I think the building itself looks very bland and most people driving by would forget about it within 2 minutes. The 7' concrete wall will make the thing seem like a bunker if you are walking past it on the sidewalk. If they build that it will be very disapointing.
Hood, they may rework some of it, but it's not like the design is going to drastically change (i.e. shape, probably floor count...) The fact that even if this is just really preliminary that this is the first shot at it is disturbing. Seriously, the outside looks like some middle-schooler put it together. It's really the blandest state office I've seen. State office buildings are not known for good architecture, but this one takes the cake. I even have more respect for what many consider the ugly state capitol complex behind the capitol. At least they tried.
They could have very well overbudgeted intentionally so that they could build a larger building than proposed. It helps to make the project sound less extravigant, because $45 million is an awful lot for 150,000 sq ft, Boji Tower only cost $19 million for 159,000 sq ft.
I think I totally missed your point. But, if I do get any of it, I think the cost of the Boji is irrelevent, as it's a building of a different era. I suspect a lot of the money budgeted for the building is going into the inside of the building, as it's going to be, no doubt, class A and high-tech for the state police. It's going to include all sorts of labs and such, I'd imagine. This building costs so much not because they are going to pull a bait-and-switch and build something excellent (I think that's farfetched), but because it requires a lot more than a conventional office building because of the many uses.
Boosting the size of a state building project after the funding was approved isn't unheard of, an example off the top of myy head is the Hall of Justice, I'd have to look at it again but it came in quite a bit more extravagent and expensive than it was funded for.
State buildings routinely come in much over budget, but rarely does that ever change the design, significantly, and especially not the exterior design. At the end of the day, reworked or not, we're getting a scaled down version of Constitution Hall, which isn't that great to begin with, with half the styling of that monster. I'm not exaggerating when I say how disappointed I am with this. After years of dicking around the design got worse, not better. That's rare.
In fact, I still have the old design (oldest of the 9-10 story MSP/Veterans Affair proposal) I clipped from a newspaper. I'll scan and post it just to show you how much they 'dumbed-down' the design.
Sorry about the quality. I hated the idea of a parking garage occupying the site the way it did, but you can at least see that they tried in this original proposal.
There is an article in the LSJ today about progress moving forwards with the MSP proposal. I just hope that they will not go forward with the current design. The last things we need are walls next to the sidewalk at Kalamazoo and Grand.
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In fact, I still have the old design (oldest of the 9-10 story MSP/Veterans Affair proposal) I clipped from a newspaper. I'll scan and post it just to show you how much they 'dumbed-down' the design.
Kalamazoo Street CSO Project