If ever a project screamed out for design review!

Delta Towers, 1400 block of Florida Avenue, NE, built as part of the post-riot Urban Renewal Plan for the H Street neighborhood. Its design reflects the times--value-engineered urban renewal modernism.

It's still a struggle to move away from this architectural style it appears...

In any case, because the quality of the built environment impacts residents and the livability of the city, shapes the investment climate, not to mention the city's competitive advantages (architecture, urban design, history, transit assets, strength of the employment center at the core), I argue that design review should be required across the city, whether or not a neighborhood is designated as historic.

Under DC law, only historic districts require design review for new projects.

David Klavitter, blogmaster of Quest for Quiet, went to tonight's developer presentation about redevelopment of the south side of the 600 block of H Street NE. The photos below are his and are used with permission.

The plan is for a nine story building in the space between the two extant buildings, stepping back to five stories in the back. It's weak on retail. And it sure seems weak on design.

Photos by David Klavitter.

Karen Gadbois, in commenting on the atrociousness of the final projects selected for voting in the "sustainable design" architectural "competition" for New Orleans, likened the final designs offered as "ghettos for the future." I think the architects from Davis Carter Scott should have submitted to that joke of a contest in New Orleans (no cut intended to my colleagues in New Orleans, just a point that bad design seems to be universal).
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David Klavitter writes:

* It’s a two-year project; best-case scenario, construction could start in about a year.
* Market project, which means no public finance incentives, hence no low-income housing requirements.
* They look forward to contribute toward the funding of a BID (business improvement district—friendly people in uniform who provide directions and keep the streets and sidewalks clean)
* The 234 residential units could be sold as condos or rented as apartments. The developers won’t decide to sell or rent until they can gauge the market closer to the project’s completion.

* The project will be addressed during the ANC6C Zoning meeting on Sept. 6, and then again at the full ANC6C meeting on Sept. 13. Both meetings start at 7 p.m. at the Mt. Carmel Church, 901 3rd St NW in Washington.
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Why were the Pritzker Interests and Doug Jemal able to develop quality designed housing just a few blocks away in NW? And why does it seem so difficult for most every other developer to do something of quality, instead of dreck.
Mass Court Apartments, 300 H Street NW, Washington, DC. Photo by Dan Malouff.
Condominiums at 400 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC. Photo by Dan Malouff.

Here's a building that will be going up in San Antonio, La Vistana. Now that's a building.

From "Developer has right touch, in right place" in the San Antonio Express-News:

There's one big problem with The Vistana, a downtown mixed-use project that developer Ed Cross unveiled last week. The problem is, there aren't more of them — more projects like The Vistana and more developers like Ed Cross. ...

Architecturally, it promises to be like an ideal dinner-party guest, conversing intelligently with N. Straus Nayfach's 1949 Alameda Theater on the next block east and with Jackson & Ryan's splendid Museo Alameda, nearing completion catercorner from The Vistana in Market Square.

Michael Imber, who also designed the Cross family home, is the design architect for The Vistana. (The architect of record is RVK.) Imber's facades are somewhat streamlined versions of Midwestern commercial architecture of the 1920s. The result comes close to Art Deco without explicitly quoting the style.

In its massing, its wide windows, its chamfered corner entrances and its material palette of 12-inch terracotta-colored brick and cast stone, the building recalls big downtown department stores such as were built in Chicago. It also bears a striking resemblance to the San Antonio Express-News building. The design is very urban in character and appropriate to the building type, and it asserts its own personality without resorting to flamboyance or braggadocio.

Index Keywords: urban-design-placemaking; housing