From Dallas Urban CoreJuly 8, 2009
As the current severe recession shuts down countless buildings and spaces everywhere, it is a good time to take stock on why some real-estate ventures succeed and others fail. The generous financing available the past five years not only led to lots of construction but also enabled the consideration and speculation for new models of development. Many large-scale buildings and instant communities were planned and built to a degree never seen before. Urban concepts that were confined to academia not long ago were suddenly put to the test as built projects. For example, entire abandoned airports were transformed into attractive neighborhoods with commercial town centers. Many cities seized industrial brownfield sites as a way to regenerate urban life by masterplanning dense mixed-use districts. After decades of rapid suburban development, the central city was due for a comeback, as demographic developments, pollution reductions and changing tastes conspired to make downtown living look enticing. It was just a matter of finding an ambitious project to kickstart it all.
Dallas was no different. Having for a long time failed to populate its dowtown with any residents, the city made a concerted effort (i.e. gave lots of tax incentives) to refurbish and even repurpose vacant office buildings into top-of-the-line apartments and condominiums. It even subsidized a neighborhood grocery store to get residents to stay. Yet these efforts were modest compared to one of the largest new mixed-use developments just outside the central business district, Victory Park. The brainchild of Ross Perot Jr. (the son of the former presidential candidate), Victory was advertised as the the premier masterplanned urban community, designed for the on-the-go single professional who desired place to live, work, shop and play. Anchored by a state-of-the-art basketball arena and a luxury condo-hotel, Victory was going to be a district defined by high-rise apartments, fashionable street retail, trendy restaurants, and a public plaza surrounded by gigantic and moving digital projections. Apparently, what Dallas needed was an instant Times Square, complete with a glassed-in television studio at the corner to highlight the crowded pedestrian-filled sidewalks that are common in the city (...uh huh). After an early flirtation with a low-rise, historicist architectural theme, it was decided for this district to appear distincitively contemporary, with multiple glass skyscrapers of at least 25 stories, bamboo landscaping and reflecting pools with cleaned.
Dallas was no different. Having for a long time failed to populate its dowtown with any residents, the city made a concerted effort (i.e. gave lots of tax incentives) to refurbish and even repurpose vacant office buildings into top-of-the-line apartments and condominiums. It even subsidized a neighborhood grocery store to get residents to stay. Yet these efforts were modest compared to one of the largest new mixed-use developments just outside the central business district, Victory Park. The brainchild of Ross Perot Jr. (the son of the former presidential candidate), Victory was advertised as the the premier masterplanned urban community, designed for the on-the-go single professional who desired place to live, work, shop and play. Anchored by a state-of-the-art basketball arena and a luxury condo-hotel, Victory was going to be a district defined by high-rise apartments, fashionable street retail, trendy restaurants, and a public plaza surrounded by gigantic and moving digital projections. Apparently, what Dallas needed was an instant Times Square, complete with a glassed-in television studio at the corner to highlight the crowded pedestrian-filled sidewalks that are common in the city (...uh huh). After an early flirtation with a low-rise, historicist architectural theme, it was decided for this district to appear distincitively contemporary, with multiple glass skyscrapers of at least 25 stories, bamboo landscaping and reflecting pools with cleaned.
MOREs.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment