The reuse of the building is a success for downtown. The design of the facade...sadly, is not. With such high hopes for front facade transformations--piggy-backing on recent successful revisions Sushitto/Katz', Pescara, and Dooley's--this one falls short. For such a prominent address, it has been such a colossal disappointment.
With the arguments over adaptive reuse, historical preservation, and redevelopment aside, the two bays of the Paine Furniture store with its 16' tall ceilings and wide open floor plan is ripe for a new establishment. The remaining third of the facade that Big Brad's is now occupying, could be torn down and built from scratch. In the future, as the skyway system is planned to cross Broadway from the City Center development, Big Brad's may become the base of the elevated skyway. So removing a section of "old and tired" building to make way for a brand new business that may become a showpiece for downtown Rochester was our charge.
GDG developed three alternative concepts. Leave a comment on which you would rather see on Broadway: a Big Blooper, or a Bad-Ass Building?
mixed use - pocket theatre with upstairs martini bar
green design - living wall creates a vegetated facade
vertical lantern - glowing all glass stair tower highlights circulation
existing - 'nuff said
You've forgotten to mention that the interior smells of a freshly constructed suburban home and that the backbar appears to have been an after thought at best. At least they tried and hey, who are we trying to kid anyway? Nobody who lives here really gives a shit about aesthetics anyway. This is after all just another blue-collar factory town isn't it? Except the factory is actually a hospital. My apologies for getting off topic.
ReplyDeleteYou've got a nice blog. It'd be interesting to see a few more posts. Keep it up.