Design dilemma on Tacoma's Foss Waterway

Building design review isn’t usually the sexiest of discussion topics. But there’s a local design issue that’s become a concern to people ranging from big-name architects and City Council members to average citizens.

It’s the proposed $17.5 million Marriott Residence Inn on the Thea Foss Waterway, a development by Hollander Investments that recently made it through a spate of political wrangling before the Tacoma City Council. But while environmental and union concerns have been dealt with, the architecture remains: a block-like building to be built in the middle of what some consider the face of Tacoma.

The project will provide a boost to the struggling economy and job market. And that same economic climate is coloring the city’s willingness to wait for what could be a better suited project.

“In this climate, do you want to wait five years (for a different design)?” says Jori Adkins, an urban planner who is on the Foss Waterway’s Urban Design Review Committee.

But some leaders are concerned about the effect the hotel’s design would have visually, and say it is something Tacomans need to think hard about.

“It looks like a freeway hotel,” says Connie Ladenburg, a former council member who is one of a number of people who have complained about the design for the hotel intended for the current gap on Dock Street between Thea’s Landing and the Esplanade south of South 15th Street. (The site will eventually sport a Hilton as well, along with a connecting office building.)

Even the Urban Design Review Committee, in recent meeting minutes, has expressed concerns about aspects of the hotel’s design.

A TWO-STAR CITYSCAPE?

The objections are about drawings still under review. Although the January designs are being altered to reflect a few changes in materials and ground-level features, they show a blocky tan stucco building, the faade broken only by subtle set-backs and punched-out windows. It looks much like the squat Marriott Courtyard near the Convention Center, another Hollander development that has been criticized.

The waterfront Marriott is eight stories high with open space to either side, which protects views and water access, but the materials and blank walls are in direct contrast to most other buildings along the west side of the Foss: the curvy steel Museum of Glass, the historic red brick Albers Building, and Thea’s Landing, with its balconies, set-backs, different tones and light structure. And across the Foss is the vibrant red faade of the LEED-certified Center for Urban Waters.

“The design is uninspired,” says Wyn Bielaska, the Seattle architect who designed the Museum of Glass and Convention Center, and who was a design consultant for the Albers Mill building. “Good design is about issues of scale, proportion, breaking down the massing. It needs to relate contextually to the human figure – the base of the building (does this), but it gets fairly monolithic above the street level. That’s what the designers should look at.”

In fact, the designers – led by architect David Murphy for Hollander Investments – are looking at the design. The project comes under the aegis of the Foss Waterway Development Authority, mandated by the city to revitalize the west side of the Foss. The FWDA, in turn, hands over proposed designs to its Urban Design Review Committee, made up of local professionals, who are in the third stage of the review process. This stage, however, is focused on street-level items such as where to put the garbage bins; major building features such as window placement and building shape are already approved. The materials are still under discussion, which may slightly affect the color, but many decisions are constrained by the Marriott brand.

“Our objective of providing a quality product has never altered,” says David Murphy. “We also have the utmost respect for the city, FWDA, and Urban Design Review Committee and fully intend to work within the frameworks established.”

Mike and Mark Hollander did not return phone calls seeking comment on their proposal.

Bielaska isn’t the only local architect who’s unimpressed by the Marriott’s design. Jim Merritt, who designed the State Route 509 bridge that frames the waterfront with its airy, sail-like cables, contrasts his own work with the proposed hotel.

“I insisted on wrapping the bridge cables with Teflon,” says Merritt, “to give them a lightness and brightness ... a nautical feel. (For the hotel), I would hate to see tan and dark browns. If there was a bigger budget, I’d also like to see more glazing, to give a sense of the rooms being inside out, connecting to the surroundings.”

Ladenburg’s issue is that she believes the building looks like a two-star hotel that could be Anywhere, USA. Not only does lower quality affect looks, she says, it also sends a signal to would-be visitors and investors that Tacoma is a two-star town.

“If we portray ourselves as a top-line city, we need to walk the talk and go after the best, not just settle for what we can get,” Ladenburg says.

Grace Pleasants, developer for the Albers Mill building, agrees that the Marriott design goes against the vision for the Foss.

“When my company approached the FWDA, they promised that my neighbors would be world-class development,” she says. “They had a wonderful vision. Now, in the same year that the city puts up the LEED-certified Center for Urban Waters, the FWDA proposes a woody walk-up with a fake faade. That’s what (the Marriott) is. I was shocked and disappointed. Economies change, but that doesn’t mean your vision has to change.”

