May 18, 200718 yr Here here, more 28 floor buildings not less, lets keep our skyline as impressive as possible.
May 18, 200718 yr clvlndr - you clearly misread my post. I said the proposed glassy midrise designed by KPF/Madison was mediocre, not Cleveland Trust. Cleveland Trust ain't pretty but it's a well-designed building - if that makes sense. clevelandskyscrapers.com Cleveland Skyscrapers on Instagram
May 18, 200718 yr ^^ clvlndr, I think you misread the post. #3 is about the proposed replacement building, not the Breuer Tower.
May 19, 200718 yr So what is probably going to happen is that the county will argue about this for a while, then decide to do nothing. Sell it to someone at a loss of money, and the building will sit vacant for another 15 years or so. So what we will be left with is a very expensive public monument to Bruer, and a dead corner on what would otherwise be the busiest intersection of the city. Now, who does that benfit?
May 19, 200718 yr Actually, if this tower is getting national attention, that may pique the interest of other potential buyers. Who knows what will happen?
May 19, 200718 yr Right I believe there will be an downtick in vancancy in office space in cleveland,and that building will be taken care of.
May 19, 200718 yr I doubt someone is going to buy a multimillion dollar building simply because there was one associate press article written that got picked up by a few newspapers. If the city doesn't appease the county in some sort of fashion we'll lose another major project like when we lost the potential Progressive Tower.
May 19, 200718 yr in that case i hope you are right ks and the building does sit vacant until someone with some better creativity than a government agency can readapt it to some use. i like the idea of someone/someday really shining it up and putting a transparent sheeth over it. that would be a very modern renovation that would highlight the brutalist honeycomb pattern in a spectacular way. for example, japan's jun aoki could really do it up right. of course, it should be a more transparent sheeth than the opaque one aoki recently used below (it's the louis vuitton store on 5th ave in manhattan), but something like that, you get the idea:
May 19, 200718 yr Haha that would be nice, but I don't expect any Louis Vuitton stores opening in Cleveland anytime soon. Although I have seen that building in NYC and it's a really cool building.
May 19, 200718 yr I doubt someone is going to buy a multimillion dollar building simply because there was one associate press article written that got picked up by a few newspapers. If the city doesn't appease the county in some sort of fashion we'll lose another major project like when we lost the potential Progressive Tower. Wow, you're right, I'm a total idiot. What was I thinking? Like a nationally distributed story about a unique building could ever attract a real estate investor's attention. Please excuse me for trying to find a silver lining in this whole affair. You're right about the appeasement, though. We'd better start throwing money at Dimora so he doesn't relocate the county offices to Florida!
May 19, 200718 yr Keep in mind - in addition to the tower is the 5-story section that connects to the garage via skywalk, and the 1010 Euclid building. Also - the AT Tower was built with the infrastructure for the unbuilt second phase - so they're not just demo'ing one building, they'd be demo'ing a building that's ready for expansion. I personally think the 5-story section should be demo'd with an expansion to the south of the tower, the 1010 Building restored, possibly for residential use (just like the trio of buildings across the street). I very much agree. I think that what many fail to realize is how much land the County currently owns for their complex. They didn't simply purchase the Tower and Rotunda buildings, they control more than a block along East Ninth Street (bound by red)! With as much site that remains re-buildable (bound by yellow) if the Tower, Rotunda, and garage remains, I have a hard time justifying the monetary costs associated with demolishing the 29-story tower and the environmental costs in complete demo (not to mention forgoing the 'green' opportunities with preservation/reuse). And as PLJ has stated, the inefficiencies between the departments are over-hyped. When the Tower remains, there is plenty of site adjacent to the tower that could be built up around the tower to create large contiguous floor plates for certain departments that would benefit from such layouts. Not to mention communicating stairs and two-story spaces within the Tower to connect floors vertically. My biggest beef with the entire debate over the Tower is that too often (including the PD and AP articles) the discussion focuses too strongly on the merits of the building design or that of its designer (to me, the building is not 'sacred'). Its appearance is only skin deep due to the nature of its curtain wall construction! Discussions of a stylistic movement (that frankly, does not resonate with much of the public), has distracted from the what SHOULD BE the primary contention - should an adaptable, 30-year old, 29-story office tower in Downtown Cleveland be reused for our County government?
