I attended the planning board presentations on the project and Phase 2 is to be
a duplicate of Phase 1 except for a retail component along Grand Ave, with
different architecture.
Hopefully the Phase 2 design will be revisited.
My point was that the Redevelopment Plan was largely ignored.
A creative design that works with the diagonal cut throughs could have been
developed. Yes it would have been more difficult, but having view corridors to
the Lake and allowing light and air through the block would have been better
than the monolithic barrier that resulted. The intent was not to make them
vehicular paths - they were proposed as pedestrian walks with residences
fronting on them.
Clearly the developers interests are to maximize unit count and develop a
repetitive design that can be 'mass-produced' to reduce costs. Hence - the
homogeneous facade and duplicated floor plans and site plans.
As it is, the Lake Ave side has no interface with the street - all the units
face interior court yards. The sidewalks are extremely narrow and the entire
look and feel is one of a closed / private development instead of a vibrant
part of the City streetscape that encourages outdoor activities and interfaces
with the lake.
Community centric design that embraces public spaces and natural assets such as
the lake would have been a better direction.
The Phase 3 (north side of Cookman) proposal was also very poor from a
community design perspective - Blank facades facing the street/sidewalk with
residential units facing the interior of the block.....
Certainly the missing retail on Cookman is an issue - the thought at the time
was to not compete with the resurgence of downtown as you commented.
Werner
--- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, "arcman210" <acme87rangers@...> wrote:
>
> I wouldn't go as far as to say the design of the stump field will be the
> same. Just because the foundations are layed out a certain way doesn't mean
> the building that gets put up has to look or function the same way. The
> stumps site will almost certainly contain retail on Cookman (too lucrative a
> location now) and will likely have a different facade design then the current
> building.
>
> The diagonal street grids are a nightmare for planning and design, and those
> streets didn't do much in terms of pedestrial flow to the lake. If anything,
> they make the walk to the lake longer but taking you diagonally through the
> site. The layout now is no different than how the business district of
> Cookman Ave works, and much less confusion to car traffic and pedestrian flow.
>
> As many have said, Wesley Grove's biggest flaw is the lack of retail on
> Cookman. Sounds like this problem has been realized and will be addressed
> come time to start building again. I would safely assume at the time it was
> designed, they didn't feel they would be able to lease enough retail to fill
> out a block, so they designed without it. Much of Cookman (and the
> boardwalk) was still vacant at the time and it wouldn't have made sense for
> them to build retail they couldn't lease. They did place one small retail
> bay at the corner of Cookman and Heck.
>
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