Posted December 20, 200816 yr We've had a lot of new buildings go up lately. Just figured I'd share a few that are rising at the moment. Some of these projects will officially mark the end of available building space on U of M's Central Campus. We were fortunate to have only a couple surface lots, but they have all now been filled with new buildings. I applaud the U's efforts for realizing the importance of urban density, as well as encouraging staff to take public transit instead of driving. Although the costs of parking on campus are almost equivalent to those in NYC All projects are funded internally or privately through donations and gifts. Some of this may be coming from the $3.1 billion the university raised through it's recent giving campaign. NORTH QUAD More: http://www.si.umich.edu/north-quad/ Architect: RAM Stern (noted for his excellent revivalist architecture) Cost: $175 Million Completion Date: 2010 Status: Steel construction complete, masonry work begun Interesting Note: Incorporates the facade of the old Carnegie library, nearly a century old SOUTH HALL Note, the red building behind is the recently completed Ford School of Public Policy Architect: Hartman-Cox (another leading firm in revivalist architecture) Cost: $102 Million Completion Date: 2012 Status: Site work to begin in early 2009 Interesting Note: The project is across the street from the historic law quad. Historic contracts mandate additions to the law quad must be of the same construction and materials. The U in the 70's bypassed these restricts by constructing a 3 story library underground. The new building doesn't have comply with these rules since it's across the street. But hey, why not! C.S. Mott Children and Women's Hospital Architect: HKS Cost: $523 Million Completion Date: 2011 Status: Steel construction complete Interesting Note: Lots of donations went into building this. In fact a special bike was made on American Chopper and auctioned to raise money for the hospital. One day we were randomly switching channels, and there was my housemate (#20 jersey) on the show: Michigan Stadium Architect: HNTB Architecture Cost: $226 Million Completion Date: 2010 Status: Steel construction complete, masonry work begun Interesting Note: The stadium will now have luxury suites. A lot of students were against this. The seating capacity of the bowl will not be enlarged. Current technical capacity is 107,501. Actual attendance is 109,000. Expected technical capacity is 108,000. Future actual capacity is unknown, but the largest attendance in stadium history was over 112,000 against OSU in 2003. I was at that game, but in the 90th row :-( I'll post more renderings soon. And of course construction photos.
December 20, 200816 yr Law and North Quad look great. As does the stadium. Not a fan of the hospital, but really, how many hospitals have ever had 'taste'?. At least there's no visible surface lot.
December 20, 200816 yr oh i dk snoop dawggy, it's nice of course, but stern's new lakewood public library and youngstown courthouse (first to be leed-certified) are nice too -- actually better in that they are public spaces :wink: as for college campuses, the new bgsu snohetta arts center, while no comfortably nostalgic throwback design, is nothing to sneeze at either.
December 21, 200816 yr I've always loved the Youngstown Courthouse. Anyone got photos of it at night?
December 22, 200816 yr Neat places! "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
November 11, 201014 yr I returned to Ann Arbor for a football game. We won in quadruple overtime. But we won....this time. Anyway, I got development photos. New Thompson Street Garage New meets old. One of additions was railings. The old ramp had knee rails, so if someone pushed you, you would easily fall over the edge. Most people just simply stayed away from the edge. Couzens Hall with new windows and masonry repair. I can't remember the last time I've seen the limestone accent bands shine that bright or the brick that deep of a red. No idea what the interior renovations look like South wall facing palmer field New Park where the Kresge complex once was. The campus development plan shows buildings taking this spot in just a few years. Wouldn't be surprised if this park was used for staging and maturing of trees for other parts of campus in the meantime. Mott School of public health...or with all those funky wave columns and accents, the entrance to Seaworld possibly. I've never been fond of this building. It just looks really strange, especially that archway over the road with the way they ran the bricks. And those fiberglas cornices are beginning to bow and bubble on all sides of the building. Check out the flashing peeling away above that entry. It's like it's made of paper. School of Kinesiology, beautiful rehab Mosher-Jordan renovation and new central dining facility. That's been open and the place is gorgeous inside. I now understand why so many universities are demolishing their 