Another random eyeball report: the ELTC is coming along nicely, and they are working on the last section of the parking structure on the Penn Avenue end. Having looked at it quite a lot while visualizing the planned buildings, it has become clear to me that from the Busway/Shadyside view, it is going to be a lot more visually impressive than I originally realized.
For reference, this is a typical rendering of that side:
I have realized there are at least a couple things that such three-quarter/bird's-eye views of that side fail to convey.
First, the site is very, very long. Intellectually that is obvious from such renderings or overhead views, but unless you are actually moving along beside it at Busway level, I don't think it is easy to realize just how much the site seems to keep going on and on. Overall, I think it is like 1100 feet long--for comparison, I believe the David Lawrence Convention Center is about 900 feet long:
So 1100 feet is really long.
Second, from that side, the buildings are going to seem pretty tall. Renderings like the above sort of mask the parking structure, which is undoubtedly the intent and I am sure they will in fact try to screen it. But in person, it becomes clear it is basically adding two stories to the complex--and in fact the height of the parking structure actually increases in the middle. On top of that will be 5-6 story buildings, and although they are going to be set back a bit it really won't be that much, so overall it is still going to look more like 7-8 stories from that side.
The difference between 5-6 stories and 7-8 stories may not seem like that much, but it sort of crosses a psychological threshold. Consider this handy set of buildings Downtown--subject to variances in floor heights and ignoring the addition on top of the last building, this is more or less the height comparison we are talking about
:
And while the buildings on the right are substantial, to me the buildings on the left are just tall enough to start creating a bit more of a tower/wall effect.
Similarly, look again at the image of the DLCC above. There is a six-story building in the bottom right, which helps indicate that the river-side facade of the DLCC is about six stories itself. Conveniently, the level under the DLCC all the way down to the river adds around the same amount as the ELTC parking levels. So now imagine a structure like the river side of the DLCC but going all the way down to river. And now also imagine it another 200 feet wider. That is approximately what they are building right now alongside the Busway in East Liberty. And that's much more than I expected from the sort of rendering above.
Indeed, the closest I have seen in the public documents is probably the bottom part of these images in the City Planning proposals:
Interestingly, though, by putting them under the traditional three-quarter/bird's eye view, it still counteracts whatever visualization you might have gotten with just the bottom part alone. In fact unlike in the top part, in the bottom part there is an apparent lack of any scaling items (human figures, vehicles, etc.) which would aid in visualization (it would be interesting to see something like a city bus at scale in such renderings--I think it would look surprisingly small). And of course they are greying out the parking levels (the nominal purpose is to highlight the particular building they are seeking approval for).
To be fair, it is hard to do a great rendering along the lines of just the bottom part because it is so long that getting it all in requires an apparent view from a long distance (as in, we are at an apparent distance something like being across the river from the DLCC). Still, I don't recall seeing something like a Busway-level rendering looking down the whole length of the site with the buildings towering up above along one side. And I almost wonder if that is deliberate, meaning they have tried to avoid illustrating just how much visual impact this is going to have on, say, Shadyside.
Anyway, we'll all see it for real soon enough. But I am personally even more excited than before.
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