May 19, 200718 yr Well Confiteordeo, at least you've admitted you have a problem and that you're an idiot, after all, that is the first step to recovery. I'm sorry.. but lets review Real Estate 101.. you don't buy something because "it's unique" you buy it because it has the potential through renovation to make you a sizable profit. Real Estate moguls aren't made through buying "unique" or "pretty" buildings.
May 19, 200718 yr Hey, all I'm saying is that if the county decides to re-sell, free advertising doesn't hurt. And cut the personal attacks- neither I nor the moderators appreciate that.
May 19, 200718 yr Personal attack? I was simply restating what you said in an earlier post. Sorry if it was personal, things can get heated, my apologies.
May 19, 200718 yr not exactly true ks. its not just about making money directly. sometimes people buy real estate to block competition or as a write-off. just look at dick jacobs public square ameritrust lot and the ratners scranton peninsula. those have been derelect for decades and nobody can do anything about it short of emminant domain. btw -- above i was referring to what an architect like aoki could do with the breuer building to brighten it up and modernize it. it was an example. i dk where you got that i was suggesting a louis vuitton store open up there. :?
May 19, 200718 yr No I understood your point, and it's a great example, because the building really is a nice looking building. I was just poking fun at the fact that we can't keep a Gap open in downtown Cleveland let alone Louis Vuitton.
May 19, 200718 yr I've been into the creating glass around this building from the time I saw that proposal to the commishes.
May 19, 200718 yr Mr. NYC, maybe you can answer this. I'm really in favor of the adding a glass skin idea, because I don't think it makes sense financially to tear the building down. Obviously they can make it look great on the exterior, but did they have to do any sort of working windows on the Louis Vuitton building? Because I know it's been mentioned there's a problem with the windows fogging up. Have you read anything about that building in NYC or have you just seen it and know the method used to renovate it?
May 19, 200718 yr I'm oscillating back and forth on this tower. On one hand, I think the commissioners are being arrogant, unfriendly philistines. At the same time, this building does have some serious shortcomings to consider, including how much of a pain in the ass it would be to renovate. Is it TRULY worth it or would we be better off spending our time worrying about other buildings? I have to admit, I'm more annoyed by the fact that they are going to potentially knock down the building on E.55th to put in a mountain biking park, but that's just me. My big fear with this building is they are going to replace the entire corner with something that'll make my stomach sick. Already they want to knock down the tower and the building on Euclid immediately east of the Rotunda. Is the building next to that next? It seems to me the owner of that little gem is waiting for someone to take it off his hands. There is netting all over the beautiful cornice and now they have a wood barrier under the first-floor windows so the cornice doesn't break off and fall on people. That's pathetic. Considering this is a public building being commissioned by public officials, this should be a more collaborative process. These guys aren't czars. It's our money and our city. We should work together.
May 20, 200718 yr jamiec could you put up the breuer glassed rendering or a link if you could find it again? thx Mr. NYC, maybe you can answer this. I'm really in favor of the adding a glass skin idea, because I don't think it makes sense financially to tear the building down. Obviously they can make it look great on the exterior, but did they have to do any sort of working windows on the Louis Vuitton building? Because I know it's been mentioned there's a problem with the windows fogging up. Have you read anything about that building in NYC or have you just seen it and know the method used to renovate it? i dont think there are any working (openable) windows on it. i dk about it fogging up, but it is an opaque sheeth over an old building so it seems like it could and a passerby would not even notice. here's all i found on it: http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/louisvuittonny/index.htm
May 20, 200718 yr I saw the tower yesterday during Spiderman 3. The Halle building and its parking garage was also clearly visible in some scenes.
May 20, 200718 yr jamiec could you put up the breuer glassed rendering or a link if you could find it again? thx This is from page 7 of this thread. Is number 3 what you're talking about? http://www.cleveland.com/news/photos/gallery.ssf?cgi-bin/view_gallery.cgi/cleve/view_gallery.ata?g_id=4928
May 20, 200718 yr ^ no not the new stuf -- i thought there was some rendering of glassing up the breuer. maybe i imagined it.
May 20, 200718 yr ^^ Yep, that's the one I was talking about. It's hard to get a feel for what the buildings would like from any of those microscopic renderings.
