THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 25, 1996 TAG: 9609250035
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Comment
SOURCE: BY EDWIN SLIPEK, ARCHITECTURE CRITIC
LENGTH: 110 lines
THE ECONOMIC and architectural history of urban America since World War II has been marked by an ongoing tug-of-war between center cities and the suburbs. In Norfolk, where the planned MacArthur Center is the key to reintroducing shopping to a once-thriving downtown, the 'burbs have won the battle.
City officials have opted to place a self-contained, vehicular-oriented structure on an eight-block tract bounded by City Hall and Monticello avenues and Freemason and Cumberland streets.
If you can't beat them, join 'em.
That decision having been made, city officials and interested citizens have attempted during the past few months to make this suburban-style shopping monolith mesh with its immediate surroundings. That's no small job. MacArthur Center is ringed with some of the town's most beloved and important historical sites. It also abuts the down-at-the-heels Granby Street, which shows some encouraging signs of rebirth at its south end.
From plans that are quickly becoming finalized, what might we expect?
The earnest attempts to give the mall's Monticello Avenue side (which is closest to Granby Street) a lively street presence look promising. The center's primary pedestrian entrance will be announced by a huge marquee that will extend over the sidewalk near the Market Street intersection. This will announce films playing at the mall's multiplex cinema.
There will be large display windows along Monticello. Tables and chairs will spill out onto the sidewalk from restaurants for al fresco dining.
At the southern corner of Monticello and City Hall avenues, the Dillards department store will have major entrances opening from both Monticello and City Hall. Although there will be limited window openings at ground level, the current store is a marked improvement over earlier designs.
Plans now show a masonry-faced, classical-style building that seems to have been directly inspired by the old Norfolk City Hall building (now the Henderson & Phillips Insurance Co.) at Plume and Atlantic. This Palladian-style landmark was designed in 1898 by Wyatt and Nolting, a Baltimore firm.
Like the building that inspired it, the three-storied Dillards will have a rusticated base on the ground floor. Unlike the older building, whose set-back beautifully articulates the obtuse angle made by the intersection of Plume and Atlantic, Dillards will be set back too far from the curb to relate well to its street corner.
Some officials have suggested placing a fountain at the intersection to compensate for the dead space. Perhaps, however, we should get existing downtown fountains like that in MacArthur Square up and running before we attempt others.
As envisioned, the new Dillards will look more like a imposing classical Washington, D.C., governmental building along Pennsylvania Avenue than a department store.
The City Hall Avenue facade of the new center has concerned critics of the plan because it fails to connect to a part of the city that has seen intense development in recent years.
The good news is that there will be eight bays, each containing two large display windows starting just east of Bank and continuing eastward. These will be available for community-type displays or, as a member of the design review Committee said on Monday, ``If the retailers have a change of heart they may decide to put swimsuits in the windows. We'll go with that.''
More importantly, sewage and utility hookups will be established during the construction of the center so that retail units can be carved out of these spaces if there is sufficient demand.
One of the tragedies of this facade is that a major entrance to the parking garages will be on axis with Bank Street, at a sensitive junction where the MacArthur Memorial and Kirn Library meet. Somehow the glow of powerful industrial lighting shining from this cavernous opening will do little to enhance an otherwise urbane intersection.
Moving to the corner of City Hall and Cumberland, where the current fire station will be demolished, plans call for a major traffic ramp to feed the parking deck. The ramp design calls for supporting arches and ornamental light fixtures reminiscent of muscular bridges built during the Works Progress Administration during the Depression.
Placing such a ramped structure at the City Hall Avenue gateway to downtown is questionable - especially so close to the 18th century St. Paul's churchyard. A strong, urban wall enclosing the ramp would provide a stronger backdrop for the church and its oasis-like grounds.
The Freemason Street side is one large parking facade, broken by a pedimented, temple-like mall entrance on axis with Chrysler Hall just north on Bank. Wisely, the center is set back about 100 feet here to allow for possible in-fill construction of smaller-scale buildings. The Moses Myers House will benefit by having a substantially larger grounds when construction is complete.
Cumberland Street as we know it will all but disappear and become a spaghetti works of entrances and exits to the mall. The new Nordstrom, to be placed at the center of the structure on this side, should offer some relief. But the popular retailer's architectural facade should be underwhelming, more like a strip-center Ethan Allen furniture store than anything chic.
MacArthur Center will have four distinct sides. The Monticello front should relate well to the street. City Hall is a polite facade at its western end with a design to allow future possibilities.
Unfortunately, the eastern end will introduce highway-scale architecture into the midst of downtown. Expect a severe wall on Freemason, but in-fill construction can correct this later. The Cumberland front will be the welcome mat to the trail of vehicles expected to flow from all directions.
MacArthur Center will be built at the city's center to serve Hampton Roads' scattered residents. Will they come? MEMO: Edwin Slipek Jr. is a doctoral student in architectural history at
Virginia Commonwealth and a writer for 10 years on architecture. ILLUSTRATION: TAUBMAN CO.
[Color illustration]
View from City Hall Avenue
Plans call for a major traffic ramp to feed the parking deck at the
corner of Cumberland Street. by CNB