BEING ‘OPEN FOR BUSINESS’

So why, then, is the hotel going ahead, with plans to apply for a building permit soon and construction scheduled for October? Jobs and money, supporters say.

“We have an opportunity to say ‘yes’ and send a message to other investors that Tacoma is, in fact, open for business,” summed up Mayor Marilyn Strickland at the May council meeting that approved the hotel.

The FWDA, meanwhile, is not in an optimal financial position: Earlier this year, it requested a $300,000 loan from the city, later dropping it to $170,000. Because Hollander has not yet bought the Marriott site from owner Seattle hotelier Robert Thurston, who could not develop it, the FDWA has a real interest in approving the company’s proposal.

Tacoma’s Hollander consultant, J.J. McCament, has said that, according to a company study, the project would generate 114 construction jobs and 259 permanent jobs. At a time when big companies such as Russell are leaving Tacoma, that is a move in the right direction for the economy.

“(Design) integrity is going to be hard to do,” says UDRC member Jori Adkins, an urban planner and restorer. “It’s not reality thinking.”

Adkins points out that Hollander’s architects have paid attention to the property’s ground level. Designs show attractive landscaping, pedestrian flows from Dock Street to the walking esplanade, planters and awnings.

“They’ve come leaps and bounds in making it better,” Adkins says.

The bigger question is: How will the building fit into the overall waterfront – and should we care?

Tacoma’s waterfront is framed on each end by bridges – one historic, one soaringly modern – and by historic buildings like the wooden maritime warehouses and the brick Albers building. It’s a mix of old and new, of a steel cone, glass art and landings where Thea Foss docked her boats. Opposite is a vital industrial maritime stretch; behind is a city skyline that reaches from the Pacific Avenue bricks to the Craftsman-era Hilltop. And it is, for anyone approaching by freeway, train or even ship, the front door of the city.

Which is why some say the city must pay attention to every building that goes up there.

“I have every trust in the UDRC,” says council member and architect David Boe. “But if you were to take away the Murray Morgan Bridge or Albers Mill, you wouldn’t even know you were in Tacoma. How does this all tie together to create a Tacoma waterfront, rather than a suburban, Redmond-type waterfront? We need authenticity. What’s our vision of the Foss?”

LEARNING FROM NORTHWEST NEIGHBORS

Some Northwest cities have been successful in finding such a vision. One example is Portland, which has a strict design review process and mapped-out vision for its South Waterfront area, below the aerial tram south of downtown. Tall glass-and-steel buildings rise skinny, echoing those on the bluff above and preserving river views. They let through light, and dialogue with surrounding stucco condo buildings that stand lower to the ground and boast set-backs and panels of greens, blues and yellows.

“We’re pickier about our use and architecture than other places,” admits Troy Duff, district liaison for Portland’s South Waterfront planning department. “The overall look we want is high density, high rise, and permeability to greenery.”

Portland is modeling its South Waterfront on the glass-and-steel look of Vancouver, B.C., a city skyline that acknowledges history in the incorporation of Granville Island architecture with modern design. A third approach can be seen in Portland’s River Place district, just south of Tom McCall Park, where two-story gabled clapboard terraces create not just a shopping and eating precinct, but an intimate European canal feel. Closer to home is Seattle’s Ballard waterfront, which moves from industrial through park and locks to a small-town marina feel at Shilshole Bay, retaining a low skyline and gritty feel with its original old brick warehouses.

Finding a vision for Tacoma, though, is tricky. Plenty of people have one: David Boe would like to see “more Ballard, less Redmond, a dense, European feel.” Jim Merritt – who was instrumental in compiling the City Waterway Master Plan in 1992, which was updated in 2005 – wants a return to the character-filled, true-to-the-waterfront vision of the plan, with diagonal buildings to open up the view and lots of light colors and flags to give the space life. Wyn Bielaska says it’s all about building proportion. Even George Weyerhaeuser Jr., URDC chairman and Marriott supporter, would like to see an “eclectic, bold mix” of buildings.

Design might not be sexy, but many believe it is important.

“Design affects livability, business development and tourism,” says Portland’s Duff. “Each building contributes to the overall feel – one wrong one can throw it all out. Tacoma only has a narrow stretch of waterfront. ... It’s a regional asset. You have to make the most of it.”

Rosemary Ponnekanti: 253-597-8568
rosemary.ponnekanti@thenewstribune.com