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Residence Inn Progress


kjice2

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There is a residence Inn with somewhat similar features as this one on P St. near Dupont Circle. This area is definately transitional between Downtown and Georgetown. Maybe its me but the rendering so far does not look that bad. Of course as the design progresses it will change and I hope for the better. I agree erdogs this Hotel is perfect for the new area popping up between Downtown, Ghent and Freemason.

This minor development (9 stories) is nonetheless exciting because there is no city subsidy and a developer is using their own money to finance and build a new hotel in the "Uptown" or near Downtown or whatever this area becomes. This is really exciting!

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As far as the Residence Inn in Dupont Circle is concerned, I watched it being built over a period of months. The rooms are OK, and they have a halfway decent restaurant, but the building itself is awful. While it has the notes and the words (decent fenestration, meets the street acceptably, proper height requirements, etc.) it hasn't got the music. It's a cheap building and its cheapness is bred to the bone. One could say that this doesn't matter, as it's a "background building." I'd counter by offering that it has a prominent location and adds little to the streetscape. It gets by architecturally, but only by the skin of its Tyvek.

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well, I guess the bigger question is why is there container traffic going down that street to begin with? Are they going down Hampton from NIT, then east on Brambleton to get to 264? That is crazy, when they can just go east on International to 264. Are they going from PIT, through the Midtown to 264?

Insane to use tax dollars on a luxury like this. If truck traffic is the problem, then just bar truck traffic on Brambleton. You can make the case that there has to be container traffic on Hampton between NIT and PIT -- no such case for container traffic on Brambleton. What's next -- bridges across Hampton Blvd. for ODU students?

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Great to see this coming. I just wish they went for a 10th floor at least to make it double-digit. Design is ok. I like the glass but I'm hoping the concrete has a different color choice or maybe some highlights of another color or the addition of some ornamental type design. Other than that it's cool so long as it doesn't look tacky for being on a narrow and odd shaped plot.

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I think that with some metallic curtain wall facade treatments, this thing would actually look really hot.

Current rendering with salmon-colored EIFS facade...

639677745_fa3bfeef95_o_d.jpg

Imagine the glass on the upper portion of the rendering remaining, with this type of facade below...

img4909cq2.jpg

SA700887.jpg

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A celebrated Days Inn, by Renzo Piano? That would be both wacky and wonderful. The NYTimes building really grew on me. At first I thought it was looking like an elephant with trusses. Finishing up the top really pulled it all together.
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Yes, and Norfolk needs something interesting like that downtown. There's a little too much faux-tradition lately, but people find that comforting, especially in residential buildings. I was hoping that the Wachovia project might break away from convention, but it doesn't look that way so far.

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Yes, and Norfolk needs something interesting like that downtown. There's a little too much faux-tradition lately, but people find that comforting, especially in residential buildings. I was hoping that the Wachovia project might break away from convention, but it doesn't look that way so far.
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I never really had any beef with the Hilton design. I actually think it looks good on the rendering, though I recognize that in real life it may translate into something quite bland. Don't let the angle of the rendering fool you, the base on the Hilton will be wider than Trader. I'm afraid it will look quite blocky when all is said and done.
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Wachovia is pretty good, just not groundbreaking or very pretty (yet). It's another 300 foot box in a cluster of 300 foot boxes, with some ungainly chamfers along the tower sides and a huge sign emblazoned on the roof. The design firm does some really great work, I just don't think they've nailed this one down yet. I think they'll improve it a bit. Hopefully they will be able to push it up too, although that's not the most important thing. I think they may have fenced themselves in a bit with a desire to integrate townhome style design at the base with the office tower emerging from the base. Fort Norfolk is the extreme example of what happens when one building tries too hard to be several. Mixed use is a mixed blessing-- a real challenge.

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A little update. A blurb in a wvec article has narrowed the construction start date down to September. That's not that far away. I'm really starting to think that what you see is what you get as far as design goes.

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Just to clarify. That start date is for Residence Inn not Wachovia. Wachovia starts in spring of next year. That said, we will still see all three rise simultaneously, along with Hilton, Belmont, and light rail. The progress threads are going to be busy. :camera:
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