June 1, 200718 yr FYI - City Planning Commission Special Meeting Friday, June 8, 2007 8:00 AM to 10:30 AM Cleveland City Council Committee Room City Hall Room 216 At This special meeting of the City Planning Commission, the county staff and its consultants will provide a project update and presentation regarding disposition of existing buildings on the site acquired by the administrative complex by the County project staff and consultants. Tentatively, agenda items may include: County process to date 1. Site selection and acquisition 2. Project consultants (construction management, environmental 3. Remediation, architectural and engineering design services) 4. Project schedule Existing facilities assessments 1. Prospect Building & Huron Building (Demolitions approved by the Commission on 3/30/07. Update on site clearance issues to be Provided.) 2. 1010 Euclid Building 3. Ameritrust Rotunda 4. Ameritrust Tower 5. Barn Court (public right-of-way) Contemporary government offices Following the project presentation, the Commission can take public comments for and against the County’s proposal and, if time permits, the City Planning Commission could take action. (All meeting notices would state that the City Planning Commission may take action at this meeting.)
June 1, 200718 yr ^ I didn't see any agenda items regarding the tower for today’s meeting. Maybe I missed it.
June 1, 200718 yr This seems like a waste of time. The choices seem to be either it gets knocked down or they'll sell the building to someone else and it'll sit or something. What's the end-game?
June 1, 200718 yr Why is it a waste of time? This topic could be a turning point in how our urban landscape and tax dollars are taken care of in the future. So the building sits empty for a few more years, how long do you think buildings in the Warehouse District and Ohio City were empty before they were reconceptualized for contemporary uses? Many years I presume. And now what kind of city would we have if they decided to just tear them down for parking lots or low income housing? An even more disjointed one.
June 5, 200718 yr without getting too off track, it was brought up previously what to do with an ugly honeycomb building. A smith, hinchman & grylls building from 1965, 338ft http://www.1001woodward.com/
June 6, 200718 yr Another example of what to do wit a (using a very subjective word that I really despise using) "ugly" building: New York Times July 6, 2005 Home Sweet Office Tower By PATRICK O'GILFOIL HEALY DALLAS - The condo and apartment conversion craze has hit a wall here - a sleek corporate wall of smoked glass and cheap steel girding. It was bound to happen. Across the country, buildings with character - old garment factories, warehouses, Art Deco skyscrapers and Beaux-Arts firehouses - are being revived as condominiums and loft apartments as cities try to draw residents back to their core. But with that historic stock depleting, developers are now turning to uglier candidates for condo makeover: moribund office towers. From Dallas to Fort Worth, Los Angeles to Chicago, developers are lifting the corporate skin off these skyscrapers. They are installing new windows, limestone facades, balconies and contemporary ornament, and in some cases stripping the buildings to curtain walls and I-beams to do it. "You've got to take off some of the old ugly facades and let there be glass and light," said Laura Miller, the mayor of Dallas. "If you take the skin off and restore it, it's beautiful." These glass-and-steel monoliths sprang up in droves from 1950 to 1980, when cities like Dallas experienced explosive and unchecked commercial development. In the 1950's, Dallas added 7.2 million square feet of office space, second only to New York City, according to an article in May 1960 in The Dallas Morning News. But as those buildings aged and jobs fled Dallas during the dot-com recession, many of those buildings emptied, giving Dallas the highest office vacancy rate in the country. From 2000 to 2005, amid a glut of office space, office rents declined by 22 percent, according to Reis Inc., a real estate research company. Although the city's numbers have improved over the last year, 26.5 percent of its office space is still vacant. Downtown alone, nine million square feet of office space sits vacant, according to the brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield. "These buildings have kind of been shunned," said Ted Hamilton, who is working with his father, Larry, to redevelop and partly reface the vacant Fidelity Union Life Towers downtown to create 435 apartments and 20,000 square feet of retail space. Developers like the Hamiltons have snatched up these buildings - some boarded up, some 15 percent occupied - for $10 a square foot and concocted sales pitches for lofts and new retailing spaces. The city is eager to unload its outmoded office stock and is serving up tens of millions of dollars in tax incentives for construction, exterior renovation and landscaping. Dallas could use 10,000 residential units downtown, and about 3,800 have been built or are being