KCRag Forum

BVC wrote: ...or to the south of 670

Hey!  That's my house!

kcdcchef wrote: i lived in the mecca of all that is good in urban planning, new york city, and there are blocks all over manhattan island that have tall office towers with ground level NOTHING. so save it.

those are almost universally seen as mistakes.  Jane Jacobs (the "patron saint" of vibrant street level planning) based her book (The Death and Life of Great American Cities) largely on what she could see worked and failed in New York City.

GLASS TOWERZ

Tall glass towers don't have to ruin the fabric of the street activity or create dead zones. The problem is building towers with huge lobbies that take up the entire ground floor and are mostly empty.  The solution is to have a small lobby and place retail spaces on the street frontages.

I personally hate modern-style buildings that have these minimalist cavernous lobbies with a sole security guard sitting at a command post.  I much prefer the smaller art deco style corridor lobbies that at least have a lot of eye candy to look at while one is waiting for the elevator.

The other problem with modern buildings with too large lobbies that occupy the entire ground floor is that the street has been robbed of the former retail buildings that existed before, and space that wasn't replaced.

Sounds like you are talking about dt dallas.