Quote:
Originally Posted by PHX31
How much more would your idea cost (building so much higher)? Assuming the rule of thumb holds that building higher increases your costs... If you were the owner and wanted to spend money to develop something, would you pay 20% more (for arguement's sake) just to save 70 feet of the original building's frontage (the crappier north half, not even the interior usable space of the north half) for architectural/posterity sake? This design is still unreasonable to me. I'd hope the developer would go for something like this, but it still seems highly unlikely they'd waste the money.
I'd also assume some other neighborhood watchdog group would then complain about the increased height being way too out of scale for the area. And then another person would bitch about a shadow. And then someone else would complain the higher building would block their view of the planes taking off and turning north over the western historic neighborhoods. There is always something ridiculous.
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Tough to say exact numbers on such a preliminary plan - but I'd agree that it's more expensive because it would likely be less efficient and also taller. HOWEVER there are some potential sweeteners to make the preservation go down easier. Under the downtown code, if you acceptably preserve an historic building and allow it to have a preservation easements on it, you get 50 "sustainability bonus points" that increase your maximum allowable density by 60% and allowable height by 30%. Without any of the other credits you can claim, on this site that goes from 270 DU/250 ft to 431 DU/325 ft. It seems to me that should be worth it. I think you can do up to 400 DU in this footprint and still park it. (Proposed development is currently at 310 DU/220 ft)
Historic Preservation Tax Credits worth 20% of the rehabilitation investment in the historic building could also be available if you can talk the Park Service into ignoring that 30 story building next to it.
I would also point out that this plan also saves the bulk of the old service bay area in back, which is a big bowstring trussed space much like DeSoto.
As far as NIMBYs go (and I live 2 blocks from this site) what I am proposing is already entitled if you use the sustainability credits.