excellent post, lammius. That strip of property where the BOA drive-thru teller sits offers an amazing opportunity for transitioning between the tall scale of the towers and the low scale along the river at Waterside and Town Point Park. The bridge to Waterside is ok, but too married to the parking garage. The new crosswalk at Granby is functional, but weak. The challenge would be to do something with that site that maintains the greenspace aspect that it currently has while introducing transitionary building/bridge/object that connects to the other side of waterside drive. I'd like to see an open competition or charette to identify some thoughts about what could go there because I don't think it's an easy problem.
As problematic as Waterside is, it still seems to me to be something that could be adapted to bring back the liveliness of its early days. IMHO, the key to this is right there on the mural that is painted on its glass wall that faces Waterside Drive. That thing has always cracked me up, as it says - "Hey, look what you're missing now that a building has blocked the view to the river!" Let's blow a big chunk out of the middle of the Waterside "festival marketplace" building and open up a view to the river and to Downtown Portsmouth - it will look amazing with the ferry traveling back and forth, and sailboats gliding past, and cruiseships turning around in the harbor, and the big ships going into drydock. The exterior open space would tie to the open space across the street (redeveloped BOA drive-thru site). Some new shops/restaraunts could front on that open space, with lovely festive showy facades. Lots of lighting and spectacle to illuminate the throngs of people that will gather there to wait in line for the restaraunts. A hotel/office/condo/observation/space tower or two could be built above the edges of this new plaza, framing the views to the river even more, and lifting the scale up, while at the same time not making an even greater separation from downtown and the riverfront (like the endless line of slab hotels do btwn Atlantic Avenue and the boardwalk in VB). Best of all worlds for waterside! Thanks for the inspiration, lammius. We get to have some fun demolition, while at the same time re-using/re-imagining existing building stock, and getting towers we all have a fetish for, etc. Just don't build condos, or some of the other people who like to post on here will be really really mad.
