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PROPOSED: Grant's Block

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Garris Town

Garris

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Posted

Ok, I had an idea for Grant's Block... Don't know if this is possible at all... Could be very SimCity-ish, pie-in-the-sky, etc...

It sounds like Cornish will need to do some temporary buildings for a while. This will likely bring down the ire of many. The heat from Frankie alone might be too hot to handle :D and Cornish might lose some political and community good will.

Sooo... How about the following...

1) Get RISD architecture, J&W retail schooling folks, and Brown Sociology folks together in a room and get them to co-fund an initiative/study...

2) Build a temporary building fronting Westminster, with the parking in back, but make the facade be completely modular... Why?

3) Design the facade to be changed every year or so until the scheduled time for the new building to be built. Year 1 could be traditional historic facade, year 2 could be all glass Apple-store like, year 3 could be open market facade, year 4 something else, etc...

The purpose of this would be to study tennets opinions as to what facade works, community opinions, architects opinions, etc. You could also measure which facade has the highest heating requirements, AC requirements, energy requirements, etc. Could be an interested academic study that way, and each department could split up what aspects they academically investigate.

Complete fantasy I know, but it would be cool, and would probably get national attention. The experiment might make a temporary facade more tolerable to the community at large.

Ideas?

- Garris

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jencoleslaw Town

jencoleslaw

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i don't think they have to do a temp building on grants block. i do think they will need to submit a temp plan including landscaping though. I suspect that it will remain surface parking for a set amount of time but it will have to be landscaped and fenced etc.

i submit it would be a great place for a huge downtown pool that could then be built over when the time comes, with the pool being the ground floor! i would buy a membership to a gym downtown if there was a real pool...

on second thought, SCLT should grow food on it.

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pete11 Whistle-Stop

pete11

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i don't think they have to do a temp building on grants block. i do think they will need to submit a temp plan including landscaping though. I suspect that it will remain surface parking for a set amount of time but it will have to be landscaped and fenced etc.

i submit it would be a great place for a huge downtown pool that could then be built over when the time comes, with the pool being the ground floor! i would buy a membership to a gym downtown if there was a real pool...

on second thought, SCLT should grow food on it.

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JJK5 Hamlet

JJK5

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Can someone give me an abridged version of what happened with this project? There's a lot of pages here, but the first post says garage/condos and a completion date of Spring 2006. Now you guys are talking about temporary buildings. Why? What is holding up the real plans that they need to build something else in the meantime?

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Frankie811 City

Frankie811

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Can someone give me an abridged version of what happened with this project? There's a lot of pages here, but the first post says garage/condos and a completion date of Spring 2006. Now you guys are talking about temporary buildings. Why? What is holding up the real plans that they need to build something else in the meantime?
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eltron Hamlet

eltron

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They have inferred as much, a quote from an article about the HTC's

"Some [developers] are frustrated because they've tied these properties up and spent a lot of money with the expectation that they are going to have the benefit of the program," Thomas said. "Any major adjustment to that credit is going to hurt, it's going to put a lot of projects that are under way in jeopardy Mike Corso, general counsel for Cornish Associates, which is working on a major redevelopment in the Downcity section of Providence, said there are some projects the company is reconsidering. And John Sinnott, senior development director with Struever said someinvestors have expressed concern about how changes in the tax credit program will impact projects" Projo 2-21-2006 (post demolition-pre bocce)

If you have seen a proposal from Cornish without them I would be interested to see it.

Oh and if they built something without taxpayer money, I would spring for an imported beer.

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pete11 Whistle-Stop

pete11

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They will not use historic tax credits for this building. It is a technical impossibility. And the quotes you refer to was back when the historic tax credit was under threat of being gutted or abolished.

You don't seem to understand that the tax credit is not a direct subsidy - through the direct generation of economic activity (the rehabilitation of a historic buiding deemed "important") and an increased contribution in other taxes (sales tax. income tax, property tax), you get back a tax rebate. Overall, it is most definitely a net gain in tax income, and this is certifiable FACT.

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