Quote:
Originally Posted by aaron38
And how far away does a tall building have to be to not have a sightline? The entire loop has a sightline unless another building is in the way.
Then like I said, courthouses with those security concerns have to relocate out of the DX zoning areas. They have to be low slung fortresses surrounded by trees. Or they hang curtains.
Are the owners of DX zoned property going to be told how far away from courthouses they have to stay?
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The issue here of course, though, is that the GSA owns these State St buildings (they don't own other surrounding structures that have sightlines into judges' offices - or courtrooms - or what have you). So, they have complete veto power of a use or design that they do not want there. For example, through not agreeing to sell to the city for a proposed PD (again, it's fuzzy as to whether that is what actually happened in this case), or perhaps through putting in a restrictive covenant with any sale to a new owner/developer.
As ardecila speculated in the high-rise thread, there very well could be another issue behind the scenes here that hasn't been publicly reported on (yet) that could be the real culprit behind scuttling this deal.
Ultimately, this is so disappointing. It was a great plan to repurpose these buildings and bring this block back to life. Clearly I now wish the GSA had pursued its original plan to put up a new tower here (even if it would have meant demo of the historic structures - which is definitely not my first choice), as my concern is that nothing is going to happen now for a long while. I would love to be proved wrong, but there is so much that needs to fall into place. What economically viable plan for adaptive reuse is the GSA going to sign off on?