Perhaps it would have taken genius to have written perfect zoning when the city reworked its code to encourage high-density mixed-use development throughout the city’s corridors in 2003. After a series of plans for tall buildings has come forward for Downtown, as well as some inappropriately small structures, city planners are hunting for the Baby Bear factor: just right.
A supergroup composed of City Council, the Planning Commission and the Board of Architectural Review gathered on May 1 to discuss a proposal that would tweak the height and massing of the zoning along W. Main Street, Water Street and the Downtown Mall. Density wouldn’t be affected by the changes.
The plan, which officials were generally enthusiastic about, would cut by-right Mall development to 70′ (roughly six stories) from 101′ (usually nine stories). Developers could still apply for a special-use permit to get nine stories, but city leaders wanted to keep a canyon effect from blocking sunlight on the Mall and to keep massive facades from damaging its character. They also thought current setback requirements lend toward a monotonous layer-cake-style building and wanted to encourage diversity.
W. Main Street would actually be allowed to get taller on both the northern and southern sides—a special-use permit would get a nine-story building along the southern side of W. Main Street. After some discussion, city leaders thought it appropriate to stipulate a minimum height of three stories.
The changes still need to be passed by City Council, and the Planning Commission isn’t likely to hold a public hearing until July.
But if passed, what does this mean for developers with nine-story buildings in the works? Keith Woodard, who has plans for a relatively massive nine-story building on the Mall, attended the meeting, but did not return calls for comment. Nine-story buildings with site-plans already approved—including Lee Danielson’s hotel on the Mall and William Atwood’s Waterhouse building on Water Street—would not be affected by the new rules.
Oliver Kuttner, who developed the Terraces building on the Downtown Mall, says that it really comes down to taste over dollars. He could see nine stories on Water Street as long as there were a lot of setbacks and interruptions, but “the stuff that the city has been wanting to build on the two parking lots are monsters. But the problem is not the nine stories, the problem is that people lose taste and they build ugly buildings and they build huge blocks.”
 City leaders are rethinking building height along the Mall and W. Main Street, but developer Oliver Kuttner says taste is what really matters. And the Water Street Parking Garage is a great example of terrible taste: “There’s nothing that feels good about walking along that parking garage,” says Kuttner. |
For example, the Water Street parking garage: “There’s nothing that feels good about walking along that parking garage. Whether that building were four stories tall or nine stories tall, it would probably feel equally as bad.”
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