It’s hard to say if the Boren Beacon concept, above, will survive. The development team working on the $1.4 billion expansion of the Washington State Convention Center have been told they need to come back with a new plan that better melds with the surrounding streetscape following the project’s second design review last week.
CHS reported here on the latest designs for the project and criticism for the proposal.
The design review board decision to require an unusual third review at the early design guidance step of the process follows calls from a Capitol Hill development and design advocacy community group the Pike/Pine Urban Neighborhood Council that the massive project needed to do more to connect downtown to Capitol Hill along Pine and across I-5. “Aside from a series of vainglorious gestures along 9th Avenue, this is a large box with perfunctory spaces scattered along its perimeter that fall far short in fostering the kind of active civic life essential for this development; its current form, massing, and programmatic arrangement will make it challenging for this building to be the civic icon it should be,” the group wrote.
Previous to its review last week, the Convention Center project first faced the board in May. The project is slated to return for its third pass at the process in early October.
Enemy of the good is the perfect but sure, lets see all sorts of designs. It’s fun!
Three cheers to the review board for recognizing the needs and desires of the community. The design review board gets slammed here on a regular basis. They should be lauded occasionally.
Very true. Here’s hoping the redesign will take the concerns into account.
Holding out hope that the final design will include the bus terminal, instead of abolishing it. It seems like a sadly wasted opportunity not to have Convention Center II connect with transit.
The bus terminal goes away regardless of the convention center once the transit tunnel goes trains only in a few years.
I’ve heard this a few times. Will buses return to surface streets? I looked for a web page describing the plan but couldn’t find one.
Rob —
As I understand it: buses will stop using the bus tunnel in a few years (if not sooner) for a couple of reasons: as light rail continues to expand, it will be better able to service some routes currenlty under bus service; and, to help light rail run more efficently, having the buses leave the tunnel is helpful. Buses will return to the street, but in the long term there will be fewer so utlimately less bus-related congestion.
This seems like a wasted opportunity. It makes a lot more sense to have an above-ground bus transit point where bus riders can connect to light rail below.
Lost in the discussions about design is that no one’s looking out for metro here. Kick a couple hundred buses a day on the surface streets prior to North Llink opening – sure. It fails the test of reason.