moderne wrote:The parking garage is very much smaller and less obtrusive than the giant cavernous Hallmark garage across the street. The setback on Gillham may be for continuity with the setback of the Hallmark and Crown Center buildings to the north. Sorta reminds be of the setback from the street of the apartment buildings on Gillham. Gives much more the feeling of an European Blvd. I like retail on McGee as this could be a nice pedestrian street more than Gillham, the angle makes it a more direct path from the south to CC. The buildings themselves almost look like the same 1976 era of San Francisco Tower.
I'm guessing the parking garage placement might have to do with the need for future replacement. It appears to be a completely separate structure--independent of the apartment buildings. They appear to have chosen not to put all the parking underground to save money. You could completely hide the parking if you excavated the grade closest to Gillham down several levels and built the east wing of apartments atop the garage.
There is a trade-off here. Putting the garage completely underground and building apartments on top of it is more expensive because you have to excavate the grade. However, it also protects the garage structure from degradation from weather. The building on top of it protects it.
Unless an above-grade garage is maintained well, the decks can degrade over time from freezing and water damage. Several garages have been demolished for this reason.
Building a separate above-grade garage is cheaper, but it is vulnerable to weather, which means it might need to be replaced at some point. Buiding a separate parking structure that is not integrated with any of the other buildings means they can do this in the future.
I believe one of the earlier development drawings for Crown Center included adding apartments on the north side of 27th Street that would have concealed the exposure of the mammoth garage. I don't know if this is still the goal. If it is, it would hide that garage and create a nicer facade along 27th Street. In that case, having another garage across the street would seem to detract from the general aesthetic they might be attempting to accomplish.
Below is a previous illustration of a plan Goody-Clancy Architecture did awhile back that shows plans for buildings along that narrow strip between the garage and 27th Street.
This image shows a building (on the right) that appears to be planned for the narrow strip of land up against the Hallmark garage on the north side of the street. The cross street is McGee.
If that is Crown Center/Hallmark's eventual plan, it would seem to me that there should have been a coherent overall design plan that the developers of this apartment complex should have had to adhere to--as part of the sale--meaning they couldn't place a garage facade fronting the street. From earlier redevelopment drawings for the south part of Crown Center, it seemed to me that lessons had been learned about improving their property. That included creating nice pedestrian oriented streets and hiding garages,
From my own critical viewpoint, the designers of Crown Center failed to create a successful pedestrian environment pleasing to human activity in the original phases of the development. The frontages along Grand and Pershing fail in that respect. The stretch of Grand south of the Crown Center shops entrances to 27th Street is a disaster. It doesn't create that pedestrian activity and cohesion. J.C. Nichols created a better mixed use development with the Country Club Plaza.
The Goody-Clancy drawings appeared to be an attempt to remedy some of the problems with the development.