THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 30, 1996 TAG: 9607300008
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 51 lines
Last Friday, Ray Gindroz of Urban Design Associates presented to a roomful of lucky viewers a slide show of the MacArthur Center as an architectural work in progress. Great show, too small an audience.
The city of Norfolk is well-aware the present plans for the Center and their evolution over time is a story that hasn't been fully communicated to the public.
Gindroz, who stands in the process at the intersection of the five or six architects working on the project, was able to show the pains that are being taken to work within city design parameters to create a center that is functional, attractive and profitable.
Eventually architects for three different department store anchors, the mall developer, the parking garages and a landscaper will have to come together to create parts that blend into a harmonious whole and also meld with existing structures in downtown Norfolk.
The slide show gives evidence of an evolving design, responsive to city concerns. In an earlier version, for instance, a somewhat garish facade is in a style that might be described as hotel-lobby deco. In a later iteration, a more stately neoclassical look has prevailed that better suits the existing cityscape.
One artist's rendering shows a row of townhouses fronting the mall, another a proposed urban park for the same space. Two different treatments of parking garages are also on the drawing board. An utter transformation of the hanging garden parking garage on Monticello, a notorious modernist eyesore, is part of the show. So is a demonstration of how the reopening of Freemason Street will create an improved urban vista.
All Norfolk taxpayers - whether they are critics of the project, enthusiasts for it or simply curious - need a chance to examine these plans and to comment on them.
There's talk of repackaging Gindroz's talk for public access television, of offering a large-scale community presentation or a series of smaller dog-and-pony shows for Norfolk civic leagues. Another idea is to print up a sheaf of these sketches with commentary as handouts for interested citizens.
All of the above are worth doing if it helps build consensus. MacArthur Center is a huge opportunity for downtown Norfolk. Its success depends in part on public support. The city now appears to have realized that it needs to get public buy-in for the project.
To bring the public enthusiastically aboard, the city will need to seek every avenue available to communicate the merits of the plans for the Center. It now seems ready to do so. It shouldn't be that difficult. To a considerable extent, the designs being developed sell themselves when people have a chance to see them properly presented. by CNB