I'm not disappointed with this building. In fact I'm quite happy with how they are tying this building into Guiness House by extending the Guiness House parking structure up to the Marine building and creating a new exit ramp (on to Cordova) as part of this new construction. The enlarged plaza replacing the current exit ramp is a nice way to open the space between the buildings.
However, if you're not going to keep anything except the facade of the old building, what the point? To me, the interior space is more important to preserve than the outside.
Here's a classic example of preserving the facade while building new:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...61.89,,0,-5.02
Bonus points to anyone who knows why this was preserved & re-attached to the new building.
I have no idea why this was done - which is what people in 50-75 years will be saying too. Why bother keeping the exterior front wall of the University Club (which hasn't even been in there for a quarter of a century) which has no context with the new construction. If the new building was "University Club Tower", I can understand trying to make it part of the new building.
I remember the bickering and fighting that the Terminal City Club went through while deciding to refurbish the old place or knock down & build new. As much as I liked the old place (some people thought its interior was the plushest & stuffiest Gentlemens Club in the city), I think you'll only hear from the 'old guard' that the new Terminal City Club tower isn't as nice as the old building.
If you're not keeping the interior of the old University Club, whats the point of keeping the false-front then?
Sorta like the Louvre saying "We're using a Jackson Pollock to fill the space where the Mona Lisa used to be, but we'll put the Pollock in the old frame to remind people what was there"