Friday, October 23, 2015

The Evolution of a Civic Building

After the single bid received for the adaptive reuse of 701 Union Street as the new City of Hudson Police & Court Center set the cost of the project at almost twice as much as had been anticipated, the plans were subjected to further cost analysis and value engineering to bring the price down to where it would be considered affordable to the City.

It was clear that reducing the cost would alter the proposed design for the building, and this morning that new design came before the Historic Preservation Commission for review.

Gone is the lobby with the gabled roof, meant to mirror the gables of nearby historic houses and contextualize the building into the neighborhood. Gone is the faux parapet, meant to uplift the building and give it some presence. After the HPC had unanimously given its blessing to the new design, HPC chair Rick Rector opined, "My gut says it's better looking now than the original design."

 At the Common Council Finance Committee meeting on Tuesday, Council president Don Moore, who was with Joe Rapp at the HPC meeting to present the revised design, said the project would go out for bid again the first week in November, and he anticipated that the bids would be back the second week in December. "Then," he said, "we will know if we can proceed."
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9 comments:

  1. unheimlichOctober 23, 2015 at 5:03 PM

    That parapet would have looked dated inside of 10 years. It was already dated.

    Sometimes you get that feeling about a whole era, that the graphics, the clothes, the haircuts are about as enduring as kitsch.

    The lobby was nice, but whatever ... Let's get on with it.

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    Replies
    1. signifierOctober 23, 2015 at 6:55 PM

      Agreed. Let's get on with it so we can talk about the more important issue...what goes on inside.

      Delete
  2. olanafanaticOctober 23, 2015 at 5:28 PM

    At least this design does not look ridiculous.

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  3. VincentOctober 23, 2015 at 5:45 PM

    at least theres more windows - and it looks less like the finish line with decorations added

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  4. Jeffrey PerryOctober 23, 2015 at 6:23 PM

    Less Ugly. Now that's an improvement to aspire to.

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  5. Peter MeyerOctober 23, 2015 at 8:35 PM

    It's very hard to make an ugly building look uglier.

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  6. VincentOctober 24, 2015 at 8:16 AM

    does "lipstick on a pig" qualify ?

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  7. windleOctober 24, 2015 at 11:27 AM

    It's back from the road enough that with good planting ....

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  8. VincentOctober 24, 2015 at 2:33 PM

    With all the architects in this area you would think there would be a competition for 'best design" … am I missing something ?

    ReplyDelete

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