City Center Cubed

Spending eight years with your head immersed in calculations and equations is a good way to lose touch with the environment around you. At the very least, such arduous studies are going to warp your sensibilities. Just ask the architects that designed the recently pitched city center expansion.

After nearly a decade of planning, the Saratoga Springs City Center Authority unveiled plans for the $16 million expansion project during their 25th anniversary gala. The architects’ neatly polished rendition shows a structure encapsulated in dark glass and shimmering in the afternoon sun. It shows people placidly walking by the new structure, not even taking notice of the giant erection looming over the Spa City’s main drag. Perhaps this is because the only remarkable feature of the exterior design is that it took nearly two years to produce.

Simply put, this building is an eyesore that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the hotel complex, much less the buildings along Broadway. The design doesn’t even fit in with the standards set by the modern high-rises that have popped up in every corner of the city. Even the not-so-appealing city center design today seems like more of a fit than the design the authority returned, which might have been loosely based on the movie “Cube.”

Instead of using brick –the material used in just about every other Broadway construction –the authority’s architect decided to rely on concrete and what appears to be stucco. Despite its prominent location and equally discernable faux-promenade on the recently renamed “Ellsworth Jones Place,” the building lacks a single identifiable entrance. No visible doors, just windows. After all, it’s good to keep convention goers guessing how to get into the place

But don’t worry. There’s a “grand staircase” inside –right next to the escalator. And the new building will have 22,000 square feet of space to “boost business by 40 percent over the next three years,” officials from the authority claim.

“The expansion on the corner of Broadway and Ellsworth Jones Place will bring renewed energy and appeal to the northern entrance of our primary business district by creating a dynamic and iconic corner,” authority President Michael Toohey said in a prepared statement published in the Daily Gazette last week.

Bring renewed energy? Is that by overshadowing all the other buildings on the street fitting with the architectural precepts of the late 19th and early 20th century? The sole exception to this statement is the city center and adjoining hotel, which are at least built with characteristic red brick.

The architect –or architects –producing the expansion design decided to toss existing design to the wind. Clearly, the idea was to create a design that stands out from everything in the city. Fortunately for the authority, they didn’t need to go through the normal planning process. Due to timing constraints associated with the roughly $12 million worth of state funding, the authority was allowed to forgo the normal planning process and is instead reporting directly to the City Council. And it’s evident too, given the design they unveiled.

True, the authority has a lot to contend with in the project. They’re basically land-locked, meaning they’re bound to build the new structure within the existing footprint. They also can’t build much further upward, given that the city center is already one of the tallest structures in the city.

Yet even given these constraints, the new design basically flouts any concept of local architecture, leaving some observers to wonder whether the authority a relied on the same uber-designers that officials from the state Office of Parks and Recreation and Historical Preservation hired to design the ‘IHOP in park’ last year. Oddly enough, the design for the Saratoga Performing Arts Center renovation –also dubbed the “SPAC Stack” –was created by Saratoga Associates, the architecture firm headed by former planning board chairman Bob Bristol. Public outcry sent that visual disaster back to the drawing board last fall.

But in the authority’s case, the nationally renowned HNTB Corp. was secured. The company has designed convention centers for Boston, Providence, Kansas City and San Diego. Among the designs, only the center in Providence seems to fit in character of the city. All the others appear to be plucked from Sci-Fi horror movie story boards.

Hopefully, the city’s four commissioners and mayor won’t decide to stand behind this design. Or at least they’ll offer some suggestions. If not, the burgeoning public outcry should be enough to convince them it needs some tweaking. This is a building that should be a centerpiece for design in the city, not a knock-off attempt at emulating big-city architecture that stands out like a sore thumb. True, the convention center is in dire need of an update. However, it shouldn’t come at the expense of landing a hideous black cube in the center of the city.