The Village Manager has informed me that building a better looking tower roof "would have required a variance for height" which seems odd since other parts of the building are higher. She continues that "in light of the intense criticism this development has had from you (me) and a limited group of residents... the developer was not willing to consider the modification." She also states that the decks are "balconies" and that there is an Attorney's opinion that states they are in compliance. Well opinions are pretty much worth what you pay for them, so the attorney's opinion is doubtless more valuable than mine - by a longshot - since mine is both free and unwanted. Nevertheless, the variance to allow the fourth storey was granted before the Chmell property and the alley was acquired. That is fact, and it is also fact that you can't carry a variance granted for a smaller project to a larger one, which is why, presumeably, the developer chose not to go back for a new hearing but instead chose to build only three enclosed stories over the Chmell property and a rooftop deck. Now that deck - not a balcony by any stretch of the imagination - is attached to another fourth floor unit for it's private use. Thus, it seems that the fouth floor units do extend over the Chmell property, and a varinace for those decks - which are calculated into the area of the fourth floor unit to which it is attached - requires a variance. Perhaps the title or mortgage companies that finance the purchase of that unit will think so too. That building, in this market, is going to need all the help it can get, and a better corner tower and some adjustment of the roofscape's fake gables might be in order - whatever the attorney's opinion says.
Riverside Info » About Riverside
The Village Center
(22 posts)-
Posted Friday Jul 27, 2007 12:04 #
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Posted Saturday Jul 28, 2007 12:40 # -
Gee, if the "intense criticism" was so very "limited", why listen at all. Does the bull never stop?!
Wow, is that building bu** ugly. To all those who said you cannot tell about a building until it is built I say, you were right. It is far uglier than even I imagined possible. Those diagonal brick color patterns surpass all digestion.
Posted Sunday Jul 29, 2007 15:33 # -
No stream rises higher than its source. What ever man might build could never express or reflect more than he was. He could record neither more nor less than he had learned of life when the buildings were built. Frank Lloyd Wright
He also said that Doctors could bury their mistakes but architects could only advise their clients to plant vines. We need a beanstalk, Jack.
Posted Sunday Jul 29, 2007 20:35 # -
Take a look at the photo in today's Landmark and tell me if you see a tower roof on the corner. This is a disgrace.
Posted Wednesday Aug 1, 2007 13:01 # -
A new marketing strategy has emerged to fill the VC. A condo will be purchased and given to a prominent person to move in so as to attract others. Suggestions are welcome for those you think deserve to live there. Go ahead, sky's the limit?
Posted Sunday Aug 5, 2007 09:58 # -
I've got a plan for the commercial spaces: lower the prices. There is interest, but the prices are too, too high. Capitalism 101.
Posted Monday Aug 6, 2007 12:16 # -
I just came out the back door of the First American Bank and there, straight north down the alley behind the Arcde building, was the VC in all its glory. If you look at it from that angle you see that the highest point of the roofscape is not the gables, but the cinder block shaft that houses the elevator. This lovely feature is clearly visible from street level, made of common cinder block, and looks to be about two feet higher than the gables. If that is true, then why was it not possible to build a better designed taller tower at the most prominent and visble corner of the building, instead of the nearl;y flat bagel that now adorns that feature? Or is it possible that the elevator tower exceeds the height limit? I'm only asking, because I was told by the Village Manager that an additional variance would have been required to build a better looking corner tower. If our building code mandates this kind of design, then it certainly needs to be changed. I thought it was not possible to have exposed cinder block viewable from the street, so maybe some kind of facing will, or should be applied to the elevator enclosure. No matter what is done to it it will still be a design flaw that would have been readily apparent if the Village had required proper perspectives as I had asked them to.
Posted Wednesday Aug 8, 2007 16:36 # -
What if the flat bagel of the tower on the VC were to be extended upwards for proper internal balance as well as for proper coordination with the other towers that surround the VC? Wouldn't that make the VC a better building, and would in turn make a better dt?
Maybe we can ask the owners and/or the boards/commissions to get this very reasonable modification to the VC done QUICKLY without a big ado. The building is with us and now is the time to try to get this done.
Maybe it can be similar to the Central Tower - shingled and not copper metal, too. Maybe put a copper finial at the top.
samples:
We all should try to pick the easy low lying fruit. We lost the Chew Chew after 11 yrs, we lost the Blue Parrot - at least the charming interesting distinctive name (let's hope the Jem will be uber successful), we lost Parallel 42, and we're about to lose the Pedestrian Underpass that connects the north and the south of the CBD; hey, we are about to lose the spindle in nearby Cermak mall.
Posted Sunday Aug 19, 2007 01:30 # -
Mike - look at the quality of the materials and the degree of skill that is evident in just the brickwork at Central and you will know all you need to about what the people who designed, approved and built that structure, which I may add looks more and more to be irreplaceable, wanted for Riverside. Then look at the VC and you will see the entire philosophy of the buildsers and developers and the people that sought and approved it, writ large all across it. The grace and siting, materials and workmanship clearly evident in Central are a foreign idea and incomprehensible language to the people that foisted the VC on us. You have shown the perfect illustration of comparison between the two viewpoints of what is good for Riverside - then, today, tomorrow. You should have gone further and shown what we got, not what we lost. We got that ugly reading circle in front of the library where the sound of the trains bounces around instead of a nice little feature we could have had on the backside, wihere the view of the river in both directions would have been one of beauty, peace and tranquility. I guess that isn't appropriate for a "memorial." If the above shot had included a little more to the left it would have shown how nicely the memorial to a much-loved school tacher has blended into the landscape there. But of course that one was done by a skilled and sensitive landscape architect for a teacher, and the other was done by I-don't-know-who for a lawyer. And whoever picked those concrete benches should be made to sit there. Ugly and inappropriate is just that.
Posted Sunday Aug 19, 2007 08:17 #
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