A local architect has thrown some gasoline on the stadium debate with this proposed design and location:

The architect owns the land on which the proposed design is situated — a bunch of crappy parking lots in a seedy part of downtown — so it’s unlikely to gain much traction. However, it’s one of the first real design proposals we’ve seen (previous discussions have usually featured pictures of ACC dropped into aerial photos of downtown).

My thoughts:

• It’s a shame this location likely won’t fly. It’s less than 3 blocks away from my office. It’s also a part of town that could desperately use some rejuvenation: it’s a lovely location right on the river valley, but currently it’s currently a post-apocalyptic wasteland, or something.
• The design is certainly not traditional, and I applaud the architect for making an arena that is interesting on the outside — though that’s not always a good thing. It’s quite stunning, if a little weird.
• I don’t think the design would survive once they started cramming in concession stands, stores, bathrooms, etc. A couple of the pictures appear to show some shops, but there’s not enough detail to see how they plan to accommodate everything.
• There’s supposedly a parkade underneath, which on the one hand is a damned good idea: walking a quarter mile in -20 weather is every bit as awful as it sounds. On the other hand, I’d imagine that getting out of there would take hours (it’s bad enough as it is with dozens of different exit routes from several dispersed parking lots).

In rough terms, I’m in favour of a bold design, maybe even a crazy one.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 6:08 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.