Can I hear an AMEN! The lyrics that continue to resound in my mind after reading this is “when will you ever learn, when will you ever learn!” By Pete Seeger. Thank you for giving voice to this critical issue!
The Architectural Pandemic is Alive and Well in North Florida.
Thank you Sherry for framing this issue and thank you Wayne for adding the link to a great (everybody should read) article.
"Stick Built" came from the Suburban Residential Industry spreading like peanut butter across "new communities". It made its leap to the Apartment Industry when developers were able to "run the numbers" to maximize returns and investors (Pension groups) jumped in the market. Once built and occupied, One Brooklyn Apartments sold for more than $400,000 per unit - incredible - that's a long hold for returns.
Look around - throughout the burbs in Nassau, Duval and St. Johns Counties - apartments are being built not much architecturally-different than how the Fast Food Industry exploded. Create an economy box with pasted-on identity - then stamp it out like any industrial output - over & over, same thing - so that no matter where one goes things look "familiar".
Apartment Blocks use the same method - doo-dads that are hung on the facades to provide "individuality". Useless balconies to create texture, 1' wide offsets to create shadow play, faux material appliques and color panels are the go-to cheap-trick solutions.
The other aspect of the mixed-use format that doesn't work - requiring sidewalk retail where there is never enough pedestrian activity and access or close by parking. Almost every project has mandated ground-level retail/support uses. I think the vacancy rates for new ground-level storefronts are around 80% - and what's worse - not just in the first year after completion - but for 5, 10 and more years. Look inside a lot of those "ready-for-lease spaces" - many have dirt floors, i.e., the main developers are able to provide the space for next to nothing while satisfying their permit requirements by deferring the build-out costs to the tenant. Some of the mandated ground-floor spaces are never used.
The only non-heartbreaking aspect of this story is that no one had yet moved into the building. Has the cause of the fire yet been determined? I wonder how close to occupancy they were? Was the sprinkler system not yet operational? This is a very scary, very expensive example of expediency & profit over quality, though I suppose we’ll hear that this type of construction is “state of the art”. Pretty sorry state if you ask me 😢
Cheap, quick, safe .... and unwise. When will we learn that the present DIA is inept -- doing more harm than good as presently constituted. Jacksonville is in great need of a professional, seasoned, urban developer. Not a bean counter.
I narrated a bus tour of about a third of H.J. Klutho's surviving buildings for Osher Life-Long Learning Institute (OLLI) participants last December. We discussed changes in building practices after the 1901 fire. As we drove through Brooklyn on the way to Klutho's Riverside/Avondale residences and apartment buildings, I noted the 4/5 over 1 apartment buildings festooning Riverside Ave, dramatically altering the landscape of this once historic neighborhood.
Your article dramatically illustrates what these buildings-on-the-relative cheap are, contrasted with what they replace. Excellent piece hitting all the important points.
Can I hear an AMEN! The lyrics that continue to resound in my mind after reading this is “when will you ever learn, when will you ever learn!” By Pete Seeger. Thank you for giving voice to this critical issue!
The Architectural Pandemic is Alive and Well in North Florida.
Thank you Sherry for framing this issue and thank you Wayne for adding the link to a great (everybody should read) article.
"Stick Built" came from the Suburban Residential Industry spreading like peanut butter across "new communities". It made its leap to the Apartment Industry when developers were able to "run the numbers" to maximize returns and investors (Pension groups) jumped in the market. Once built and occupied, One Brooklyn Apartments sold for more than $400,000 per unit - incredible - that's a long hold for returns.
Look around - throughout the burbs in Nassau, Duval and St. Johns Counties - apartments are being built not much architecturally-different than how the Fast Food Industry exploded. Create an economy box with pasted-on identity - then stamp it out like any industrial output - over & over, same thing - so that no matter where one goes things look "familiar".
Apartment Blocks use the same method - doo-dads that are hung on the facades to provide "individuality". Useless balconies to create texture, 1' wide offsets to create shadow play, faux material appliques and color panels are the go-to cheap-trick solutions.
The other aspect of the mixed-use format that doesn't work - requiring sidewalk retail where there is never enough pedestrian activity and access or close by parking. Almost every project has mandated ground-level retail/support uses. I think the vacancy rates for new ground-level storefronts are around 80% - and what's worse - not just in the first year after completion - but for 5, 10 and more years. Look inside a lot of those "ready-for-lease spaces" - many have dirt floors, i.e., the main developers are able to provide the space for next to nothing while satisfying their permit requirements by deferring the build-out costs to the tenant. Some of the mandated ground-floor spaces are never used.
The only non-heartbreaking aspect of this story is that no one had yet moved into the building. Has the cause of the fire yet been determined? I wonder how close to occupancy they were? Was the sprinkler system not yet operational? This is a very scary, very expensive example of expediency & profit over quality, though I suppose we’ll hear that this type of construction is “state of the art”. Pretty sorry state if you ask me 😢
Sherry, you are so right! Check out this photo of "Stick Frame Over Podium” construction, which looks hauntingly like Rise Doro:
https://commonedge.org/the-architectural-pandemic-of-the-stick-frame-over-podium-building/
Architect Duo Dickinson calls this "an architectural plague, metastasizing into every part of the country."
Cheap, quick, safe .... and unwise. When will we learn that the present DIA is inept -- doing more harm than good as presently constituted. Jacksonville is in great need of a professional, seasoned, urban developer. Not a bean counter.
I narrated a bus tour of about a third of H.J. Klutho's surviving buildings for Osher Life-Long Learning Institute (OLLI) participants last December. We discussed changes in building practices after the 1901 fire. As we drove through Brooklyn on the way to Klutho's Riverside/Avondale residences and apartment buildings, I noted the 4/5 over 1 apartment buildings festooning Riverside Ave, dramatically altering the landscape of this once historic neighborhood.
Your article dramatically illustrates what these buildings-on-the-relative cheap are, contrasted with what they replace. Excellent piece hitting all the important points.