July 10, 2005
commercial sites
There are 2 big condo projects underway within walking distance, each involving the restoration of a large and interesting building.
Each has a website with very little ‘in progress’ info available. I think that they are missing a good opportunity to create further interest in the projects by not showing more along the way.
The Nolde Bakery has been under-utilized as long as I can remember. There was a thrift store in part of it for a while. Now it will be many condos… We’ll have to make friends there for there to see what the ‘media room’ is all about, since there aren’t any movie theaters around here. They have one of those neat water towers. The site has a nice write-up on the neighborhood.
The American Tobacco Center is actually 3 buildings, with some sort of huge smoke stack and a water tower. This building was home to the Shockoe Bottom Arts Center (gallery and studios) for a few years. I had some pieces in shows there; we’ll have to make friends in the new version for the roof-top pool…
Don’t know how it is there, but here in DC developers don’t have to work very hard to create interest in a project. It would be great to have that resource, but: documenting this stuff on the web takes money~ just think what it would cost if you were to bill someone just $50 for every hour you’ve spent on this fine blog? The other thing is that developers and architects are fairly beset by community groups and local authorities. Unfortunately, we’ve learned that the more we engage the community, the more we open ourselves to critiscism; little of it the “constructive” kind. It’s a bit sad, but it’s inherent in how the proces is presently set up.
I had imagined that there must be someone already on salaried payroll that could absorb this. We all know that office workers spend all day f*cking off on the internet anyway :)