1950's-1970's dorms. They are cell blocks, and that's not conducive to a comfortable live-learn type of environment. Today's new dorms feature high end amenities, gourmet food courts, and spa-like washrooms. To keep up with the $4000-6000/month student lofts nearby, the University must build high end, and that's exactly what they are doing. Behind me was the also recently restored/renovated Stockwell Hall New transit center. Hey, I was hoping for el trains or maybe a subway system when I returned, but you never know in the future. New crosswalks and plazas Zaragon 2 site clearing Render source: annarbor.com Zaragon 1 (located on the other side of campus) Zaragon 2 is anticipated to be a success, and a proposed Zaragon 3 is possibly in the works New Law School building. Note the brand new Ford School of public policy to the right that opened 2 years ago. Both replaced one of the last surface lots on Central campus. I love that the U of M administration has an anti-surface lot agenda. I agree, there shouldn't be a single parking lot on any campus! Utility vehicles can park on sidewalks if need be. All of UM's garages are located on the periphery and share them with commercial areas. What a concept right? Shared parking between the school and businesses. 1 garage for everyone instead of multiple ones for each use. Masonry matches the old of the neighboring law quad. Michigan Stadium, east approach Michigan Stadium, east elevation Upper loggia level Main loggia level New Suites New CVS. Facadectomy of an old building. Looks they didn't tear down the house/store thing. Kind of glad. Adds character. But the arched facade building was in bad shape. At least it will look the same (or better) and have modern office and retail space behind it North Quad. Back in 2004, I sat bored in a room inside a building that once stood on this site. I was right by a window that would have sat just above the present day entrance to this new structure. It was my sister's graduation and the film school was having a mini ceremony of their own. While I listened to speakers go on for about an hour, I began peeling the paint off this rotted out window sill. By the end, I had 1/4 of the sill stripped if flaking paint. I got an ugly stare from my mom, considering I had just damaged an already damaged piece of architecture (that was my immature excuse back then). I guess it didn't matter. The building was destroyed 1 year later. The Frieze building was good in many ways and terrible other times. Its exterior had rich classical elements, but the interior was a warren and for the most part, the building not very well taken care of. The university knew its days were numbered. It was 8 AM on a saturday and about 36 degrees out, so no one was out walking around. I can imagine ivy climbing up that back wall.
November 11, 201014 yr Not bad! "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
November 11, 201014 yr UM, hands down, has one of the best college campuses. Is Cousins Hall one of the dorms that forms a 3/4 circle around some athletic field, with a rec center on the opposite end of those fields? I spent a summer in Ann Arbor taking classes and stayed in whatever dorm I am thinking of.... nor sure if it was Cousins or not. Long time ago. Can't remember the exact year... but the architecture school still had the model for the front glass facade of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the design table.
November 29, 201014 yr There's somewhat of an illusion that the dorms form a continuous circle around the field, but they don't. They are all different buildings of various architectures, but their walls are only 40 feet apart so it's tough to tell if they are joined or not. Couzens only borders the North side of the field. Its last renovations were done in the 90's I believe. Green and beige tile with green doors and transom windows. It actually wasn't horribly out of date, and the rooms had drywall in superb condition. People would still pound nails to hang pictures and paint ugly colors, but the housing staff at the end of the year would patch up where necessary and repaint the rooms back to the white, beige, and forest green color scheme. I painted my room grey and white, which I believe was left unmodified for a few years after. Other parts of the building still had the original wood paneling, fireplaces, and french doors. The 2nd floor, which was the main level had most of this in the lobby, living room and admin offices and halls. The ground floor had this horribly ugly retro-lounge thing, with ugly rainbows and circular seating. Strip club or day care? It was never used, more than a walk-through space to get outside. If you sat there you were weird. At one time it was a popular cafe. A nasty grease fire ruined that and the fire damaged areas were never repaired, walled off and forgotten. Certainly during renovations the false walls have been removed. No idea if the former function of a cafe will be restored.
