Quote:
Originally Posted by Londonee
Still, with that massing, it would be a lot more interesting visually if they took those 22 stories and massed it all into a slender 50story 800footer ala Chicago.
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I agree 100%.
But we all know PMC has
zero interest in making that kind of statement. To use some sports analogies: if PMC were a baseball manager, it'd have all its hitters swing for low-risk, high-percentage singles rather than swing for the fences; if it were a football coach, it'd focus on getting 4.1 yards per play every play with a solid run and short passing game, and never throw downfield.
This is a
very practical proposal. They probably started with the idea of putting up the optimal height/footprint configuration to meet some basic return threshold, which would probably result in an unattractive 18-story block long rectangular econobox that no one would want to work or live in. Then they made a few tweaks spending an extra few dollars to liven up the the facade a bit, slenderize a few proportions, add a floor or two. And this is what you get. The bare minimum necessary to get a few people interested in being there.
It's not bad in my opinion considering the process they likely went through to come up with it. I think Varenhorst has shown he is not bad at making a silk - well, maybe satin - purse out of a sow's ear.
It is probably a
very safe bet that PMC will
never be the kind of developer that views it as worthwhile to take extra risk by attempting to generate greater value through vanity features like unnecessarily tall, very expensively designed buildings (think Mandeville Place).
Their projects always seem to be about keeping things simple, inexpensive, and low-risk as possible to ensure the highest likelihood of decent returns.
They are not ever going to try to whack the ball out of the park, so there's not a lot of point either expecting it or even complaining about it. They will not change, I don't think it is in their developer DNA.