Thursday, July 13, 2006

Up-date: Lago Valare - Southwest Corner of Lake Avenue and Palmway

This is an update to a previous post regarding Lago Valare that was last heard at the P&Z meeting of 6/21. The images here are revisions as proposed by the architect in response to the Board's comments. I am also including an excerpt of the e-mail from the architect which identifies the ways that he addressed the comments of the Board and the public in attendance that evening:

Some of the ideas that this revision has responded to were as follows:
1. Incorporate stone at the ground floor to establish a strong building base
(I show stone from ground to second floor at tower elements to accentuate the
anchor image of the more vertical elements since one board member said he
felt the towers gave a feeling that they might fall over?).
2. Revised the look of the office entry vestibule (eliminated the awning since the
entire lobby is covered and directly open to the street.
3. Raised all ground floor office windows to sill/stone base height (better in office
any ways since glass to ground has no benefit - actually a detriment for office)
4. Added corner balcony at towers and dropped the tower height down 2' to 48'
again in response to the board members comment that the towers were to
dominant. Also dropped the 3rd floor balcony roofs down a little.
5. reduce window size from double 37" units to a single 52" unit per board review
6. Added stone banding around windows again to bring the stone as an element at
all floor levels.
7. Do not understand the "Urban Vs. Rural Architecture" thing. This is a 135' long
building with streets/alley's fronting three sides. Building is a stand alone type
building with more than the normal amount of undulation at street level !
8. Removed arches except at 3rd fl. and ground floor areas intended for attention.
9. Removed Arched canopy and replaced with angled awnings.


This will be heard at our meeting of 8/16. I have not talked to Darrin as yet, so I don't know his reaction to the changes. However, I like the lowering of the towers and the more liberal use of stone at the base of the building. You can compare with the colored renderings from the previous post.

Any comments would be appreciated.

"Political advertisement paid for and approved by Wes Blackman for Commissioner – District #3"