Kazakhstan I will have to find the photo do you show you what it really looks like. 

[jjwilli]

Not exactly related to the building but that pedestrian bridge across 277 on the light rail trail would be nice.

[KJHburg]

One more of the top part of the Whole Foods with outside cafe area. Today.