JW Marriott

The new plans for the heavily subsidized Marriott convention hotel at West and Washington Streets seem to be a definite improvement from the previous iterations. The glass tower, now proposed to be multi-colored, has a horizontally arcing form. The bulk of the tower now stretches north to south, rather than east-west, which will greatly change the impact of its view from all directions, but maybe most notably from Victory Field, from which the left-field view will not now be dominated by the massive structure.

The site plan appears to be an improvement in that there are no surface parking lots indicated, however, the large sweeping, off-street, vehicle drop-off areas on the east and north sides will likely result in sidewalks along West and Washington Streets that are uninviting to pedestrian traffic.

Here's the latest rendering:


the JW may be more attractive, but this was just the first thing I thought of when I saw the multi-colored glass scheme:

This is from the Cedar Riverside neighborhood in Minneapolis. In the background is the tallest of five buildings in a development that was planned for fourteen such buildings. Five were built before the plug was pulled. Today, this a low-rent development, with the majority of households receiving government rental subsidies. The area is home to a very high concentration of Somali immigrants. The area's first light rail transit line stops about a block from the building. Okay, it seems that there are few similarities between this site and the JW Marriott site.