I was re-reading the
San Antonio Report article by Shari Biediger on the proposed project, "
Owner of historic radio and TV station planning partial demolition for new hotel and condo tower" (Aug. 4, 2021), and noted these two sentences:
Renderings do not include the transmission tower, and Saldana did not respond to a request for more information about the project.
But notes from a design review committee meeting in May state that Saldana told commissioners the transmission tower, destroyed and rebuilt following a 1956 airplane collision, could remain "as a memorial."
This inspired a rough brainstorming exercise...
(Mashup of imagery from B&A Architects and Google Earth Pro)
Perhaps that is more for fans of the dystopian, Soviet Chernobyl aesthetic. But, imagine if we seriously use the transmitter tower as a contrast to the bulk of the building and even accentuate the tower as a local technology landmark much like we have already done with quarry and brewery smokestacks, perhaps through artistic lighting not unlike that used on London's historic Alexandra Palace...
(Image from
Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios twitter)
...or the mast at San Diego's 2019 Xylogen Qi venue:
(Photo from
Vadim Ledvin | Organic Design)
Instead of the current utilitarian blight or the proposed covered driveway, we would have another landmark point on the Riverwalk, which, with access stairs, landscaping, and public space treatment, could be a celebrated entrance and connecting feature from the building to the Riverwalk.
(Imagery from Google Earth)
(Imagery from Google Earth)
(Imagery from Google Earth)
(Imagery from Google Earth)
Perhaps even further imagine the retained tower, fully lit, contrasting and complementing with the revealed brick facade, old-fashioned industrial windows, inspired Art Deco-esque signage with lighting, and protective sidewalk canopy of a historically restored building base with expressive connection to the Riverwalk. It may not even matter what the clunky massing of the newer building above may look like, because the setup is already amazing.
(Photo from WOAI on
San Antonio Exress-News)
Or, maybe not...an Engineering and Technology History Wiki (ETHW) page, "
WOAI San Antonio Texas," lays out that the 1956 incident was a B-29 crash into a WOAI transmission tower out in Selma, and it is not clear if the reconstruction is necessarily the tower now on Navarro St. It may no longer move the developer to try retaining the tower as some sort of a memorial with its associated maintenance, and they had indeed not shown it on the renderings released so far.