[the Genral]

And in defense of Gensler, they seem to deliver what their clients want. I bet if Virgin decides to come to Austin and asked Gensler to design their Hotel, there wouldn't be as many constraints that cause a good design group like Gensler to make so many concessions, such as the covering on the parking pedestal of 3rd & Shoal. I would be curious as to the number of times they had to go back to the drawing board before coming up with this design. As lovethecity said, there's no parking podium. I'm glad for that too, but I seriously don't mind this at all. It will look fine where its going and relieve an under served part of town. Maybe projects like this will spur a new warehouse type district away from the maddening destruction and reconstruction of lower downtown.