Quote:
Originally Posted by BrinChi
For me, saving a facade on a building like 300 N Michigan isn't about preserving exemplary architecture, it's about preserving as much pre-automobile pedestrian scale as possible. I love the design of this building other than the blocking of Carbide & Carbon, but I will still vote preservation every time when a solid, human-scaled urban building like this is involved. Demolition is still too common.
Thanks, dan_ryan for the info from SB. It must have been too expensive to salvage.
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I just think there needs to be a reasonable bar that must be exceeded to justify this type of facadectomy - both from the standpoint of public policy - and in terms of justified for a developer to weigh that option privately. This building is just not good enough to justify it. I don't think it's bad, but it would need to be better than not bad - or "old", or "pedestrian scaled".
It could be though that what needs to be done as part of the entitlement process is to incorporate a design review (I know, I know, Chicago doesn't do stuff like that......though who knows, maybe under the Lightfoot admin., the new DPD commissioner will push for instituting something) that would ensure a human-scaled design at street level (clearly this doesn't mean faux oldey-time Lagrange trash design, mind you).