Thursday, October 23, 2008

Arena Renderings Galore

Thanks to Sarah Dolk's Duke City Fix blog, we have what we have all been waiting to see. This is an arena and site plan I can get on board with! A beautiful hotel tower (looks to be near 30 stories) and plentiful public space with a water feature and outdoor public seating.

A rather hard-to-envision rendering of public space on the west side of the train tracks with the arena in the background.

Here, they show a parking garage built behind condos along Broadway Blvd. This is the only viable solution, I believe, as it provides the necessary parking along with residential development as a buffer to the East Downtown nabe. The only problem I see is a rendering with 3-story tall condos and zero retail space lining Broadway. Weak.

Finally, the arena is shown with un upper level, but still with only 12,000 seats. Overall, I think this is a terrific plan given the tight space in the area. The hotel tower might be one of the most attractive hotel towers I have seen in most cities doing similar projects. It looks very similar to the W Hotel here in Dallas. Could we be getting a W? The frequently asked questions section does reveal that everything is still being studied and things can change, including arena size. And with that statement, I am satisfied for now.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are all the diagrams/sketches from SPMC?

Anonymous said...

SMPC*

Anonymous said...

SMPC - you're kidding right?
try HOK.

urbanabq said...

It appears that HOK is overseeing the design while SMPC is a part of the design team. This is typical of large, international, architectural firms. They often contract local firms to infuse a local flavor into the design.

Anonymous said...

Other Anonymous...

I know SMPC is not big enough to handle the entire project.

I was simply asking about the origin of the diagrams.

Of course it is not unreasonable for them to design the overall concept and send the CDs out to consultants.

Anonymous said...

I noticed that the horse shoe shaped upper level leaves room for expansion!