developed, according to the Central Dallas Association. In other cities, the choice to tear down or redevelop a dilapidated old building can instantly ignite an emotional battle, pitching preservationists and historians against developers. Less so in cities like Dallas, said Art Lomenick, managing director for the Trammel Crow Company, a Dallas real estate brokerage firm. "It's not that old of a city," Mr. Lomenick said. "You've got buildings that are functionally obsolete now that were built in the 50's and 60's. They're not architecturally significant. They're terrible." Razing or refacing often boils down to a cost-benefit analysis, said Joseph Sapp, a San Diego developer who plans to reface three downtown office buildings here and convert them to apartments. If the building's footprint is not too big (sprawling office floors beget cavelike apartments) and its bones are solid, it is often cheaper and faster to reface than rebuild. "You're just buying it for bupkis," Mr. Sapp said. "Everything's already intact. Think of it as a big tenant improvement job. I call them recycling." Mr. Sapp's company, 3J Development, plans to replace the dark-glass shell of an empty 1961 office building at 1600 Pacific Street with walls of blue glass, tack on balconies, add a contemporary cornice and cut terraces into the building. On Main Street, he will expose the original stone facade and cornice of the Praetorian, a 1908 office building with a face that was girded in glass and silvery metal during the 60's. Other developers along Main Street have unwrapped small older buildings and set up stores and restaurants. "It looks horrible," Mr. Sapp said of the Praetorian's current state, which resembles a foil wrapping. "I can't believe they did what they did. We're going to completely redo the exterior. It will have a unique look to it - like that older-building look in New York." Mr. Sapp is in contract to buy 211 North Ervay, a turquoise-paneled building from the 1950's, and will reface it. Some preservationists have objected, saying the building is an understated piece of Modernism, but the mayor, Ms. Miller, said she was elated about the building's makeover. "That has been the bane of my existence since I became mayor," three years ago, she said. To peel a building, developers have to examine its frame - where the columns are placed, how the exterior curtain wall is attached and what sort of additions the structure can support. In Fort Worth, after a tornado ravaged the Bank One Tower in 2000, developers saved the building from demolition, deciding to pare it down to the skeleton and rebuild, inside and out. Workers scaled the building like window washers to unbolt the aluminum curtain wall and expose the concrete frame, said Brian George, an architect on the project. They tacked on balconies, affixed a new curtain wall, installed aqua-green windows and are now setting a metal crown on the roof, which will be lighted from below to glow at night. Other cities are performing similar face lifts, having decided that many Modernist buildings' visages have not aged well. In Chicago, developers have removed the black glass of the old Montgomery Ward & Company headquarters - called the "Darth Vader building" in The Chicago Tribune - and installed a blue-green coat to convert the tower to condos. Other conversions involving refacing are under way in Philadelphia, Miami and Stoneham, Mass. In Dallas, some of the before-and-after building renderings are as striking as photos in a weight-loss brochure. At 1217 Main Street, British developers have sketched out plans to morph a dark and vacant five-story office into an Edenic mix of offices, stores and restaurants, where waterfalls flow down a crystal-clear facade and a giant red awning sweeps up to a roof garden planted with palms. New stone and metal panels would complete the picture. Other developers are learning that their reach exceeds their grasp. The Hamiltons, the father-and-son developers, drew elaborate ideas for their Fidelity Union conversion, adorning the towers with scores of new windows that protruded like gems, new girding and gill-like flourishes. Now they have scaled back the plan, in part because they are seeking federal tax credits and must conform to the National Park Service's standards - the park service runs the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives program - that developers preserve the historic quality of a building. "We couldn't do this" and still be eligible for the $20 million tax credit, Ted Hamilton said in an interview, as he surveyed the original drawings. Sometimes, money dictates the look. The building known as 1200 Main Street is a classic black-and-brown office box being transformed into condos costing $120,000 to $600,000. The developers will carve balconies into the building, giving it notches and texture, but they said it would cost too much to replace the building's exterior. "This building has been here since 1972," said Audra Hall, the senior sales manager for the project, as she walked through the renovated apartments. "It is what it is."
