New Parking Structure Approved. More Brick Veneer in Our Future
On Tuesday our City Council took up the matter of the proposed parking structure on Santa Fe. Since we first reported on this issue City Staff has maintained its ludicrous attachment to the brick veneer panels, and its equally ludicrous position that fake brick somehow satisfies some sort of CEQA requirement – even though WE HAVE COMPLETELY DEMOLISHED THE MYTH OF BRICK AND REALITY OF BRICK VENEER IN DOWNTOWN FULLERTON.
Such a lame approach insults not only our aesthetic sensibilities, but it also turns the whole environmental review process into a pantomime that just provides staff cover for what it really wants: fake brick.
CONSIDER THIS: THE MONEY SAVED BY ELIMINATING THE USELESS BRICK COULD GO TO ESTABLISHING SOLAR PANELS ON THE BUILDING AND ENHANCING ITS SUSTAINABILITY QUOTIENT.
The Register has a quote from the architect:
“This is a modern design,” Stearns said. “By nature, it’s not fake historic. We’ve used masonry materials and a glass-backed elevator.”
That doesn’t make sense to me. How can something be “not fake” by nature if it’s covered in fake brick?
I prefer Matt Leslie’s observation:
“Fullerton has a fetish for non-structural veneers,” resident Matt Leslie said. “It’s more expensive.”
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/harbor-city-traffic-2619937-bridge-parking
Government loves to waste money.
CMH, I agree with you, trading in stupid useless brick veneer panels for solar panels makes too much sense.
Well, as Ronald reagan used to say: there you go again!
The brick-look is right for downtown Fullerton. There are many older structures there and brick is an historical building material. So what’s the problem.
The architect said it – its a modern building. And Mr. Eastman (hi Jay!) is a consumate professional and perfectly qualified to contrubute his design preferences into the process.
To the City Council I say well done! Sometimes you have to put beauty before practicality and cost!
Isn’t it all about location location location? $11,250,000 state money, $13,860,000 Measure M funds, $15,360,000 Proposition 116, and $1,500,000 local agency ‘match.’ For parking for commuters? Two blocks from the train station? and on formerly private property acquired for $10,650,000 by coercion while the city owns land right next to the station?
City staff says in their report to the planning commission on Sean Francis’s CUP application that he will have that parking structure available for his customers. Downtown people say Jack Franklin will take over the public parking lot we built for him next to his establishment for an outdoor dining patio as soon as this structure is built. An employee of his said they’ve already talked about this. Good for Roscoe’s and the expanded Roscoe’s and the former Table Ten customers, now all Jack Franklin’s places, as well as Heroes. Will landlord Walt Johnson raise his rents?
So about four and a half million of public money already went to enhance this party neighborhood. What’s another forty-two million? AND the parking will bring the commuters right to the businesses they wouldn’t see if the parking were (logically) over by the train station.
Oh yeah, there’s also the million and a half we taxpayers pay each year to maintain the party downtown. And the small change for the awards city council gave Jack and Sean for their farsighted development in this area.
I love the crenellations designed on the parking structure, great place for archers to hide and shoot arrows at the drunkin fools as they leave Heroes.
I’m just waiting for the day someone gets plunked on the head by falling veneer, is seriously injured and sues the city. What a stupid move with no foresight.
I like the solar panels idea much, much more.
I received this info from a good Friend, it’s well worth the read:
A New Look at a Familiar Structure: The Parking Garage House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage opens at the National Building Museum this fall.
WASHINGTON, D.C.— In a world without parking garages, parking lots would sprawl across our cities. For more than 100 years, the parking garage has provided design and engineering solutions to the parking problem. House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage is the first major exhibition to explore the history of this familiar structure and
open conversations about innovative designs and parking solutions for the future.
Read more: http://www.nationalbuildingmuseum.net/pdf/press/House%20of%20Cars_Press%20Kit.pdf