Quote:
Originally Posted by HooverDam
It would be cool, we definitely need more residential density downtown. Unfortunately, in the 90s the city gutted the interior of that building and it's all just like white drywall and drop ceilings---bleck! Not a lot of cool historic touches on the inside are left.
Though I suppose you could strip all of that and do exposed brick walls/ductwork and go for that loft kind of vibe, we don't have much of that in PHX and don't have many opportunities for it either.
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+HX_Guy, I'm totally in agreement on just stripping down the interiors; as soon as I took a look at the existing floor plans and tried squeezing in rooms, I realized it isn't worth that much effort. The fire escape still needs to be accessible by all occupants of a floor, correct? That makes for some challenges/wasted square footage, but I'd just take the main floors and create one floor of open 1-bedrooms, and the rest 1-bedrooms with either movable wall track installed for a 2nd, or just give enough square footage and maybe spend some good money on staging models/photos showing how easily the space could be transformed. I believe the "Art Stable" project was similarly simple in its floor plans, and I love that building.
Flexible Lofts+Building with history and beautiful facade+heart of downtown? I'm sold.
What would you do with the penthouse? I'd either restore the heck out of it - if even possible - or create a "Hitchcock Chophouse" or something similar that references Psycho without getting too cheesy overlooking the building's pool/outdoor space. Leasing office, fitness center and clubhouse would go in the basement (assuming ceiling height isn't prohibitive). I'd really like to leave the ground level open to the lobby and retail stores to build off CityScape; an H&M, or American Apparrel + Shoe Store would be great and keep building this area into a prime shopping district.
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Of course, there's still the lot to the south and east part of the RFP! Quite simply, Class A seems to be filling up; 220' of Class A office on top of more space for retail - I'm even okay dedicated 2-3 stories to retail in the hopes of securing an anchor tenant like Bloomingdales (even the outlet) - it's definitely farfetched, I know. Finally, space for a small "Legends Square" park with stars of Arizona's greatest sports and entertainment stars, with a small museum dedicated to them to give the stupid Legends District a retroactive meaning beyond a marking scheme.