June 6, 200718 yr From Green City Blue Lake: Breuer, that's a (very modern) wrap Submitted by Marc Lefkowitz on June 1, 2007 - 4:17pm. While it’s now clear the firms vying for the county administration project didn’t compare costs of building new versus rehab, Doug Hoffman knows one thing for certain: The existing building—it’s steel beams, granite façade, and cast-in-place concrete walls and ‘bathtub’ windows—is valued conservatively at $20,000,000. Hoffman, a principal at Weber Murphy Fox, the local architects who teamed with New York firm Davis Brody Bond on a proposal to adaptively reuse the Breuer tower, presented their findings to the Cleveland Planning Commission today. The county purchased the Breuer and three small buildings attached to it for $21 million, and proposes to spend another $10 million to demolish it before building a new office tower for about $175-200 million. A group consisting of architects, preservationists, environmentalists and citizens concerned about government waste attended the presentation. Hoffman told the commission that his firm’s proposal addressed all of the county’s concerns, including its small floors, lower ceilings, and asbestos, and even offered a flip-side – the existing space has built-in benefits such as good natural light, more privacy and smaller spaces make personal comfort easier to control. A slide of his presentation titled, Word on the Street vs. Our Findings, Hoffman wrote: “One of the myths is the usability of the building is poor, it’s a bad performer, the net to gross ratio is terrible, the ceilings are too low and the floorplates too small. Our response is the building was ahead of its time, is a great performer and the problems of net-to-gross, ceiling height and floorplate issues can be solved.” Reusing the building might require removing its exterior skin, which contains asbestos, and recasting the heavy exterior, Cleveland architect Robert Madison, part of the team that won the county job to design the new building, told the PD. Hoffman’s firm planned to keep the exterior, and thus the asbestos, in place by wrapping the entire tower in a glass envelope. A similar wrap was used in the New York Times Office Tower, Hoffman says, adding, it makes up for the Breuer’s single-pane windows by acting as a “thermal barrier”—holding in heat during the winter, and operable vents allow air to flow out in the summer. After gutting the building inside, their plan called for new mechanical systems and a design that squeezed in some 2,000 square feet of more usable space. “A modest addition coupled with redesign of the restrooms and a new underfloor mechanical system increased the net to gross ratio from 69% to 78%.” That would be enough of an increase to accommodate most if not all county departments on the same floor, Hoffman said. Internal staircases could, in certain cases, connect departments between two floors. And, the removal of the small buildings would make way for a two-story atrium providing gathering spaces like a public café, an arcade, and council chambers. Still, there might be other, better ideas on how to reuse the tower, Hoffman said, “We’re making the case for preservation; we don’t want to promote ours as the only solution. We think the building has great civic, cultural and financial value.” Besides the $20 million in construction costs, the tower could get a minimum of $15 million in historic tax credits, Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones, who voted for reuse, has said. That's money the county could use for health and human services in the poorest city in the nation. The benefits of adaptive reuse as summarized by Weber Murphy Fox: * Less demolition * Less asbestos abatement * Less energy consumed * Shorter project timetable * Cost savings in re-using the base structure * Cost savings with less construction time * More usable area for $/sf * Better opportunity to seek LEED certification Even if the Planning Commission votes against giving the county a demolition permit, the county can appeal. "There's always appeals actions," says Linda Henrichsen, a staffer at the Planning Commission. "The normal appeal for planning commission would be the Board of Zoning Appeals. After that it would go to the courts." On June 8 at 8 a.m. in Council's committee room, the Planning Commission will hear a presentation on the Breuer from the county and take public comment. It may vote at that time. Supporters of reusing the Breuer are gathering for a fundraiser tomorrow morning (June 2) at Johnny Mango restaurant in Ohio City. Breuer Tower Waffles (in honor of the building’s façade) and butter pecan ice cream will be served. And, details of a design competition seeking alternatives to the county’s planned use of the Breuer, with winners displayed at July’s Ingenuity Festival, will be announced soon. June 4, 2007 - 1:56pm slides posted from June 1st presentation by Doug Hoffman TimFerris Says: Over at http://save-our-land.blogspot.com/2007/06/slide-show-excerpts-from-june-1st-cpc.html I have posted the more salient slides from Doug Hoffman's June 1st presentation for the CPC.
