Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
That being said, Salesforce seems to regard this tower as a huge status symbol for them, so they may ask for decorative elements that raise the height beyond 1000'... but I wouldn't expect any more floors.
|
This seems to be Salesforce's MO: in SF and Indy, they've gone for the most prominent towers in the city, generally modernist glass & steel, with signage, etc. to announce it as the "SalesForce Tower".
That's very different than google's funky adaptive re-use like Fulton Market and their NYC's chelsea market buildings, or apple's gee-whiz design-heavy spaceship campus and apple stores.
If SF does have a specific "type" of building they like, than WPS is definitely right up their alley.
As for the project itself, I don't mind the $10mil in incentives. For 5k jobs, that's ~$2k per job, which will easily be recouped in the first year of income taxes alone, not to mention property and sales taxes. For comparison, Chicago and IL are reportedly offering >$1bil in incentives for Amazon's 50k jobs (spread over 10 years of hiring), which is 10x worse than what SF is asking for. And it's nowhere near such atrocities as Wisconsin offering $4bil for 13,000 factory jobs at Foxconn. For an apples-to-apples comparison, Indianapolis gave SF $17mil in incentives for 800 new jobs.
Of course, the city needs that money more than the company, and I'm no fan of incentives in general, but that's the way the game is played these days and Chicago is getting a pretty good deal for $10mil.
And I don't mind the park closures. Assuming they're asking for a few days a month, or maybe a couple weeks a year, and the city ensures that there's advanced notice, and maybe some coordination with other events planned along the riverwalk, I don't think it'd be a big deal.
What I'm still undecided on is the video wall. On the one hand, Times Square and futuristic places like Tokyo and Shanghai are cool, and it would definitely be fun to recreate something like that in Chicago. But is the river the best place to do so? We already have a fantastic urban canyon with awe-inspiring architecture that speaks for itself and is unique to this city. It's elegant and a great blend of nature and man-made marvels. A video wall changes that, even if it's done in a tasteful way.
If this was proposed for a part of the Loop, I'd have no problem with it. Combine it with the lights under the el tracks that have been proposed, and let's create our very own Times Square / Shibuya Crossing / Blade Runner district. But the river is something different... I haven't decided if the video wall is a net plus or negative there (OTOH, 5k jobs is nothing to sneeze at so maybe hoity-toity discussions about architecture should take a backseat to getting jobs into a city that desperately needs them...)
Prev
Linear Mode