January 20, 201114 yr A fresh crop of new buildings beginning construction: New Georgetown Mall will replace the existing aging strip mall and all that horrible parking! annarbor.com 601 Forrest Apartments 14 stories (reduced from 24 floors due to citizens' fear of "shadows") The building will lease apartments at $1000 per bed. This project will replace several commercial businesses that have been offered space on the ground floor of the new building. The development will not remove any architecturally significant structures. annarbor.com Proposed: "Pizza House Tower" Not really named that, but the owners are proposing a tower built atop their restaurant. Being the observant architecture geek, I could not figure out why the new addition to their restaurant had been so overbuilt. Chunky steel columns and deep beams for a two story structure? Years later, here you go...ah that's why this is built so heavy. This development would replace a house. annarbor.com Parking garage and transit facility Will provide space for buses, bikes and cars (obviously). Will have accommodations for elevated or ground rail transit. The parking garage will replace an empty grass area. annarbor.com Hayward av Developments: I'll post them when I get the images downsized. For some reason they were publicly released as massive images. Other AATA mulls bigger buses, monorail in transit plans By: Dylan Cinti and Elyana Twiggs Daily Staff Reporters Published December 7th, 2010 http://www.michigandaily.com/content/a2-u-collaborate-transportation-authority-city-countywide-plans?page=0,0
January 21, 201114 yr It is, and I don't like the way it's displayed. It's tacky. It's not like it's some old roman artifact. It's from a hundred year old building that once stood on this site and didn't receive the maintenance and upkeep it deserved. I would have preferred to see the pieces embedded into the landscape of the courtyard. When I took this photo, I was reminded of a Wal-Mart in Northern Michigan. The Wal-Mart had faux historical details that resembled that of a railroad station. In the middle of the parking lot was this old roundhouse from the late 1800's. In the middle of the parking lot!!! It was insulting IMO.
April 5, 201114 yr VERY nice. "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
September 14, 201410 yr Ann Arbor experiencing a boom in high-end apartments and condos http://t.co/FMa13RwnD5 "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
July 7, 20204 yr Development has been chugging along steadily in Ann Arbor since the last post in this thread, but today I’ll be focusing on just a couple of bike infrastructure projects. The Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority has a program called People-Friendly Streets (https://www.peoplefriendlystreets.org/) which has provided Ann Arbor with it’s first protected bike lane. This lane runs on the Northern side of William St. between First St. and State St., effectively connecting the University of Michigan Central Campus to the Main Street commercial district: A second protected bike lane is currently under construction on First St., between William St. and Kingsley St. First St. is currently a one-way street, but two-way traffic will be restored as part of this project. Here are some current photos from this hot summer night:
July 8, 20204 yr wow nice to see serious bike lane action here. i hope you can post more from around town when you get a chance!
July 8, 20204 yr Excited to see how this encourages changes in mobility habits going forward around Ann Arbor. Way to go!!
July 8, 20204 yr 3 hours ago, mrnyc said: wow nice to see serious bike lane action here. i hope you can post more from around town when you get a chance! I'll do my best to keep this thread up to date moving forward!
October 21, 20213 yr ^ I made some bold claims about keeping this thread up to date and I've failed thus far. Either way, here is a dump of some current projects. A fairly large development at the intersection of Main and William--the site of Ann Arbor's first protected bike lane: I could not find an updated article on this, but based on walking by this development ought to be close to topping out. https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2020/03/ann-arbor-council-oks-plan-for-10-story-high-rise-on-main-street.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Speaking of protected bike lanes: https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2021/10/ann-arbor-dda-beginning-work-on-new-division-street-bikeway.html I am particularly excited about this one! Division St was a three lane one way road thought often saw cars racing out of town and also divided student neighborhoods from the rest of downtown. This should improve pedestrian and cyclist safety. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ann Arbor housing costs are ridiculously high due to a lack of supply, so I hesitate to complain about any development. However, we can definitely do better than single family homes on the very edge of town: https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2021/10/ann-arbor-oks-plan-to-cut-down-hundreds-of-trees-for-57-home-luxury-subdivision.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This development is also on the very edge of town, but is better served by transit and is within walking distance of a commercial corridor. Also, bonus points for not being a single family cul-de-sac: https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2021/10/82-unit-housing-development-proposed-on-ann-arbors-west-side.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lastly, this sort of infill is welcome all over town: There are several other project which are actively under construction, but this is what I have time for today.
October 22, 20213 yr Thank you for the update! "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
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