June 6, 200718 yr From Green City Blue Lake: Breuer, that's a (very modern) wrap Submitted by Marc Lefkowitz on June 1, 2007 - 4:17pm. While it’s now clear the firms vying for the county administration project didn’t compare costs of building new versus rehab, Doug Hoffman knows one thing for certain: The existing building—it’s steel beams, granite façade, and cast-in-place concrete walls and ‘bathtub’ windows—is valued conservatively at $20,000,000. Hoffman, a principal at Weber Murphy Fox, the local architects who teamed with New York firm Davis Brody Bond on a proposal to adaptively reuse the Breuer tower, presented their findings to the Cleveland Planning Commission today. The county purchased the Breuer and three small buildings attached to it for $21 million, and proposes to spend another $10 million to demolish it before building a new office tower for about $175-200 million. A group consisting of architects, preservationists, environmentalists and citizens concerned about government waste attended the presentation. Hoffman told the commission that his firm’s proposal addressed all of the county’s concerns, including its small floors, lower ceilings, and asbestos, and even offered a flip-side – the existing space has built-in benefits such as good natural light, more privacy and smaller spaces make personal comfort easier to control. A slide of his presentation titled, Word on the Street vs. Our Findings, Hoffman wrote: “One of the myths is the usability of the building is poor, it’s a bad performer, the net to gross ratio is terrible, the ceilings are too low and the floorplates too small. Our response is the building was ahead of its time, is a great performer and the problems of net-to-gross, ceiling height and floorplate issues can be solved.” Reusing the building might require removing its exterior skin, which contains asbestos, and recasting the heavy exterior, Cleveland architect Robert Madison, part of the team that won the county job to design the new building, told the PD. Hoffman’s firm planned to keep the exterior, and thus the asbestos, in place by wrapping the entire tower in a glass envelope. A similar wrap was used in the New York Times Office Tower, Hoffman says, adding, it makes up for the Breuer’s single-pane windows by acting as a “thermal barrier”—holding in heat during the winter, and operable vents allow air to flow out in the summer. After gutting the building inside, their plan called for new mechanical systems and a design that squeezed in some 2,000 square feet of more usable space. “A modest addition coupled with redesign of the restrooms and a new underfloor mechanical system increased the net to gross ratio from 69% to 78%.” That would be enough of an increase to accommodate most if not all county departments on the same floor, Hoffman said. Internal staircases could, in certain cases, connect departments between two floors. And, the removal of the small buildings would make way for a two-story atrium providing gathering spaces like a public café, an arcade, and council chambers. Still, there might be other, better ideas on how to reuse the tower, Hoffman said, “We’re making the case for preservation; we don’t want to promote ours as the only solution. We think the building has great civic, cultural and financial value.” Besides the $20 million in construction costs, the tower could get a minimum of $15 million in historic tax credits, Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones, who voted for reuse, has said. That's money the county could use for health and human services in the poorest city in the nation. The benefits of adaptive reuse as summarized by Weber Murphy Fox: * Less demolition * Less asbestos abatement * Less energy consumed * Shorter project timetable * Cost savings in re-using the base structure * Cost savings with less construction time * More usable area for $/sf * Better opportunity to seek LEED certification Even if the Planning Commission votes against giving the county a demolition permit, the county can appeal. "There's always appeals actions," says Linda Henrichsen, a staffer at the Planning Commission. "The normal appeal for planning commission would be the Board of Zoning Appeals. After that it would go to the courts." On June 8 at 8 a.m. in Council's committee room, the Planning Commission will hear a presentation on the Breuer from the county and take public comment. It may vote at that time. Supporters of reusing the Breuer are gathering for a fundraiser tomorrow morning (June 2) at Johnny Mango restaurant in Ohio City. Breuer Tower Waffles (in honor of the building’s façade) and butter pecan ice cream will be served. And, details of a design competition seeking alternatives to the county’s planned use of the Breuer, with winners displayed at July’s Ingenuity Festival, will be announced soon. June 4, 2007 - 1:56pm slides posted from June 1st presentation by Doug Hoffman TimFerris Says: Over at http://save-our-land.blogspot.com/2007/06/slide-show-excerpts-from-june-1st-cpc.html I have posted the more salient slides from Doug Hoffman's June 1st presentation for the CPC.
