I am liking this one more and more, it is interesting to see a different approach to a four-story apartment building and the roof treatment is much better than the overhanging slabs so often used, I am hoping this signals the end to that trend.
The facade work here is looking good. I noticed they are installing stone [like?] siding on the lower level. I like the more residential look of this building which improves the street in this more residential neighborhood.
Yes, it appears to be actual stone (or slate), and it's being hand-applied, even. This surprised me as I thought they'd end up using some cheap stone veneer. Still not crazy about the hardie-board siding, but the stone was a nice surprised as was the steel they used for the ground floor.
The sidewalk barriers have been removed from the front of this building. The facade is a little busy but I do like it as at least it tries to be different. I wonder if they will be able to market the retail spaces. There still is a lot of space in the new building up the street that has not been rented. It could be that P.G. has a certain kind of business in mind for that space and is waiting for that business to show up. I think the retail spaces in the Provident Place may be smaller making it perhaps easier to find tenants. It was a big graduation/ Christmas shopping weekend and I saw lots of people filling the restaurants and shops along East Michigan Avenue and Downtown. I really like to see our streets animated with people.
I'm still really not sure how to feel about this building. It's certainly not beautiful, but I can't decide if I actively dislike it or not, I still think I like it a bit more than Midtown or Marketplace. I just don't get what's so hard about building a relatively basic, classic looking masonry building. If you're on a tight budget I really feel like the simple classic look like they did on the new building at School for the Blind is best. There's just not a lot interesting you can do with the design of four floor stick-built building, keep it simple.
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The developer finally updated their progress on their facebook page:
I am liking this one more and more, it is interesting to see a different approach to a four-story apartment building and the roof treatment is much better than the overhanging slabs so often used, I am hoping this signals the end to that trend.
Not a lot of external work, but the developer took these shots back on the 8th:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2570139339686417&id=420645051302534&;tn=-R
The facade work here is looking good. I noticed they are installing stone [like?] siding on the lower level. I like the more residential look of this building which improves the street in this more residential neighborhood.
Yes, it appears to be actual stone (or slate), and it's being hand-applied, even. This surprised me as I thought they'd end up using some cheap stone veneer. Still not crazy about the hardie-board siding, but the stone was a nice surprised as was the steel they used for the ground floor.