June 8, 200718 yr Yesterday I got an email with a form letter explaining Hagan and Dimora's position. The first few paragraphs were a brief history of the complex, so I decided to leave that out. This is the rest: We solicited a number of highly respected architecture and engineering firms to make recommendations for the use of this space. Among the experts who conducted the analysis were New York-based Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, Gensler Architecture Design & Planning P.C., Richard Fleischman + Partners, Perkins + Will and Westlake Reed Leskosky Design. The majority and consensus recommendation called for the demolition of the Breuer Tower. The conclusion of Mr. Robert P. Madison of the lead architecture firm, RP Madison International, is as follows: “The analysis of the many factors considered to determine the best, most cost effective and most efficient use of the site and structures results in an unequivocal decision to abandon the Ameritrust Tower, demolish the building and construct a 21st century state-of-the-art facility for the Cuyahoga County Administrative Complex.” We recognize the significance of the history and the architecture of the “Breuer Tower” but preserving and renovating the Breuer Tower is not an economically or environmentally sound option. By keeping the Rotunda and building a new office complex around it, we will be preserving the historic Rotunda that was built in 1907 while still meeting our future needs. In addition to its architectural and historic value, the Rotunda is in excellent condition and its floor plan is easily adaptable for any number of uses because of its open plan, flexibility and accessibility from several directions. The so-called “Preservation Tax Credits” are by no means a certainty in availability or actual dollar value with regard to the Breuer Tower. A careful analysis also reveals that the retrofitting of the Breuer Tower is not an environmentally sustainable choice, even if one acknowledges the embodied energy within the building or the unusable building materials that will result following the abatement and demolition. Keeping the Tower will not meet our needs now or in the future due to functional and environmental inefficiencies: • We need the County Administrative Complex to serve as a multi-divisional and multi-departmental public building with 350,000 gross square feet and 278,000 net square feet. The existing tower provides only 257,000 net square feet. It has 450,800 gross square feet but much of that is unusable due to an inefficient interior core design that was to have two towers – one of which was never built. • The added cost of operating, heating, cooling and maintaining this unusable space alone could cost an estimated extra $12 million over a 40-year building life span per a Heery Life Cycle Study conducted by RP Madison. • Floor plates in the Tower allow only 9,000 square feet per floor – this results in several County agencies being spread out vertically across a number of different floors – which defeats the purpose of having operations consolidated and defeats the purpose of making County operations more efficient through central location. • The existing floor-to-floor height of 12 feet does not allow for modern and environmentally efficient lighting, natural light distribution and efficient heating, cooling and ventilation. This could not be a “green” building. The resulting low ceiling heights are not consistent with modern class A office space and will result in a less effective working environment. • Asbestos removal in the tower would require the removal of the whole outer façade and granite on the exterior. New fireproof material would need to be applied and then the outer façade and granite tile would need to be totally reinstalled. • Existing exterior skin and single-pane windows are not energy efficient. Windows would need to be replaced. If the exterior skin of the tower is retained, there will be a long-term expense to the County due to the exterior walls not having sufficient thermal R-value. In 2005, Johnson Controls estimated this cost to be approximately $1.5 million over a 40-year life in 2005 dollars. • We would need to bring existing stairwells, outer connections and steel structures up to current code requirements – costly upgrades. Based on the recommendation of the County’s team of professional and certified architects and engineers, the majority of the Cuyahoga County Commissioners made the best decision possible that the Breuer Tower and all other buildings with the exception of the Rotunda, be abated and demolished and a new Administration complex be constructed on its site.
June 8, 200718 yr honestly i have no idea what agency or company says, "this department will and forever always take up exactly 9,000 Sq. ft, no more and no less"
June 8, 200718 yr Again, if their internal analysis showed that they needed a building with 278,000 sq. ft. of usable space, why in the h--- did they buy a building with only 257,000 sq. ft. Hello McFly....
June 9, 200718 yr the commissioners should be voted out (the ones pushing demoliton). only in cleveland would this type of situation occur. build on a surface lot. build in the suburbs. don't tear down another building. thx.
June 9, 200718 yr only in cleveland would this type of situation occur. :roll: Yes, only Cleveland deals with gov't incompetence on a large scale. Jeebus, give me a break.
June 9, 200718 yr the commissioners should be voted out (the ones pushing demoliton). only in cleveland would this type of situation occur. build on a surface lot. build in the suburbs. don't tear down another building. thx. the commissioners should be voted out (the ones pushing demoliton). only in cleveland would this type of situation occur. build on a surface lot. build in the suburbs. don't tear down another building. thx. I agree with X, the question is what have YOU dont to let your elected officials know how upset you are about this situation??
June 9, 200718 yr i got that same letter back and im sure some poor intern had to put those together... i dont understand though as to why they didnt use these figures when deciding on a place to build.... this just makes me want to write them another angry letter...
June 10, 200718 yr on a lighter note: "Tower Waffles (in honor of the building’s façade) and butter pecan ice cream will be served." that pretty funny. did anyone go to this event?
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